It Could Happen Here - Understanding Rojava’s Tishrin Dam Resistance

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

In an episode recorded before the agreement between the Syrian government and the SDF, James talks with Jenni Keasden (@jkeasden) about the situation in Rojava and the resistance at Tishrin Dam. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our iHeart Radio Music Awards are coming back Monday March 17th on Fox. Starring Bad Bunny, Glowrilla, Kenny Chesney, Money Long, Nellie, your host, iHeart Radio, LL Cool J. Are you guys ready to have some fun tonight? Plus iHeart Innovator Award recipient, Lady Gaga. iHeart Icon Award recipient, Mariah Carey. And iHeart Breakthrough Award recipient, Gracie Abrams. Watch live on Fox, Monday, March 17th. At 8, 7 Central. Hey, it's Amartines.

The news can feel like a lot on any given day, but you can't just ignore las noticias when important world-changing events are happening. That is where the Up First podcast comes in. Every single morning, in under 15 minutes, we take the news and boil it down to three essential stories you can keep up without feeling stressed out. Listen up first from NPR on the iHeart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember what you said the first night I came over here?

How goes lower? From Blumhouse TV, iHeart podcasts and Ember 20 comes an all-new fictional comedy podcast series. Join the flighty Damien Hirst as he unravels the mystery of his vanished boyfriend. I've been spending all my time looking for answers about what happened to Santi. And what's the way to find a missing person? Sleep with everyone he knew, obviously. Listen to the hookup on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Love at first swipe? I highly doubt it.

Reality TV and social media have love all wrong. So what really makes relationships last? On this episode of Dope Labs, poet and relationship expert, Young Pueblo, breaks down the psychology of love and provides eye-opening insights and advice we all need. It's a big realization moment that you should not be postponing your happiness.

Like, your greatest happiness is not necessarily going to, like, come from a relationship. Your partner, they should add to your happiness, but your happiness is really coming from within you. Listen to Dope Labs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Callzone Media Hi everyone, and welcome to the podcast. It's James today, and I'm joined by Jenny Keesden,

who's a writer, activist, and someone who's been in and out of Northeast Syria for a long time, working with the women's movement. And today we're going to be talking about the situation in North and East Syria since the fall of the Assad regime, some of the conflict that has been happening and a resistance of the SDF. Welcome to the show, Jenny. Hi there. Yeah, first of all, thanks so much for having me. I'm really happy to be here.

Yeah, you're welcome. Of course. So I think if we start off, people have been messaging me a lot of various platforms about the letter that Abdullah Ocalan wrote. And I don't want to address that in its entirety today because we've got something coming up on that. We're going to talk to some people from the Freedom for Abdullah Ocalan campaign. But I do want to use it as a jumping off point because I think it has reminded people, as we spoke about before the show,

that North and East Syria exists and the SDF exists, which has been largely missing in the legacy media reporting on Syria. But B, there's been atrocious reporting on what it means for the SDF, even though there's a very clear answer to that. So for people who have been reading papers which either just ignore the existence of the FDF entirely or speculate as to what they're going to do when they've given a very clear answer, could you explain to people where this leaves the SDF? Yeah, sure. No, so thanks for that. I've also been getting a lot of questions about O-Tan's letter.

And I'm really glad to hear that you guys are going to do a program on it because Western media wants to report it in this way. It's very snazzy and there's like bolts of the blue and something crazy's happening. Really, it's unfortunately, it has to actually be spoken about in a kind of more long term and intelligent way that sets the context and like, yeah, puts that and makes things a bit more clear because it is something with a background and it's connected to a lot of things. And of course, that whole political process that Ocalan's recent statement is a part of is going to affect the situation here in North and East Syria. Because the situation here a lot of the time depends on the actions of the Turkish state and on expansionism and aggression from there and so as the political situation changes it will

affect that. What it is not is like a call or a statement that means that the SDF has to lay down their arms and start with this thing. This is for several reasons absolutely not what it is. The main one of those being that the SDF is not and never has been the BKK and that's something that they've tried many times over the years to make very clear but unfortunately has not always been like heard and acknowledged and so whatever this statement means and you guys will go into that in your program whatever it is for the BKK, but the situation in North Kurdistan, it's a different situation here. And so the SDF is in a moment of like a big question and a big change, but it's much more to do with

what's been happening in Syria politically and to do with the government and the interim government, I had to say the interim government that installed themselves here and the regime change, and of course the ongoing war and situation of invasion that they're facing. So there's a lot of big questions for the SDF but I think it's important right now that we don't kind of confuse and misunderstand with this sort of parallel process that's going on. Yeah definitely and I think if people are hearing this and you're new to the show, this is your first time hearing the sea of acronyms that is the Kurdish freedom

movement. I could direct you to the Women's War, which is a series that Robert made. I have a book, but you can't read it yet, still editing it. Or you could listen to one of our numerous, if you search for Rojava or North and East Syria or Syria in our feed, I'm sure you'll find a lot to explain those acronyms to you. But yeah, we've had this situation, right, where since December, the situation in Syria has drastically changed and we now have two state actors. Well, we have lots of state actors. We've always had lots of state actors intervening in Syria, but we have this new state actor in the Syrian state, right?

