Interview with a Rojava volunteer: “A real revolution is a mass of contradictions”

“The Democratic Union party (PYD) who led the revolution [in northern Syria against President Assad in 2011] have been active in northern Syria/western Kurdistan (Rojava is the Kurmanji word for west) since 2003. Before them the Workers’ party of Kurdistan (PKK), who the PYD are affiliated to, were permitted by the regime to use the region as a base to organise against the Turkish state until they were ejected in 1998.”