“Violence rights” in Rojava: People’s self-defence as a vehicle for the democratization of the distribution and governance of violence rights

By Jack Ainsworth

The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), commonly referred to as Rojava has been, since its emergence during the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War, experimenting with highly novel approaches to socio-economic development and governance. Particularly striking is the approach adopted to manage violence, both internally and externally. Rojava employs a highly decentralized and participatory approach to managing violence, which has the potential to provide a tried and tested alternative model to the exceptionally arrogated and contested claims to the right to use violence we can observe in many modern states. Progressive development practitioners and policymakers would be remiss not to look to Rojava to help in firming up solutions to calls for defunding the police, managing corruption, and generating social solidarity. 

Who claims the right to legally use violence in society? How are these rights allocated, restricted, and enforced? What happens when they are contested? These are all questions Christopher Cramer puts forward in a UN think piece, in which an assumption and a motivation are underscored which are worth teasing out for the purposes of this inquiry. Cramer suggests that;

“If human development is regarded as the expansion of freedoms, then violence has pervasive restricting impacts on these that go far beyond the obvious damage inflicted by warfare…”

This assumption is then accompanied later with a motivation, 

“…while property and human rights are staples of the development literature, there has been little focus to date on violence rights, or the rights of certain people and organizations to exercise violence against individuals or groups.”

From this, a dual question emerges: if human freedom relies on a reduction in violence, what does a distribution and governance of violence rights look like that is both effective and just? In other words, can we promote human freedom through both the reduction of violence and through the process of doing so? 

The AANES operates very differently to a typical nation-state, to the extent that calling it a state would be inaccurate. Since its emergence out of a power vacuum in Syria’s Kurdish-majority regions, the area operates and organizes under a system of “democratic confederalism”. Democratic confederalism can be understood as a non-state social paradigm, wherein society is run by a network of self-managed communes, with nested layers of authority constituting a remarkable experiment in direct democracy. The organizational structures of Rojava are intended in such a way as to deliver freedom from coercion from centralized authority, whilst still providing a system in which collective action is possible. 

Decision-making and needs provisioning that can take place at the commune level, typically 30-400 households, is done so, and is done so in a manner that prioritises accountability, access, and transparency. For the organisation of defence and security, it is no different. Rojava practices citizen-led policing, which at the commune level is organized by the Civil Defence Force (HPC). The HPC is composed of volunteers from the commune who patrol the streets. A diverse range of community members, particularly women, who make up 60% of the HPC, have access to and are actively encouraged to participate. The monopoly of this process is further prevented by encouraging everyone to participate through a roster system. 

Beyond the commune level, the Asayish fulfil the role of an internal security force, responding to drug trading, tribal disputes, internal terror threats, roadblocks, and violence against women. Issues related to women are responded by the Asayish Jin (Women’s Asayish), and there are specific security forces for other ethnic groups. Each unit can elect their own commander, and regular meetings where commanders self-criticise and receive criticism are commonplace, dampening turns to unaccountable hierarchy. The Syrian Democratic Forces operate as a military responding to Rojava’s multiple existential external threats – Turkey, Syria and its rebels, ISIS, Al-Nusra and more, yet they are somewhat more hierarchical, with commanders appointed by leadership. 

On the face of it, in terms of actual roles, this may seem not so different from the various institutions that claim and practice violence rights in the UK, for example. A military “responds” to external threats, a police force responds to incidents, and community support officers (often locals) operate within communities, what makes Rojava unique?

Rojava’s uniqueness is threefold. Firstly, the governance of these institutions and subsequently who wields violence rights, and how, particularly on the communal level, is radically democratic. The election, appointment, and public observation of those wielding the right to violence is practiced by and made available to the broadest section of the population possible. Secondly, Rojava has identified successfully that the provisioning of security cannot be seen as a one-size-fits-all mould. Specific groups require specific provisions. In cases of patriarchal violence, for example, women can often feel inhibited to speak openly to mixed or all-male responders, hence the existence of Asayish Jin. Thirdly, citizen-led policing is one example of a host of other rights that are distributed and governed according to similar principles. This practice exists within and is pollinated by a social ecology that ensures rights such as a right to economic democracy through widespread worker’s cooperatives, a right to justice through local reconciliatory committees, and the right of historically marginalized groups to self-determination through women’s councils. This is to say that the participatory approach to violence rights exists within a democratic life. 

Data on interpersonal violence in Rojava is difficult to obtain yet slews of anecdotal and in situ reports suggest that Rojava (internally) is one of the safest places in the Middle East. Human Rights Watch’s report on abuses by the SDF shows the nadir of Rojava’s governance, yet this pales in comparison to the abuses of neighbouring states and most states worldwide. What is evident is that when violence rights are distributed and governed in a more democratic, decentralized manner, the possibility of violence rights being wielded in a way that is more responsive to the needs of the people opens up. 

In the majority of states, accusations abound that those exercising violence rights favour certain groups in society and reinforce certain paradigms. A black protestor in the US under the cosh of a baton, a rubber bullet, a fist during the summer of 2020 will look upon the anonymous riot police as agents of an opaque state. An opaque state that gives the officer the right to brutalise. The officer has the right to hit that protestor, but the protestor has no right to hit back, and thus their freedom is actively curtailed. Highly centralized states with a managerial elite prescribing one-size-fits-all systems for controlling violence lose the potential benefits that a decentralization of the means and access to violence rights might open up.