And I think people, if they're, you know, if they're like, reading the New York Times, or God forbid, seeing Charles Lister, then they'll have a certain vision of this that sort of exempts the SDF, it sort of just ignores this whole area of Syria and says like, Oh, well, the Syrian revolution has succeeded. I think we should address like, what has happened to the SDF to North and East Syria since the collapse of the Assad regime in December? Yeah, so obviously what's happened to North East Syria and North East Syria and to the SDF is very connected to the whole overall Syria process. And you're right, when you hear the reporting on it, I think lots of parts of it can get erased and kind of depending who's talking and what their angle is or whatever, there are a lot of things left out, not just the Kurds in north of East Syria, but other minority ethnic groups or like women organizing across Syria, like all of these things.

It's a very complex situation, which I won't pretend I can completely lay out and summarize for everyone in five minutes. But yeah, what you did have was the culmination, the end of a period and a massive change when, as you say, there was a regime change, there was a change of government and that happened with this offensive sweeping down from Idlib to Damascus, succeeding in taking over the government in Damascus from the Assad family, which was the end of a 61 year reign, which caused absolute jubilation, it's safe to say, all across Syria. And that includes where I am in North East Syria, because anyway, just, yeah, people were very happy and celebrated, but also there were cities here. When you look at the map and you see this like semi-autonomous region, what you had to understand was that there were actually

within the cities, there were neighborhoods and sections that were still under the Assad government. It wasn't as simple as like the whole city is in the autonomous administration. So here as well, there were still statues of Assad and people took to the streets and tore them down and really close to actually where I'm recording this today, there's a roundabout where they took down the statue of Assad and it's been replaced by pictures of the martyrs, so people who have fallen fighting for the autonomy of the region here and fighting for their political system.

So, you know, it's very, very beautiful. Yeah. People celebrated and were happy with the qualifier, with a very big qualifier. You know, you saw the jails opened as well and the flags went up, but yeah, it was a real moment of jubilation celebration. But unfortunately, the force which eventually succeeded in toppling Assad and installing itself as the now, as they're saying, the interim or transitional government of Syria, you know, we can say it was not one of the many like progressive, democratic,

alternative forces that originally in the uprisings weakened the Assad government back in 2011. Since then, things have changed. And this isn't a podcast directly about that. I'm sure you guys speak about it as well at other times. But instead, what you have is HDS, who are kind of conglomer of militia of these different militia groups. There's another acronym for you there as well, I think. Yeah, three languages, acronyms. Pointing people to resources is always very useful. And they're a kind of mixed up amalgamation of different militias who were operating in Syria.

And what's crucial to say about them is that their political background and perspective, a lot of people in these organizations are really, really similar, unfortunately, and all too familiar to the people here who fought against ISIS, the Atlantic state, because they're coming from similar backgrounds, and also to Al-Qaeda and the organizations who were kind of the Syrian branches of Al Qaeda, but like I've played a really direct role in founding HTS and they want to now sort of put on a new face, put on a suit, go out and shake the world's head and become world statesmen and become a government

which unfortunately it looks like all of our governments are all too willing to very quickly accept. We'll get in minute, we can talk a bit specifically about the roles and almost your listeners are in the States and that the American government has been playing here. But yeah, so there's a big qualifier on how much people are celebrating because of the very dodgy history and the real threat that HCS's politics holds, unfortunately, particularly for ethnic minorities and women. Yeah. And they're establishing their power and it's by no means a kind of nonviolent or peaceful

process. And there's a lot of tensions flaring up and a lot of problems. However, yes, it is the case that in a lot of Syria, the majority of Syria outright, like warfare on the ground has for now stopped because there's one group who've taken power and so we're in a different moment, we're in a different kind of process. So what's different up here? What's different up in the north and east and what's not being discussed as much and the point that I'm often trying to make when I'm kind of writing articles and doing interviews at the moment is that like actually

the war in the whole of Syria has not completely stopped. Yeah, very much so. Mostly, yes, we can say in most regions, but significantly here in North and East Syria, it's not just that there is still classes or flare ups between different groups, like there might be in other regions, there is like a full scale invasion, a ground invasion with air support that has also been going on. And that was timed. Where does that come from?

