On 19th October, on our third attempt, we managed to get 25 vehicles through 3 kilometres of enemy territory to deliver much needed aid to the resistance of Serê Kanî and retrieve many seriously injured friends. As we drove through the suburbs, more and more people were gathered on the street to greet us, but not residents, and not Kurdish forces. These people raised their fingers in the air at us and shouted the takbir. If it were not for their Turkish uniforms, Turkish weapons and Turkish arm patches these men would have been indistinguishable from the very ISIS and Al-Qaeda militants the Kurds and their friends sacrificed so much to defeat over the last 7 years.

The resistance of Serê Kanî; a small group of Kurds, Arabs, Syriacs and international anarchist volunteers, have held out now for almost 2 weeks against one of the biggest and best equipped armed forces on the planet. They have shown the same spirit as the defenders of Kobanî that made this revolution so famous. But during a so-called ‘ceasefire’ – throughout which they were mercilessly bombed, shelled and shot at – these fearless defenders were yet again betrayed by the Americans, forcing on them and the rest of the SDF a capitulation and withdrawal from their ancestral homeland that they had defeated ISIS in just years before.

There is a sense here in Rojava that yet again, as has happened so many times throughout history, the Kurds are being left out on their own, with no friends and nowhere to turn. Yet again their land, their families and their very independence are being attacked and ripped from them. That is why it is so desperately important that every one of you has gathered here today. It is of utmost importance that the people of North East Syria – Kurds, Arabs, Syriacs, Armenians, Nomads and so many other peoples who currently live in one of the most radically democratic and multiethnic regions of the world – know that they are *not* alone! That we care! That we will fight with and for them however we can, wherever we can!

While some of us fight here on the ground with our weapons, it is just as important that our friends abroad fight this Turkish aggression with words, with protest and with direct action, because this is not just a fight for one group of people, this is a fight for dignity, for democracy, and for humanity. It is a war that all parts of society must come to together to wage, not just the soldier on the battlefield.

Now – more than ever – it is time for us to let the world know that when we say ‘never again’ to genocide and ethnic cleansing, we mean it.

Now – more than ever – it is time to smash the fascism of the Turkish state, in Europe, in Turkey and on Syrian soil.

And now – more than ever, Heval – it is time for every single one of us to RISE UP FOR ROJAVA!