SCENE 9
13 May, 2017
PARIS
“The French Connections”

My name is The Tiger. I heard a story before I left for Syria from a tall anarchist, code named Firat.
He told me that after his first tour of six months he came back and held a small meeting of radicals. He told them of his time in Rojava and encouraged them to go experience the revolution themselves. He was arrested two days later. Clearly an informant was in the meeting. He was charged with terrorism and recruitment of terrorists. His passport was confiscated and it took him a year to travel to Rojava because getting it back was such meird. (Such shit).
I grew up on the outskirts of Paris. In one of those Arab ghettos you always see the riots happening in. I am of African descent thus I am not treated exactly like a French man. When I deployed to Rojava with the volunteers my family was harassed weekly. I was accused of joining Daesh and preparing for terrorism. The entire time I was there serving, I was stressed. So stressed. The security service kept telling my Mom I was a traitor to France. France is one of countries with strict policies on entering the YPG as a volunteers. Like Britain they make your life a living hell and try confiscate your passport on reentry.
My name is the Tiger, or Piling in Kurdish. The Arabs have given me another name, but it is top secret. I killed many men in Deir A Zor with the Dragnov sniper rifle I was given. I speak fluent Kurmanji so I was put in a cadro unit. Party lifers who have sworn total allegiance to the revolution and Serok Apo.
Abdullah Ocalan’s face is everywhere in Rojava. The sly, chubby brilliant revolutionary beaming out at us all from his prison cell in Imrili, should he still be alive. The Turkish fascists have held him hostage and tortured him since 1999. But this is his party and his revolution. One must accept the cult of Apo (which means uncle) because his leadership allowed miracles for the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK); yes our PKK survived the Cold War and is the last resistance movement left to challenge the West and its puppet Turkey. We are asked to read his books and understand his thinking before we enter the YPG because this is a revolutionary militia. We are fighting for far more than the destruction of Daesh!
I am an anarcho-syndicalist and a platformist. My group in France and Russian has sent to the YPG to make an assessment about its capabilities and Rojava’s potential for survival against the Turkish army once Daesh is eradicated. Groups like MLKP have for years used Rojava as a training ground and contributed hundreds of fighters to the cause. Not as many as the Jihadists certainly. But it is thought that more than half of the 500 volunteers were Turkish nationals with the MLKP. I am to discover if my group can make a base here like they do. I am to discover if the Turks will just burn this whole revolutionary effort to the ground.
I am very excited to make armed struggle. I think it is inspiring what the Kurds have done since the siege of Kobani when they were almost annihilated.
Of course the U.S. airstrikes saved them. Of course as soon as ISIS is finished the Turks will sweep south to mop of this cordon of resistance the PKK has built via its Syrian arm the PYD. We are probably the last wave of foreigners that will go in. The logistics will get worse and the fight with Turkey will not be the same as the fight with Jihadists in ISIS.
I am good with a rifle. I know the language. They respect me more because I have taken the time to learn Kurmanji, the other volunteers always complain how shut out they are by language. Firat managed to get his passport back and not be charged with terrorism. He arrived in Rojava a few months before me and went back to his Suikast unit. Firat encouraged me to come, though I was not at the fatefully infiltrated meeting where all the potentials were discovered, charged and shook up to step down.
The number 500 is very small. Embarrassing even; the MLKP is a disciplined Turkish communist group who has taken on over 100 shehids . They have a deep alliance with the Party. But my structure has sent me to make the same deal. Can Rojava hold out long enough to export revolution? Can volunteers survive long enough to return to fight in the West? These are the questions I must answer. And while I’m away French police will make my mother very upset and afraid. They will basically terrorize her.

Besides from Firat the anarchist and Piling, the Tiger; there were several other French of note who prepared to cross into Rojava or were already inside. Serhat, was a lawyer and an aristocrat. Proudly French he prepared for adventure not revolution. He was there to kill ISIS and avenge his terrorized homeland. France had over all borne the brunt of ISIS terror. They sure misunderestiamted what effect the well-choreographed executions would have on the hyper-plugged in West. If anything it got them invaded with greater speed.
Serhat wasn’t named Serhat yet, nor was he even trying to join the YPG. He was not a leftist and was hoping to link up with a famous Spanish fascist who had made a name for himself in Sinjar with the YBS. Unlike the YPG, he wouldn’t have to deal with all the ideological bullshit he was told.
Serhat was a dandy; handsome and conservative. The struggle of his life before he got to the killing fields may have been the challenge of law school examinations. Some woman may have broken his heart once.
A stranger to military or Islamist danger, Sher was a Parisian waiter. He had less qualms with the left being a leftist and was eager to join the YPG. His English was almost non-existent as was his Arabic and Kurdish, but he was eager to battle ISIS. Sher was a communist but not in any party. He had fired a rifle before and assumed he was a good enough shot.
Neither Sher nor Serhat were eager to battle the Turks. They were aware that they were coming in on the tail end of the counter ISIS operation. Raqqa, Mosul and the rest would all fall one after another by the winter time. And after that all acknowledged the Americans would abandon its Kurdish and Shiite allies. The Turks would then move in to crush the revolution in Rojava and kill anything in their path.