Like, what is that one? Does that look like this is another group, another three-letter acronym for you? But the important thing to understand is that this offensive was tied to coincide with the HCS takeover. HCS also has a lot of links with the Turkish state. And I wouldn't, I personally would not go so far as to say that that government is a Turkish public government or that the relationship is that directs, but there is a relationship there. And what you saw when they kind of successfully went on the offensive was that at the same

time, other armed groups which operate are kind of loosely affiliated and mostly operating on a mercenary sort of paid basis rather than being kind of ide affiliated and mostly operating on a mercenary paid basis, rather than being kind of ideologically driven or whatever, but are affiliated under the name the SNA, the Syrian National Army, which is even more confusing because they're not and were never the National Army of Syria. Yeah, yeah. What they are is these paid militias, which we can describe, you might describe as jihadist gangs, mercenaries, etc. And it kind of depends, it's like a mix of different forces. What's very important there is

the very close relationship that they have with the Turkish state. Essentially, the Turkish government has made the choice that it wants to continue its aggression and its expansionism on North and East Syria. And rather than immediately sending their own army, they instead pay and fund and direct and support these militias. Who are also operating for their own benefit, yes, but the relationship between them, their actions right now in the Turkish state, is much more direct. So at the same time as you had this sweep to the south that caused the regime change in Syria, heading to the east, so to originally the region of Llepa, followed by the city of Mindage and the region around there, you have this onslaught from the SA. And that is what the SDF, you originally mentioned, are currently up against.

And that's the situation that we're in. And it's still ongoing. It's very much not stopped. It's still very much like hot engagement and hot fighting that is happening. Yeah, and like, sometimes to introduce another acronym, we use it like TFSA to refer to some of those groups like the Turkish Free Syrian Army and that they're essentially an operation by the Turkish state to co-opt what was initially a democratic grassroots revolution more than a decade ago.

And like, if you haven't been following, I suppose, it would be easy to be confused by this, but the SNA have not been backwards in documenting their war crimes in the advance toward, I guess, their advance westwards towards the Euphrates and even over the Euphrates. And there have been some really horrible things. Some of them, like I've shared online, if people want to, they're not hard to find, if you want to find them, but I'm not going to put them right in front of you because they're horrible. And as the SNA have advanced, they've reached a couple of locations that are very crucial, right? And that's where they've been kind of stopped by the SDF, because the SDF haven't been in like such a large-scale conflict for the last couple of years. They've of course been fighting against Islamic State splinter cells and to a degree the SNA, but the SDF has modellized a lot more than

the SNA have, I guess in the past few years. They've embraced the use of first-person view drones. They've even shot down several Turkish biraktar drones, which they previously, if they had the ability to do it, then they weren't able to use that ability until very recently. So like, they in a sense, their resistance has been very impressive, right? Because we have on the one hand, it's the second largest army in NATO, giving its like full support to the SNA. And on the other hand, we have the FDF, which is in theory a US partner force, right? There are US bases still in Syria. There are US troops still in Syria. Well, yeah, for now.

But like, I mean, I remember when I was in Rojava in October of 2023, the US shot down a birectile drone over a US base. And then it did not shoot down the dozens of other birectile drones that were bombing the cities. So, you know, the city that you're in right now, city that I was in, other cities, you know, I met a mother who had lost her 14 year old son to one of these drone bombings, really like horrific and just cruel bombing of what a very clearly civilian targets. So like the US is there,

but they're not doing anything to help supposedly their friends, supposedly their partners and like every interview I conducted began with like five minutes of me being asked why the Americans weren't being friends when the SDF had been friends to them in a battle against ISIS and like, that's not something I have a good explanation for other than like, I think most Kurdish people can understand the difference between people and government and people and state.

And like, I might have a belief, but it is not the same as the government of the US. So can you explain the role of the US here? Because people will be very confused, right? And I think it's easy to sort of simplify this as like America is in Syria for oil, but there's a little bit more to it than that, right? Yeah, absolutely. And again, it's such a big question and it's a question of how far back do you go, how far do you zoom out? Because in both senses, as you keep moving back from today, the plot kind of thickens. And as you, you know, if you imagine if you're looking at the Google Maps of Syria, and then you click the button that takes you out and out, and the map gets wider and wider.

The story kind of fills itself in as well, like that seems to make more sense when they are put in that context. Yeah. And I think a good place to start maybe is, yeah, this consistent for a long time, like American attitude to this whole region, not just Syria, which is to play, yeah, to play very carefully to your advantage, and make alliances where it suits you and continue them where it suits you and not stick to them where it doesn't. And that is, yeah, one aspect of that is the resources, which goes further than just oil is also gas and is also the resource of the space to create a trade route, right? That's a really important question in the Middle

East at the moment. And it's one of the reasons that Kurdistan is such an important place politically. A lot of these lines of potential trade routes and these kind of lines of power and money, they intersect and they cross over here. And so there are all these different resources at play. And I think another thing that's important to look at is that, yeah, the US, the US government, as you put it, as distinct from the citizens in any way, doesn't just go into this blind and kind of react day by day. It's not like a reactive force in the world. The US government is, and would, you know, proudly announce, I think,

as well, the previous thing on this one point, that they are, no matter who the administration is and where it's politically leaning at the time, a very proactive force. They have a plan where they are, no matter who the administration is and where it's politically leading at the time, a very pro-Axis force. They have a plan where that they go and they try and put it into practice. And famously, historically and very intensely, a lot of that has played out in the Middle East because of the Middle East's position in the world, resources, and the role that it's played in kind of who gets to be the big dog in the world over the years and throughout history it's become for those various reasons like very important. Our iHeartRadio Music Awards are coming back Monday March 17th on Fox. Starring Bad Bunny, Glowrilla, Kenny Chesney, Money Long, Nelly, your host, iHeartRadio, LL Cool J, are you Hey, it's Amartinez. The news can feel like a lot on any given day, but you can't just ignore las

