SITW/LLWD: Martyr Culture and the Revolution in Rojava Pt. I (Patreon)

Episode Notes

This month on Strangers, we have a crossover episode with Live Like the World is Dying, for our monthly feature zine Martyr Culture by Sara Blum., which is an essay about martyr culture within the Kurdish Freedom Movement. We have an audio version of the zine as well as an interview with Sara about the piece and her time with the YPJ. But, if you’d like to read along then check out the zine, which is attached.

Our June feature was generously provided by Sara Blum, an internationalist who spent several years with the YPJ in Rojava, to accompany and contextualize our newest book, Orso: Wartime Journals of an Anarchist, which is currently available for preorder as of right now at tangledwilderness.org, and will be regularly available/ship out in early-mid July.

Orso contains the first-person narrative of Lorenzo Orso Orsetti–also known as Heval (he-vawl) Tekoser (teko-cher) Piling (pih-ling), now Sehid (sheh-heath) Tekoser (teko-cher) or “martyr Tekoser–an internationalist soldier in Rojava. This journal was published in its original Italian following Oro’s death. We’re excited to bring you the first English edition, which includes additional essays that share the historical and cultural context in which Orso lived, fought, and died. We’re excited to bring his message to a new audience. The struggle against Daesh for an autonomous, liberated region in Rojava is bigger than one person, but one person’s life can offer us a glimpse of a vast project and how one life can fit into it.

Sara’s essay helps build a backdrop for the world Orso gives us a glimpse of in his journals. This is part one of this episode, as the interview with Sara ended up being quite long. Tune in in 2 weeks for the second half of the interview, as next week is This Month in the Apocalypse on Live Like the World is Dying. We won’t get to it until the second half of the interview, but the word of the month this month is about those who are mindful.