This day of the foundation of the Paris Commune in 1871, we are of course forced to look at Afrin. Just as now there is a rebellious city stuck between two fires, two enemies. As the Parisians were surrounded by the troops of Versailles and the Prussians, so too the Kurds on the ground face fascist Erdogan and the ‘leftist’ Assad regime, just as they are wedged between the larger geopolitical conflicts of Russia and the US…
As Camillo Berneri, the Italian anarchist who was on the barricades in the May Days of 1937 in Barcelona, proposing to fight against fascism and against the leftist Republican government, wrote:
“Let us set our lights and hold the tiller with a hand of steel. We are on the high seas and the tempest is raging. But we can still perform miracles. Caught between the Prussians and Versailles, the Commune lit a fire which still lights the world.”
Afrin has lit such a fire once again, and everyone feels this invisible flame spreading!