noticias when important world changing events are happening. That is where the Up First podcast comes in. Every single morning in under 15 minutes, we take the news and boil it down to three essential stories so you can keep up without feeling stressed out. Listen Up First from NPR on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember what you said the first night I came over here? How goes lower? From Blumhouse TV, iHeart Podcasts and Ember 20 comes an all-new fictional comedy podcast series. Join the flighty Damien Hirst as he unravels the

mystery of his vanished boyfriend. And Santi was gone. I've been spending all my time looking for answers about what happened to Santi. And what's the way to find a missing person? Sleep with everyone he knew, obviously. Hmm, pillow talk. The most unwelcome window into the human psyche. Follow our out of his element hero as he engages in a series of ill-conceived investigative hookups. Mama always used to say, God gave me gumption in place of a gag reflex.

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so you didn't stand a chance. But my dreams soon turned into a nightmare. Blum generally targeted people with money. And I was not alone. He took over 100 people for over $15 million. One of the victims was his own grandmother. I was married to David for almost 10 years. It was insane.

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with America. And things like, you know, we're all sort of following and for you guys following more closely, because we're all following the current American administration and leadership and what's been coming out of there. And sometimes you think like, God, is it just nuts? And when you look at something like, you know, the video for like the new Gaza that they're gonna make, for example, Trump's Gaza, whatever that was. Yeah, Gaza by the sea. Yeah. So I mean, it makes it sick.

And then you're also not sure if it's serious or if it's mad, but I think unfortunately it's actually, yeah, it's mad, but I think unfortunately it's actually, yeah, it's quite an intelligent play. And what it speaks to that is relevant to what I'm saying here is this kind of long-term plan, right? That to annihilate a region to the best of your ability so that you can move in and develop it is a tried and tested method of many, many governance. And America's not the only one.

tested methods of many, many governance. And America's not the only one. But at the moment, we're at a kind of crucial moment in the Middle East when one sort of wall of forces are trying to greatly reduce the role and power of some others so that they can put their plan into place. And so that they can, yeah, so they can make money, you know, it's always worth following money, and where development can be made and where trade routes can be made. And so what happened, the timing of the regime change that we've just discussed, the timing of HDS being able to move into Damascus and take it over, it's no coincidence that it came after like a shift in the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza and after what the then military action they were taking against Hezbollah in Lebanon, which they felt then had to up

to a point, achieved what they wanted to achieve, and then things kind of moved to Syria, right? So I'm not saying that the new government has kind of come from, has been sponsored by that at all. I think there's a huge amount of tension there, but the withdrawal of like the weakening and or withdrawal of forces like Iran and Hezbollah here played a huge role with them being able to establish themselves as a government. So that is also something that you know, that's not directly necessarily every step sort of kind of puppeteered by the US at all. But it is a part of the politics that US has had a long historical influence on and that it backs and that it's in conversation with in the whole of the Middle East. It's this kind of

greater Middle East plan, this vision for it, if you will. And the other aspect that I think is important to talk about is the US's relationship with North and East Syria specifically. You mentioned there, like, you know, this like supposed friendship with, we can say the like, friendship with the Kurds, as people will refer to it, or the alliance and coalition between the SDF and the US, which was sort of most famous and most well-known during the fight against ISIS, when the international coalition, which was obviously spearheaded by America, When the international coalition, it's always the spearheaded by America, was bombing and providing air support for the SDF, as they called it, the boots on the ground, the actual ground force that could go and take character back from ISIS. Which yes, did look like a kind of, it looked like a friendship, but I think from both sides, everyone always knew that that was a tactical alliance, perhaps a strategic alliance at best we can say. But I think that the US has not got a history

of operating on a basis of like friendship or of that kind of commitment to the forces it works with. And I love a lot of history and modern recent history can attest to that. And from the side of people here, I think it's really important to say that, yeah, people were angry and that, you know, what you heard there, you were talking about interviewing people and then kind of being like, what are they doing? Like we fought a war with them, partly on their behalf, like, and then they desert us. Yes, people are angry, but the more kind of politically engaged someone is, sort of moving up that scale,

I think the less faith they ever had in the US. So, and now you've got the US kind of muttering about withdrawing their troops from Syria, right? Yeah. And it's deja vu because they said this before, I was actually here when they said this before, back in 2019, I also happened to be in North East Syria and it was, if I'm not wrong, it was Trump again, if I've turned around. And they said we're withdrawing our forces from Syria.

