THE YOUTH AND THE REVOLUTION IN THE NEW SYRIA: Interview with Nadiya Yusif, Spokesperson of the young Women’s Movement in the office of the Syrian Democratic Council of the Youth.

Nadiya Yousif is a member of the Council of the Syrian Democratic Youth (MCSD -Meclisa Ciwanên Suriya Demokratîk ) which is a youth Council that is autonomously organized by Young Women from Syria. The Youth council is organizing as an umbrella of all Syrian Democratic councils in the Syrian geography. Inside the council young people from all the different ethnicities, cultures and beliefs across Syria, but primarily from North-East Syria, are taking part and are working together to build up a Democratic and free Syria with the vanguard of the Youth. The MCSD is also part of the Middle-East Youth Initiative and is taking part in diplomatic works all over Syria as well as outside as representatives of Syrias Democratic Youth. As Lêgerîn Magazine, we made this exclusive interview with Nadiya Yusif specifically for the Lêgerîn #17.

Lêgerîn: As a young woman from Efrîn,you are taking part in political works. Can you introduce yourself and tell us why you started these works? What kind of work are you taking part in now?

My name is Nadiya Yusif, I work as the Young Women’s Spokesperson at the Young Women’s office in the Syrian Democratic Youth Council. I am a young woman from Efrîn. This council where I work is a political umbrella for all movements, organizations and independent individuals on the Syrian level. So, why did I take my place in this particular work as a young woman, in other words, in what way is it important?

Especially as a young woman I actually give great importance to playing a role in politics, because we know that as young generations we were defined as Generation Z, the last generations. The works that we could take part in were limited by the male-state mentality, the patriarchal mentality. Every woman was excluded politically, economically. As a response to this mentality, as a response to this current government, I wanted to take a special place in this work with our identity and our will. On this basis, I took part in this work and we are also running our organizations on the level of the whole of Syria.

Lêgerîn: As a young person from the Middle East, with your multifaceted identity and also as a young Kurdish person, what are the pressures on young people, as well as the problems you face? What attacks do young women face in particular, from social pressure and marriage, family to the male-dominated system, what are the difficulties you see?

Now if we want to talk about the state-man mentality, which has been cultivated, instilled especially in the Middle East, we can say that we see this mentality not only within the states or inside the castles, but also inside the personality of every person who lives in the Middle East today. That is, in the families in which we live, in the society in which we live, this mentality has been cultivated in the brain, in the personality of every individual in the Middle East. We can talk about the mentality of the Baath regime. But in terms of this mentality, we can actually put all the countries of the Middle East inside because all the states that we see today, unilaterally, called for “one flag, one language, one culture, one faith, one identity”. Today, all the states of the Middle East lean on this and are exercising their authority.

As a young woman who lived in Syria, my Kurdish identity was not considered legitimate for me. Speaking my own language within my family, within my community, was also not considered legitimate for me, it was forbidden. For this reason, in order for us to truly understand the current crises that we are experiencing in the Middle East today we need to realize that the Middle East is a region in which humanity, identity, and civilization have developed, and the Middle East is known for its richness, its religions, its components today. In other words, not only Kurds and Arabs live here, there are many nations, components, that take their place in this region. Today, if a mentality comes in such a way where all other components are not given legitimate rights and only one component remains in power, where all other peoples are considered to be non-existent, this will only prevent the crises that we are experiencing in the Middle East today from ending.

On this basis, as young women in particular, I would like to mention that today in the Middle East, young women are the deepest victims of the agreements made by the state, the agreements made at the family level, at the tribal level. Why? In particular, they target the young generation with their mentality because they know that the society in which we were raised is the one that will create changes and transformations in society, and under the name of the tradition that our grandparents were raised on, “we should not cross them”, they suppress every identity and will of the youth.

In the Baath regime we can see this. After exerting so much power over the Syrian government, it ended up being destroyed after what we can say was 50 years rule. Why? Because we know that if changes and transformations are not made in the state, in the society, in the family, then with the passage of time, it will be the end of every mentality, the end of every state will be its destruction. Because today this era is in the midst of changes and transformations. If people do not organize their society accordingly, every society will remain at the lowest level. The primary reason that allows the Middle-East states to go through crises and wars today is the mentality of the man-state, the mentality of the nation-state.

Lêgerîn: In Syria, especially in North-East Syria, it has been 13 years since the revolution began. What changes have been made and what is your view on the struggle that has been waged, especially for women’s freedom? How do you see the achievements of the women’s revolution for the future of young women like you?

