A-Infos (en) France, Alternative Libertaire AL October - Book: I, Viyan, fighting against Daech (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]

It's 2008, Viyan 18 years. It is shepherdess in a Kurdish village in the region of Ayn 
al-Arab - but then Ain al-Arab, its name in Arabic, because the Kurdish language is banned 
under the regime of Assad. Viyan deposited beside the bed of his mother's jewelry box. It 
does this quietly, not to wake her. Tonight she will join the guerrillas. She said nothing 
to anyone, neither his mother nor his sisters, nor his brother who is head of the family 
office. His brother, precisely, wanted her to marry one of her cousins while Viyan has 
other desires: to learn, to fight for his people to be free. ---- His departure is 
incredible. A couple comes to get in a van with another girl from his village. Hardly have 
they traveled a few kilometers that the brother of Viyan appears on his motorcycle and 
chases them. The girl asks: if he catches up, it's over, it will never become a fighter, 
she will never be free. Fortunately, the bike disappears ina corner, and rickety van 
continues on his way, sinking into darkness. To his family, Viyan has been removed; but 
the next day, militiamen come to tell them the truth: their daughter joined the maquis. 
Paradox of the Kurdish countryside where burns the desire for autonomy, but when families 
are ready to fight to prevent their daughters joining the fight.

After winning the PKK camps in the Qandil Mountains in Iraq, Viyan never cease to fight. 
Against itself first, to support training and awareness of its responsibility; if it 
fails, his comrades can leave their lives. Against Assad, and all the rulers of the 
region. Daech against that threatens to exterminate and destroy a hard-won freedom. 
Against the mentality of Arab militias allied with the Kurds but reluctant to arm women.

This story is Viyan which itself tells the journalist Pascale Bourgaux, author of the 
documentary Women against Daech. Despite a French publisher who has largely given to 
sensationalism (racoleur headband, faux suspense to keep the audience in suspense), 
despite a drawn text on more than 200 pages when he could easily held in 100, despite all 
this, the testimony is exciting.

Discover the daily life of Kurdish peasants, organizing militias where we both learned to 
fire a Kalashnikov than the alphabet and writing, the war against Daech day to day, the 
terrible ordeal of the battle of Ayn al-Arab ... the European readers will be surprised 
that the YPG-YPJ militias possess a unique command system probably in the world: each 
officer position is occupied by both a man and a woman, the man has not the right to give 
orders to the women of his unit while the woman can give orders to all combatants.

Me, Viyan ... is above all a human story. Here, no political analysis of the orientation 
of the PYD or geopolitical considerations on Rojava. Viyan speaks trials, joys, everything 
that makes this fight a fight of beings of flesh and bone. It also shows the facets of his 
personality or the Kurdish cause that may shock our latitudes: the cult of personality of 
Abdullah Öcalan, the philosophy martyrdom and sacrifice in the fight against Daech a 
little quick overview of the Kurdish ideology as "Marxist-Leninist" strict repression of 
romantic relationships in the militia, etc.

Closing the book, one is struck with a double sense: humble solidarity for the courage and 
the fighting Kurdish fighters on one hand; renewed questioning on their social project.

Julien Clamence (AL Brussels)

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Livre-Moi-Viyan-combattante-contre
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