Did they actually withdraw? Not exactly, no. You still saw them driving around in big cars, mostly right next to the oil fields. It was almost tomical, sort of like went in parts next to the oil fields. sort of like went in parts next to the oil fields. But that withdrawal was symbolic. That withdrawal was, they withdrew from bases right on the border with Turkey, which lies just to the north of Syria and as such just next to north and east Syria, for anyone without the map immediately in their head. And they announced it very, very clearly and very publicly. And so it was a kind of, it was a green flag to say to Turkey,

Yeah, come and... On you come, yeah, we're not going to stop you. Because what you don't want to do is hit an American by accident, as you gave the example. They brought down a drone because it was over an American base, not because it was bombing civilians nearby, which dozens of other were. And so you had that kind of symbolic withdrawal, which led to in 2019, was one of the times that Turkey has like annexed a section, essentially annexed a section of Syria, North and East Syria under the remit of the Autonomous Administration, but nonetheless,

still technically Syrian territory. And in that time, it was Serekhaniye and Giresi, which people may have heard of. And so that was the green flag to Turkey to take that step. And at that time, I'll maybe share, it's a lot of political stuff, a lot of acronyms, a lot of all this, and maybe I'll just share a wee anecdote. At that time, when they made the announcement, they were going to leave, people organized a march to an American base. And I was here at the time and I joined it with some of the women's organizations. It was the most amazing day. Like I went home and wrote this massive journal entity because I'd already been here for a very long time, but my mind was still

a bit blown by it. And for one thing, it was such an example of like how the social movement here works and what society is like and all the complexities because yeah, a lot of people here are very wedded to the liberatory progressive grassroots democratic women's freedom, ecological movement that I'm sure you've spoken about in your programs on Rosh Ava and thousands and thousands of people completely take ownership of that and see themselves in that and are the driving force of that. Obviously that doesn't mean every single person here is 100% sold on Kovman at all. Yeah, some of them are just trying to get on with life. Some of them are just trying to get on with life, some of them are, you know, I mean,

if you talk about women's freedom, there's always going to be a few men who are a bit like, what does this mean for me? What do I have to give up? So it would be silly. I've encountered that. It would be silly and new topics to say that everyone's thought we sold. However, nobody wants to get invaded by one of the largest armies in NATO. So you had this sort of actually even broader than usual kind of coming together like groups

from the sort of like tribal clan structures here that are still like a really political force and that don't, you know, have a kind of uneasy truth and sort of slowly learning each other relationship with the movement, you can say, but they really came out in force as well, as well as like the Kurdish movement, as well as like lots of different ethnic groups, and we marched and to be honest, I didn't know we were going to an American base, a lot of people didn't, it was quite a confusing day, because I think they didn't want to announce things too widely until they got there. Yeah.

And we went and did this kind of, yeah, they like read out a letter symbolically, I think, and some of the Arabic community leaders went up to the base. And we, the majority of people, there's like hundreds of people in this crowd and they stayed back at a distance. And I found out later that that is because the American soldiers said if too big a group of people come close, we will, like we will open fire, like that, that information was given. Yeah. Um, I don't know what they were scared of, you know, it's like, like any

Martyr, the people in the front row are always ranks. Yeah, yeah, it's old ladies. No different on that day. I mean, they're a bit scary to be said. I don't, I think that it's a bit embarrassing if the American soldiers look at these guys. But, that's not for me to judge. But while we were there by like pure chance, a fleet of not tanks, but big armored cars rolled in. And there was just this moment that I really clearly remember. There's a pause and they rolled through the crowd and the crowd parted and turned and looked and nobody teared or clapped, obviously.

There was no sense of, oh, it's the Americans, right? Yeah. But nobody sort of threw, you know, for anything or threw insults or chanted anything negative either. There was just this stillness and this really palpable energy of this kind of sense of people looking at, you know, obviously they're just these soldiers that happened to be driving these trucks, but they really symbolize something more than that. And people were kind of looking, sort of insisting that you look them in the eye, saying like, hey, if anyone owes anyone, you owe us after everything we fought for and everything we've done.

Yeah, 13,000 martyrs if they were golden. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, so many people lost in the fight against ISIS and so much like blood and sweat and tears given. And there was just, yeah, this palpable sense of like, at least have the decency to kind of look at us and admit what you're doing, because you know what you're doing. Yeah. And it really, yeah, it really felt, it was very kind of moving at the time. And I feel like it's very symbolic into politics here, how, you know, someone asked me the other day, what was it like for people to rely on America, knowing that they'd betrayed them? And I said, well, they didn't. They never relied on them.

Yeah, no one was relying on America. Yeah. But, you know, there's that kind of the expectation of at least some sense of dignity. That is a very important concept for people here, dignity. So yeah, I always remember that. Say again, I know it's confusing, that was five and a half years ago now. And now you've got this sort of history repeating itself. They're talking about the troops,, I think it's important to understand what that means. What that means is they're talking about potentially giving

a green flag for more military aggression. And I think they kind of haven't decided yet. It's a really going to do it. Um, and there's a lot of things in, in the balance. And in terms of, I'll just say one more, one more thing. Um, and it's out if it gets a bit long. In terms of the plan for Syria and America's role, this is my opinion. I can't say for sure that this is the definite reality, but my understanding in the situation is that once again, people here in this movement are caught between a rock and a hard place.

