My previous article was a call to President-elect Donald Trump to reconsider his stance on withdrawing troops from Syria. However, I do not feel as if I properly made a case for the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, which I so adamantly advocated for.
The DAANES was officially established as the governing body of Northeast Syria in 2018. The administration functions as a decentralized democracy with an Executive, Legislative and Judicial Council which oversee the seven regional administrations under their control. Each region also has their own copy of these three branches and operates under a principle of “democratic confederalism,” a political ideology founded by Kurdistan Workers’ Party founder Abdullah Öcalan, which involves a limited central authority while prioritizing self-sufficiency, ecology and feminism. From the simple perspective of studying statecraft, the political experiment which has so far been carried out by the DANNES is intriguing.
The DAANES has overseen a wealth of progressive reforms unheard of throughout the majority of Northeast Syria. They pursue a radical sense of gender equality which is strongly entrenched in their constitution, appropriately named the “Social Contract.” The regions they oversee are also the wealthiest in terms of per-capita income in comparison to the land held by the Syrian government or other forces that occupy various parts of the country. Overall, the DAANES system seems incredibly appealing for a possible post-war Syria.
Now, to take off my rose-tinted glasses for a second, it is not like Turkey is carrying out completely unprovoked attacks on DAANES territory. The Democratic Union Party, arguably the most prominent faction within the broader coalition of parties that make up the DAANES, finds its history directly entangled with that of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a group that has been designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and the U.S. — and for good reason. The Democratic Union Party was initially a Kurdistan Workers’ Party offshoot, and the two have cooperated in their fight against Daesh, with signs that their partnership may seemingly extend beyond that. However, it is important to note that Turkey should not be allowed to take a moral high ground in this situation, for they have also been directly implicated in aiding jihadist militant groups that have permeated Syria and Iraq, most notably the still-powerful al-Nusrah Front.
Maybe Turkey does have a right to snuff out the Democratic Union Party presence so close to citizens’ homes, but the road to such a status will be paved in blood and suffering. Previous Turkish incursions have directly resulted in various human disasters; their Operation Peace Spring in 2019 forced nearly 180,000 people to flee their homes in an “unanticipated humanitarian crisis.” Shelling and bombing campaigns throughout the majority of the Biden administration have also been incredibly catastrophic, and the Turkish military has continually targeted civilian infrastructure, with a recent BBC report proclaiming that one million people are now lacking electricity and access to clean drinking water.
Though I have seemingly glorified the DAANES throughout this article, at the current moment, it is far from being the heal-all solution for governance in the anarchy caused by the Syrian Civil War. Despite this, it is hard to support the Turkish aggression and hypocrisy which has already disrupted the lives of so many innocent civilians. So, no, the DAANES is not the solution to all of the problems Syrian civilians face today, but it may just be a beacon of hope for a more harmonious future.