If Syria wants to govern today, it must have a true ideology, a true idea, a democratic idea that embraces all nations, all communities, all religions that live on the Syrian geography today. For this reason, as young people today in the new Syria after the fall of the Baath Regime, a hope was built in us that we could really live in a new, democratic and diverse Syria. But this has not been realized because a regime that we can say is more dangerous is imposing its rule on the Syrian people and especially on the Syrian youth.

On this basis, we say that North and East Syria is the salvation of Syria. Today the youth who live inside Syria see us as salvation because of the system that was established here, especially the institutions of young women and youth that were established here. No state has any institution or desire to empower young people and young women.

The revolution of 19th July, the North-East Syria Revolution, if we can make it the revolution of all the Syrian peoples and the Syrian youth, then we will be able to say that we are truly moving towards a democratic Syria. We are moving towards a multi-ethnic Syria, and this current system embraces all the peoples living in Syria today. Because we see that not only Kurds and Arabs live in North and East Syria. I repeat, there are Armenians, Syrians, Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Circassians, and many other groups living here. All of whom who are under the umbrella of the Autonomous Administration and have established their own institutions, and speak their own language in schools. These groups live in societies based on their own culture and language. For this, the constitution that has been issued by the new Syrian Government, we as young people and young women will never see it as a representation for ourselves.

Because today, if we take into account age, we have not seen any young people in the activities that have taken place since the beginning of the new state. Where is the will of the youth? Where is the will of the young women? As the Youth Council of Democratic Syria, we are in contact with youth 24 hours a day. We carry out our work inside Syria 24 hours a day. We are traveling in the whole region. And we see it clearly that today all the Syrian youth, all the young Syrian women are calling for us. During the time of the Baath regime, maybe there was some fear, we were afraid, but now the young Syrians are saying this clearly. They say that the North-East Syria today can be a response to this current mentality, it can be a response to the current government. It can actually build a Syria in its own way.

On this basis, if we want to build an identity and a will for young women, we first turn to the young women who live inside North-East Syria. Because the truth is that the achievements that were made in this revolution were led by Young Women, at the beginning of the revolution, in the military, social, political, and economic aspects, the greatest leadership was on the shoulders of Young Women. Today, young women can respond to all the attacks on this region. Against an extremist Islamic army like ISIS, young women took place in the forefront of the battle.

Today, in North-East Syria, young women play the biggest role in politics. In the economic aspect again. The economy of this region is organized and run with the vanguard-ship of young people and young women. On this basis, young people from outside see that so much will has been given to young people. That young people can truly lead communities. That is why we can say that today’s young women have truly become the answer to this current mentality through the project of the Democratic Nation, the project that has been implemented in North-East Syria and in its communities.

Lêgerîn: In your opinion, what are the solutions to the problems facing young people in the Middle East? If you had a message for young people around the world, what would you say to them?

If we have a call for the young men and women living inside Syria today, it would be this: never, in any way, should we be afraid of any existing system, any existing state, any state that was built with a dominant-male mentality.

The end of this mentality was seen in the example of the Baath system, which today, after 50 years of exercising its power in Syria, exercised all forms of power and its end was its collapse. For a state that is built on this basis of power, its end will be its collapse. Based on this, our call for the young women living inside Syria is that they will not bow down to this existing mentality until the end and we will support them spiritually. We will support all young men and women who believe in democracy, believe in equality and freedom until the end.

We say that we will never accept another Syria outside of a democratic, non-centralized and diverse Syria, and that believe in the energy of young people and their ideology of free youth. We say that on this basis, it is time to oppose this extremist Islam that has come and is imposing its rule on us, the Islam that the state has made a religion for itself, and that today wants to violate the identity of women, the color of women in every way. We will never give in to this, and we will not accept it.

Today, we have lived a revolution for 13 years. Even though we could not introduce our organization and ideas to all young women inside Syria, still this system has been recognized at the highest level. This system has now resonated throughout the world and this has become a threat to all the states that are attacking northern and eastern Syria today. The Turkish state as well as other states, do not stop their attacks on North-East Syria. This also allows one to understand that the system that was built here is not in accordance with the mentality of the state. At some point, this system that was built here will be the salvation of societies. When a system is not in accordance with states, it will be understood that at some point this system is in accordance with the societies that live in this region. On this basis our call will always be that all the women who live in North-East Syria will support all women inside Syria who we can call our sisters. We will support them until the end so that we can together build a democratic, non-centralized Syria that embraces us all and from this we can save ourselves from the state mentality.