And the rock and the hard place now looks like you've got the new government that set itself up in Damascus, HBS, and their goal, if they can wangle it and get the outside and international support, is to build your sort of socially, at least if not politically, the model is going to look a bit like Afghanistan and the Taliban, right? Like from the signs of changes they've made to the constitution, incidents of like violence, sectarianism and feminicide have been rising, attacks they've already made on women's rights, like very rapidly, and things that have been put in like the president legally has to be a Muslim.

Like all of this stuff. Yeah. And that's sort of their plan. But on the other hand, I think if you kind of let the American government lose on Syria to build up its plan at the moment, I think they are seeing an opportunity to use this kind of formula from Iraq into their space. I think they want to create this sort of very open to capitalist markets, which creates kind of space in which the north and east area with majority, though not entirely Kurdish,

can play this role that the Kurdistan region of Iraq has played. Yeah, I don't know what you call it, like a safe conduit to capital. It's a very stark difference if people haven't traveled that part of the world to be in Ha'ulaiyat or Abil and then to cross into Rojava, like you can see the impact that a decade of that being the safe place to have your oil company headquarters has had on the Ketstar Regional Government. Our iHeart Radio Music Awards are coming back Monday March 17th on Fox. Starring Bad Bunny, Glowrilla, Kenny Chesney, Money Long, Nellie, your host, iHeart Radio, LL Cool J, are you guys ready to have some fun tonight?

Plus iHeart Innovator Award recipient, Lady Gaga, iHeart Icon Award recipient, Mariah Carey, and iHeart Breakthrough Award recipient, Gracie Abrams. Watch live on Fox, Monday, March 17th. At 8, 7 Central. Hey, it's Amartinez. The news can feel like a lot on any given day, but you can't just ignore las noticias when important world-changing events are happening.

That is where the Up First podcast comes in. Every single morning in under 15 minutes, we take the news and boil it down to three essential stories so you can keep up without feeling stressed out. Listen Up First from NPR on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember what you said the first night I came over here?

Ow, goes lower. From Blumhouse TV, iHeart Podcasts, and Ember 20 comes an all new fictional comedy podcast series. Join the flighty Damien Hirst as he unravels the mystery of his vanished boyfriend. And Santi was gone. I've been spending all my time looking for answers about what happened to Santi. And what's the way to find a missing person? Sleep with everyone he knew, obviously.

Pillow talk. The most unwelcome window into the human psyche. Follow our out of his element hero as he engages in a series of ill-conceived investigative hookups. Mama always used to say, God gave me gumption in place of a gag reflex. And as I was about to learn, no amount of showering can wash your hands of a bad hookup. Now, take a big whiff, my bruh. Listen to The Hook Up on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,

or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Love at first swipe? I highly doubt it. What's your biggest red flag? No, no, no. What's your ultimate green flag? These days, reality TV and social media have us thinking love is instant. We're marrying strangers at first sight, we're finding love through walls, or we're even judging people by balloon pops. But what really makes a relationship blast?

On this episode of Dope Labs, poet, author, and relationship expert, Young Pueblo, breaks down the psychology and biology of loving better. And he provides eye-opening insights and advice that we all need. It's a big realization moment that you should not be postponing your happiness. Like, your greatest happiness is not necessarily going to, like, come from a relationship.

Your partner, they should add to your happiness, but your happiness is really coming from within you. Listen to, they should add to your happiness, but your happiness is really coming from within you. Listen to Dope Labs on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, oh! I'm going to move on before we finish up. I want to talk about the current manifestation of resistance, right, and specifically at

Tishrin Dam, because that's something that A has been reported on and B, like it mirrors what you saw in 2019 and that like it's not just a military resistance, right, but also like a civil society resistance. Can you explain, maybe if people have seen anything, they've seen that horrible video of people dancing and then SNA drone just dropping a mortar bomb right in the middle of them. But can you explain how we got there? Yeah, of course. Yeah, great. I'm glad you asked about that because in some senses, you know, there is some horrible stuff in there, but this is the beautiful bit. This is the great bit, the bit that we should be talking about at the moment.

So yeah, the Tishindam is a big hydroelectric facility that is on the Euphrates River. If you look at Amapasiria, Euphrates is kind of in the middle at the top. And that is the region, roughly, where this offensive that we spoke about of the Turkish funded militias, which has come from the west across to the east, at times closer and further away from the river and currently like a few kilometers away, that's where that offensive has been stopped by the SDA and cannot progress any further despite intensive air support from Turkey. And they're sort of increasingly putting pressure on that,

but it hasn't got anywhere. But it's close, right? It's not too far away and people are following the news. And what's right on the other side, if you get across the river there, there's the dam and then there's a bridge for the Tarnot and Kerikozak bridge that's similarly kind of crucial. And if you get across the river,

you're not far away at all from the city of Kobani, which I'm sure most of your listeners will have heard of. This is massively important symbol of anti-fascist resistance. It was one of the ignition points of the revolution for the social movement here and it was really important in the fight against ISIS. And I think it's safe to say that Turkey via the SNA had its eye on Kobani again and that this is in fact an attack on Kobani, which has been kind of held back. And so the dam is important symbolically as this like strategic river crossing.

