Kobanê, Hasakeh, Qamislo, Derik: since the middle of January, the very foundations of Rojava and its inhabitants have been under attack. The Syrian-Kurdish border town of Kobanê, where the military collapse of the "IS caliphate" once began, is under siege, with more than 200,000 people deprived of access to drinking water and electricity. First aid convoys have been arriving since 25 January, but there are no signs of the situation easing for Kobanê. Among the advancing Syrian government militias are not just jihadist groups and pro-Turkish formations but also freed IS fighters.
In the wake of the massacres of Alawites and Druze, these developments are a huge setback for all efforts towards democracy and peace in Syria. After the fall of Assad, the Kurdish-led self-administration and the Syrian transitional government stated their shared will to enable and help shape a free Syria. This prospect now risks being buried – once and for all. The escalation that interim president al-Sharaa evidently wants seems to be entirely in line with the authoritarian shift currently happening among the Western governments involved. They continue to support al-Sharaa's course, which promises them not democracy in Syria, but rather control, sovereignty and stability. The victims of this shift will not only be the Kurds, but Syrian society as a whole. Syria does not have a minority problem, it has a democracy problem.
The attack on Rojava is often portrayed as an act of necessary state consolidation. This take misses the core of the conflict: Rojava is not a question of secession, but a question of democracy itself. Of whether political diversity can be recognised and politically institutionalised – or whether it will be subject to authoritarian containment and disappear in centralism.
Rojava is certainly not free from contradictions, injustice and authoritarian structures, which flourish not least under the conditions of permanent war. Yet the region was and is characterised by an unwavering determination to organise community differently and openly – as a place where personal freedom and multi-ethnic democracy should thrive.
A Kurdish question too
But something else is going on now: like during the fight against IS, Rojava has become a pan-Kurdish issue rather than a Syrian one, reflecting a history of the experience of struggle for political existence as a community marked by the recurring trauma of the negation, denial and persecution of Kurdish identity. This history stretches from Başûr (Iraqi Kurdistan) to Bakur (Kurdistan in Turkey) to Rojhilat (Kurdistan in Iran), permeating the region as an unresolved conflict between state sovereignty and societies' claims to collective rights.
Just recall the Anfal operation by Saddam Hussein's regime. Between 1986 and 1989, there was a succession of displacements, massacres and the systematic destruction of thousands of Kurdish villages. The deployment of chemical weapons in Halabja to this day stands as an example of the attempt to physically and politically wipe out a society. This historical experience forms the backdrop against which current developments must be interpreted.
Stable peace as a prerequisite
Whether Rojava has a place in the new Syria is not just a Kurdish question, though. It will decide whether tolerating political diversity and allowing democratic self-organisation is possible in the region going forward.
All the armed actors in the region must face up to one truth: if you attempt to stabilise a society through violence you make any kind of social cohesion impossible. A shared future in Syria can only emerge through a democratic process, and the prerequisite for this is stable peace. No problems will be solved on the battlefield, not after Assad either. Democracy thrives on diversity, on dissent, on multi-ethnic and federal structures, on autonomy and equal rights for all. Whether Rojava has a place in the new Syria is therefore also a blueprint for whether the new Syria can and wants to be a genuine democracy.
Rojava and its population have experienced global solidarity and recognition over the last decade. This support will continue to bolster the people there now.
medico international, January 2026
