Seven years since it’s liberation, Rojava has entered an ongoing, in fact, never-ending revolution. This many years since, the revolution is still a flourishing flower, new and vibrant with life, with the colours of democracy and equality.
With the effort of everyone on the land, from the national to the international, from the woman to the man, the success of this revolution was achieved with the sacrifice of the heroic people. The remembrance of martyrs of revolution becomes even more important at this stage because their ideals are our guides to the future.
As the news agency of the youth, we spoke to comrades of Martyr Tekoser Piling, Lorenzo Orsetti, a dear comrade who was martyred in Baghouz on March 18 during the battle against ISIS gangs.
Martyr Tekoşer Piling, (Lorenzo Orsetti)
“On the seventh anniversary of the Rojava revolution, it is very important to remember those who gave their lives, this is why I want to speak about Orsetti. He was born and grew up in Florence, in the centre of capitalist civilisation.
He saw in himself, as well as many other young people, the suffering of a condition, bent to the interest of the capital, being imposed on society. The kind of life which made competition the only means of achieving, which has its roots in individualism, the exploitation of human and nature, and the patriarchal domain. This is a model which is destroying our planet as well as the lives of thousands of people in the name of a fake peace, built by exportation from our border, which kills thousands of people in our country daily due to working conditions. Goods can circulate, but people who flee from war or poverty are either exploited or left to die in our seas. This feed fear.
It is a model which Orsetti refused and took the side of the oppressed, leading him to build and struggle with other young people around him, in a different way of circulation in his neighbourhood and city. This continued until he came into contact with the Rojava revolution. A revolution which has reached its seventh year against the fascism represented in the middle east by ISIS and the Turkish state.
The revolution is carrying out a process of bottom-up democracy, that sees its principles in ecology and in carries a different value, it is the foundation in the fight against patriarchal domination. Which Orsetti recognised. He recognised the same values that were characteristic of the partisan, our partisan resistance. This led thousands of young people to leave their cities blinded by our mountains to fight against the Nazi party regime, more than 70 years ago. Orsetti decided to follow their example, to leave, to know his comrades who are fighting at the other side of the borders with their lives.
Moved by the ideas of justice and equality, which he felt deep inside him, he wanted to bring his support to the revolution in northern Syria In Rojava for more than a year and a half he was a part of the YPG, the movements of protection, learning his way, understanding what it means to leave and to be a part of the revolution. A revolution that is filled with comrades who are in constant criticism of themselves, to overcome the limitation and contradiction that a European man has inside. He experienced what it means to fight patriarchy and exploitation and live in a community that does not build on competition but on cooperation.
In his period, he never stopped telling what happened in Rojava, starting from his personal experiences to create a bridge between Rojava and Italy. To defend the revolution, even the possibility of a revolution, which was made possible through the sacrifice of so many comrades which was given to the whole of humanity, Tekoser had to fight against those who wanted to destroy this revolution. So, he participated in the defence in Afrin against Turkish occupation and lastly in Derezor against the Islamic State, where he fell, martyr.
Tekoser’s life must be a common heritage. An example for all of us in not resigning ourselves to the state but making ourselves the protagonist of change which starts from ourselves influences the change of reality.
In the memory, the struggle, the example, the practice, martyrs never die. Long live the partisans of Rojava, long live the revolution.
Sehid Namirin!”
Comrade Egid
“Comrade Orso, a Florentine fighter, has fallen.
The ‘comrade bear’ is Lorenzo Orsetti, the battle by name “Tekoser”, a thirty-three-year-old born in Florence, who fought side by side with the Kurds of YPG (defence unit of the Rojava people) against the fascism of ISIS.
In his last interview with Onda Rossa, he said that the “Islamic state, at least officially, is defeated.” The last pockets of resistance in Baghouz cost him his life at the hand of the jihadist.
He had participated in the battle of Afrin, a stronghold of Kurdish resistance and Syrian democratic forces, crushed between ISIS and Turkey. He had arrived from a completely different past; after 13 years of hard work in Europe, he married the Kurdish cause.
“The ideals that inspire me, that convinced me, is that they want to build a fairer society, more equitable. The emancipation of women, social cooperation, social ecology and, of course, democracy.
For these ideals, I would have been ready to fight elsewhere too. Then chaos broke out in Afrin and I decided to come here to help the civilian population defend themselves” he told Florentine newspaper.
With no moral remorse, he was convinced to do the right thing: a struggle for liberation, of which he was proud. “I am right with my conscience,” he said. He was totally different from those who only sit behind a rifle.
In the interview with Radio OndaRosa, he announced, “the situation of civilians before going back to their lives, it will take a long time. The refugee camps lack food and drinking water and the cities are destroyed and full of mines.” Turkey, was the enemy in his eyes, though not the only one. “It is absurd to continue giving money to Turkey, seeing what he makes of it,” he said when talking about the bombing of refugee camps by Erdogan’s army.
There is a letter-testament, shared in the last hours by the Kurdish-Syrian forces for which he fought, a custom for the militia.
“If you read these lines, there are no more” is the beginning of the text.. and ends with “It is still a success and I am most certain that I left with a smile on my lips. I could not have asked for better.”
“A soldier, not a terrorist,” he said, “must be ready to assume his responsibilities. Even if we conquer the last stronghold of Al Marashidah”, he emphasised, “I think that the mentality of ISIS, feudality and patriarchy, will survive. The battle is still long, but we are here for this.”
His mother Annalisa described him as happy. “He wanted to fight alongside with the Kurds to win against ISIS fascism, and nothing would dissuade him.”
“We were in Anguish,” says his father, Alessandro. “We were happier when we heard him on the phone, anxious when we were a period without hearing him. But proud of him, of the choice he made.”
Tekoser.. means ‘fighter.’
Collective Le Gauche