It's this kind of no pass around, like they will not pass moment. It's also important logistically like for the society here because it's a hydroelectric facility, it supplies electricity, it helps with the supply of water for various reasons for thousands and thousands of people. It's now out of action. Yeah. It might go without saying, but when you're in the middle of an active war zone, you can't keep running a place like that. So that is directly attacking and impacting the society and normal communities here.

And so, yeah, it's no wonder that those normal communities and that society always feel very, very implicated and are kind of ready to stand up and defend themselves. It's not as, yeah, the military assault is not kept separate from the society and society is also under attack indirectly, attacks on infrastructure such as that and directly by like drone strikes on many, many civilian targets, unfortunately. In recent times that has increased, particularly in villages surrounding Bani and you see kids also hospitalized and killed as a part of that. So on the 8th of January, what began was that what they call a convoy, like a big trek of different vehicles, got

together and arranged and organized from different towns across Anatomy Syria to go to Kishri and Dab as this very like this symbol, this very clear like important physical location and also very symbolic thing where war has also been fought before. There's also in previous campaigns against ISIS for example there was fighting in the region so people feel like you know their sons and daughters have fought the Tifri river crossing before. It's still, you know, it's there in the historical memory as well. Yeah. And people went and since then, which is almost exactly two months, as we're recording this, we're right around the two months anniversary month,

there's been a constant presence there, a protest on the dam. And that's got several different kind of aspects to it. It is mostly to raise the voices and raise awareness and make visible what's happening. And yeah, if it's hard to understand why like hundreds of people would go from their homes to somewhere that is closer to the act of fighting to somewhere that's in a very unstable region, like, yeah, first of all, you have to understand that nowhere in North East Syria is actually safe. Right. Like in Kamas al-Astati where I am, there's been residential buildings,

bombs dropped on them from drones, like within the last couple of months as well. It's not like, and there's this sense of safety wherever you are. The difference is a sense of doing something about it and of standing together and coming together in these like amazingly brave and amazingly creative ways that only the communities of North Nisiria can manage. So yes, unfortunately during these two months, there have consistently been airstrikes on the dam and I don't have the exact statistics and you wouldn't necessarily get an honest answer about how many of them have come directly from Turkey and how many have come from SNA drones. But the SNA drones are paid for by the Turkish state anyway. So at

the end of the day, morally, how much difference does it make? They have attacked the civil protests there and up until now, I believe 25 civilians have been killed and many more than that hospitalized. But despite this and in the shadow of this with the most beautiful defiance, like that protest has continued. And what the videos that maybe don't get shared as much or shared enough that people might not have seen are also these images, you know, which are very, I can attest are very real because I went there myself a few weeks ago, which is everybody getting out and dancing at the slightest opportunity or slightest excuse or lack of an excuse. And the most amazing

art that's been made, like paintings of the people who've been killed or as they would say here, fallen martyr in these two months. There's been theater, like theater performed using the bits of the bombed out cars that were bombed just a few days before as props to kind of like tell the story of what's been happening. Like the most like creative things, also statements for the press and all your different organizations show up. So like the organized youths show up as the youths and obviously the women's organizations as women saying like, you know, this is our revolution. This is our community. And we know what it looks like when it gets occupied. We're not just going to stand by and see it happen again. It's our land, it's our water

and it's our kids is the refrain that kind of gets repeated over and over again. And of course they're there in solidarity as well with the SDF themselves, with the military force. It would be crazy if they weren't, because they are also embedded in their communities. They're not extracted from the society the way that most state armies are. So yeah, the situation at Tisreen is still ongoing. And when I was there, it really was the most amazing experience. There were bombings while I was there and tragically, one of the people I got to know there who was a journalist whose name was Egyd Roj, just less than two weeks after I got back, I found out that he'd also been killed in another drone strike. So it was, yeah, it's very, very,

just kind of, it doesn't, it doesn't stop. The aggression doesn't stop, but nonetheless, people kind of coming together to resist it doesn't stop either. And once I'd been there, it seemed a lot less crazy or hard to imagine that people would come together around it because you see like the immense power that it has. And you see that how everyone here has lost someone though, like the vast majority of people here have lost members of their family. You said yourself 13,000 fallen in the fight against ISIS alone. And since then, like war one way or another has been going on. So people know what loss means already, they've already lost, but they're not going to let that make them step back. They're

going to do their fallen loved ones justice and continue to stand up in their name. And yeah, it's a very sort of big thing, but it's really powerful when you see it in person and in all its kind of humanity and humor and joy, despite the situation. Yeah, no, that is a very unique thing to Kurdistan and the Kurdish freedom movement. It's just sort of joy. I mean, I've been, it's very similar in Burma, actually, where they also do, they love to dance in a war. And it's one of the things that I think, like the joy is hard to explain. I know we're sort of running low on time here, but I just like, when people hear Syria and

to extent when they hear Myanmar, they'll think of wars, but like, you should also think about all the people who exist outside of the conflict or who don't exist outside of it, that's the wrong word, but who are not fighting at the front line. The experience of revolution is a very joyful one, even amidst very difficult times. And it's difficult to explain it if you haven't experienced it because it sounds so juxtaposed, but it isn't necessarily. Like I have actually really fond memories of meeting Kurdish people coming into the United States in the mountains at the time when the United States was detaining people

outdoors in very difficult conditions and like dancing with them there at a time when like it was miserable. The ability to salvage joy. It gives you a sense of sovereignty, I suppose, and I can understand why that's such an important part of the Kurdish freedom movement when every expression of Kurdish identity has been suppressed for so long. The ability to seize your moments, what James C. Scott would call like small acts of resistance. It's important. It's more important that I think people understand. If you're understanding it from a Western military doctrine, it doesn't fit.

