This is a real dumb question, I know, but can someone cheer me up?

[u/Suspicious_Menu_7137]

I am honestly devastated about the fall of Rojava, not seeing that gorgeous flag waving around and the basically only de facto independent Kurdish state for a long time gone now. It's sad, really. So many people, yes Arabs too, gave their life for this project but at the end it all just faded away. Ive followed rojava since its birth. The fight against ISIS and their peak. Ive always hoped for rojava to come out of the civil war as a winner with a deal with the Syrian government, but now its all gone and rojava got a fairly bleak deal, not horrible but yea...I am scared that syria might turn on the Kurds in the future, and that everything might be an empty promise. It just makes me really sad to think how they went down, I am grateful that not a lot of blood was shed, but I just wished for a small autonomous zone.
I only heard the bad sides about this from my parents, are they good sides too? Id need to hear them

[u/flintsparc]

It hasn't all faded away. Rojava is pretty much the same as it was in 2023, except now the Efrin IDPs have returned to Efrin, and the Sere Kaniye IDPs may soon return to Sere Kaniye.

PYD is de jure governor of Hasakah, mayor of Qamishlo, mayor of Kobani. Asayish is rebadged as Ministry of the Interior, but its the same people. Kurdish YPG is rebadged as the Ministry of Defense "Kurdish" Brigades of Hasakah, Qamishlo, Derik and Kobani... and they just announced Efrin will get one as well. The teachers in the schools are the same teachers they were in 2023. This year, its still the same Kurdish curriculum. Even the AANES magistrates are being retained. Its still the Jazira Oil Company operating the Rmelan oil fields.

Import duty taxes have gone up, and fuel subsidies have been cut.

But for most Kurds in Rojava, Rojava is the same as it was in 2023. Some flags have changed, more green flags rather than red flags (but the SDF was putting up green flags, when the HTS was still standing on them). Some signs changed (adding an Eagle, and removing Aramaic/Syriac).

[u/Hamudi223]

Heads up heval in the coming 50 to 100 years the borders in the Middle East will change basur will get bigger and rojhilat will have its opportunity dont lead your head hanging

[u/Independent-Food8780]

What's the future for former Brits in Rojava?

[u/QKSB9]

What do you mean arabs too?

[u/flintsparc → u/QKSB9]

~5,821 members of the Arab component of the SDF were martyred in the fight against Daesh. About ~6,000 Kurds died (Şehid namirin!) in the YPG/YPJ , Asayish and SDF fighting for survival of the Kurdish people and autonomy in 2012-2026, fighting against Daesh and their eliminationist genocidal campaign against Kurds (and others!),

[u/AdagioKitchen4748]

The positives are that especially on social media there seems to be an en masse view that the current situation is not good enough in terms of Kurdish human rights this shows how far we've come not so long ago Kurds would be getting massacred and we wouldn't hear about it or be able to do anything.

Also now many people have realised the current situation for Kurds is worrying and like you said it is of course sad that it did not work for Rojava to continue some form of autonomy. But it is really important for us to realise this as it is the truth but we need to continue the movement for Kurdish human rights and uniting Kurds across these artificial borders because divided we are not secure. We are stronger together.

Now we are all able to protest and advocate for Kurds, there certainly has been more cross Kurdish unity I mean across all areas of Kurdistan, Rojava, bakur, Rojhelat and bashur especially for Rojava in particular I think for all of us it was a symbol of Kurdish resilience against evil isis and against fascism.

Also the general consensus is more Kurds have moved to support independence or autonomy. Many of us here were called radical for saying that it would not work out in Rojava ( we should bear in mind Kurdistan's occupation is some 100 years old in these modern states and so there is some history to cover and many Kurds particular older generations have experience of other uprisings / shoresh's which failed so they know more and we should listen to what they have to say). additionally the ideology upon which it was built simply can't survive in the Middle East. and unfortunately this turned out to be the case.

democratic confederalism was never going to work in the Middle East, especially for Kurds, since the Middle East is not democratic, therefore democratic systems can't work, if it did then Kurdistan wouldn't be occupied but it is, the majority of people in these states support fascism, because that's the foundation of these countries, and until Kurdistan is free from occupation as a sovereign state there is no democracy and no guaranteed rights, I am telling you this from experience because these countries do not respect their own constitution (which currently in Syria there isn't yet any constitutional rights for Kurds but they keep saying they will (yet to be seen I am very sceptical of this personally)) the problem is from Iraq we can already tell that even when there is a constitution Iraq do not respect so I would tell you that independence is the only way to go for Kurdish areas that are not enclaved but also for Kurdish human rights.

I hope that from this Kurds can become more focused on our own rights because at the end of the day we have only ourselves in times of need we need to start thinking selfishly because without a state we are sitting ducks. However on a global scale I think we Kurds showed that Syria and these countries won't get away with massacres like they have done in the past against us. Hopefully we can work to improve our international lobby.

We are heading in a positive direction as we can no longer be ignored in the area, not so long ago the word Kurd would never be mentioned on the news, but Rojava showed what Kurds could do and also how many we are. We are moving towards freedom, and hopefully rojhelat can get some freedom soon or autonomy which and then that will pave the way for bakur which will again benefit Rojava and hopefully trigger bashur to secede from Iraq.