But that's because you're using the wrong framework. Yeah, exactly. Jenny, if people are interested in following your work about this, or perhaps they're interested in doing what they can to support the revolution in what is a challenging time, a very changing time, how can they do both of those things? like a challenging time, a very changing time. How can they do both of those things? Yes.

So, well, if they are interested in following the sort of updates and so on that I've been doing, I've got Instagram and TikTok channels, which are both at Jay Keesden. I'm assuming you can stick that written form somewhere. Yeah, we'll put it in the show notes. And Telegram channel as well, if people find it easier to sort of get, yeah, that's just the most condensed way to kind of

download information videos or whatever, which you can find under the same name. And there's also links to it on the on Instagram, TikTok. And on there, we've got a We Link Tree that has some suggestions for if people want to support like ways to donate say to the Kurdish Red Pheasant and stuff like that. And then specifically, yeah, I mean, there is a lot that people can do and whatever it is, it all starts with getting more, I wouldn't say informed, I would say getting more connected, right? So getting informed is a part of that, but not just in the sense of information learning. Like it's also connecting with like the feeling of things here and why it's become so important to so many people across the world, not just people from here. Yeah.

And the more we learn about that, the more we'll start to see like how we can be a friend to the movement here and how our role can fit. And I know that there are specifically in America, a couple of organizations, is it that Debbie Bookton has been really prominent in organizing one of them? Yeah. Emergency committee for Rojava. Emergency committee for Rojava. That's the one.

Uh, yeah. And you had emergency in there somewhere. That's definitely worth looking up and following a lot of, um, the work that they do. And you also got like think tanks at the Kurdish peace Institute that did kind of lobbying and so yeah, there are some, there is some stuff from coming from the United States as well. But I think, yeah, the more people get a chance to kind of learn about stuff here and see the connection and be able to see and find themselves in it. And I think that's got a lot to do with what you were just speaking about

there. You put it so well, I wouldn't extend it much more. But yeah, like people here, it's really, there's always war happening and always war kind of filing on top of you. But that's never what it's about. The question is always what are you fighting for and what are you fighting to defend? And what would you be doing if there was no war? Everyone here will always say if there was no war, we'd still have enough work to do with all the really like, what was at what ambitious like social transformation that people here are really committed to. Yeah. There's enough going on and it's very big and as you put it, it's very beautiful and very joyful and so that's yeah, that's the bit that I encourage people to try and learn more about

because that's the bit that makes you stay and makes people like me stick around for years, finding out more and more and making friends and getting closer and closer to the communities here. Yeah, I think that's a very good way to put it. So yeah, I'd encourage people to do all that. Thank you so much for your time, Jenny. I know it's late there, but we really appreciate you joining us today. Thank you so much. Cheers. Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com,

or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. Our iHeartRadio Music Awards are coming back Monday, March 17th on Fox. Starring Bad Bunny, Glorilla, Kenny Chesney, Money Long, Nellie, your host, iHeartRadio, LL Cool J. Are you guys ready to have some fun tonight? Plus iHeart Innovator Award recipient, Lady Gaga, iHeart Icon Award recipient, Moriah Carey, and iHeart Breakthrough Award recipient, Gracie Abrams. Watch live on Fox, Monday, March 17th. At 8, 7 Central.

Hey, it's Amartines. The news can feel like a lot on any given day, but you can't just ignore las noticias when important world-changing events are happening. That is where the Up First podcast comes in. Every single morning in under 15 minutes, we take the news and boil it down to three essential stories so you can keep up without feeling stressed out.

Listen up first from NPR on the iHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember what you said the first night I came over here? How goes lower? From Blumhouse TV, iHeart Podcasts, and Ember 20 comes an all-new fictional comedy podcast series. Join the flighty Damien Hirst as he unravels the mystery of his vanished boyfriend.

I've been spending all my time looking for answers about what happened to Santi. What's the way to find a missing person? Sleep with everyone he knew, obviously. Listen to The Hook Up on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Love at first swipe?

I highly doubt it. Reality TV and social media have love all wrong. So what really makes relationships last? On this episode of Dope Labs, poet and relationship expert, Young Pueblo breaks down the psychology of love and provides eye-opening insights and advice we all need. It's a big realization moment that you should not be postponing your happiness. Like your greatest happiness is not necessarily going to like come from a relationship. Your partner, they should add to your happiness, but your happiness is really coming from within you. Listen to Dope Labs on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.