NEWS CENTER – This article as originally published in crimethinc in portuguese;
Three years ago, on March 18, 2019, my friend Lorenzo Orsetti was killed in action during the battle of Baghuz Fawqani. He was fighting with the Syrian Democratic Forces against the last bastion of the Islamic State in Syria. Before more time passes, I would like to say a few words in his memory. Lorenzo was an anarchist from Florence, Italy. At the time of his death, he and I were members of Tekoşîna Anarşîst, a group of international anarchists participating in the ongoing revolution in northeastern Syria, also known as Rojava.
I met Lorenzo on my first day in Syria and was with him almost every day of his last six months of life. Until he died, I never knew his real name, nor where exactly he was from. To me, his name was Tekoşer Piling – that was his war name. It means “Fighting Tiger” in Kurdish.
In a way, Lorenzo and I knew very little about each other. During all the time we spent together, we rarely discussed our feelings, the future, or our past lives. Yet we were comrades in arms. We served in the same unit, slept in the same room, trained and exercised together every morning, alternated guard shifts every night, shared hundreds of meals and thousands of cups of tea, shared chores, and were on the front lines together twice, surviving several fights and several very close encounters with death. I trusted Lorenzo with my life and he never let me down.
What can I say to do justice to Heval Tekoşer?
First of all, I will say that Lorenzo was a revolutionary in deed and in conviction and he was very brave. He did not come to Rojava to make money, to live off the generosity of the movement, or to become famous through the Internet. He took his duty as an internationalist seriously. During the year and a half he was in Syria, he volunteered for every possible mission, from Afrin to Deir Ezzor, from one end of the liberated territory to the other. At various times and places, he fought with the predominantly Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Turkish communist organization TIKKO, Arab units of the Syrian Democratic Forces, Antifascist Forces in Afrin, and Tekoşîna Anarşîst. He was not joking. When he died, he was a seasoned and widely respected veteran, known as the first in the line of fire and the last to leave. I had begun to believe that Lorenzo was bulletproof – until he ceased to be.
That said, Lorenzo was by no means a fanatical fighter. He didn’t like war per se. He read and wrote constantly. He studied history, politics, language, theory, tactics and strategy. His Kurdish was reasonable and he was learning Arabic. She knew why she was fighting and really believed in the principles of autonomy, ecology, and women’s liberation that we saw being put into practice in Rojava, albeit imperfectly. He lived by his principles and died for them.
In addition to his considerable courage as a freedom fighter, Lorenzo was a remarkable human being in every respect. A cook by profession, he regularly made delicious meals from basic rations. On birthdays and special occasions, he would seek out better ingredients and spend hours making delicious gnocchi and sauces from scratch. He spoke English well, though not exactly fluently, peppering it with fabulous inaccuracies, Italian idioms and quirky phrases for effect. He could express his point of view in any meeting with brutal thoroughness, using half the words a native English speaker would use. He was quick to get angry and quick to forgive, able to fire off a hailstorm of hair-raising insults when provoked and completely forget the incident within minutes. Lorenzo loved dogs and was especially kind to puppies. He had a thing for weird techno music, jihadist nasheeds, and the song “Live By The Gun” by Waka Flocka Flame. He was short and stocky, covered in tattoos, and a world-class master of the video game “Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III.” If there was a moment when he had nothing more important to do, he was content to curl up in a blanket, stretch out on the floor, pick up his phone and fight the orks of Tartarus, a practice that – for reasons unrelated to me – he said was like “pumping my cannon.” He was a real figure.
Many of my sharpest memories of Lorenzo, and of Rojava in general, revolve around sleep and the lack of it. In my mind, he is the small ember of a cigarette appearing in the darkness, long overdue, coming to relieve me from my position and tell me that I can finally rest. Şev baş, heval.
Lorenzo was killed on March 18, 2019, on the last day of the last battle of the last major engagement of the territorial war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. I had just returned from the front in Baghuz Fawqani. He left for the front the night I got back. We said serkeftin, hugged, and that was it. Within days, Baghuz had fallen and Lorenzo was a legend and a martyr. Three years have passed. I live my life quietly, surrounded by my loved ones. I wish Lorenzo had come home from Syria, as I did. I wish I had his number in my phone and that I could hear his voice again. However, I believe that there are things in this life that are worth dying for. From the point of view of Rojava’s civil society, I don’t think there was anything to be done about ISIS besides defeating them by military means. Someone had to do that. Lawrence did his part.
To your loved ones in Florence, I would like to say that I also, in my own way, took care of Lorenzo. As my friends and I said in our first statement after his death, “A part of us died with him and a part of him lives with us.” We hope you are proud of him and can understand the choices he made. I leave the reader with Lorenzo’s last words, translated for posterity by his friends gathered around an empty table somewhere in northern Syria on March 18, 2019. Rest in peace, heval.
“Hello.
If you are reading this message, it means that I am no longer in this world. Don’t be too sad, I am at peace with that. I have no regrets and I died doing what I thought was right. Defending the weakest and staying true to my ideals of justice, equality and freedom.
So, despite my untimely departure, my life was a success. I am almost certain that I left with a smile on my face. I couldn’t ask for more.
I wish you all the best in this world and I hope that one day you too will decide to give your lives for others (if you haven’t already) because it is the only way to change the world.
Only by fighting the individualism and selfishness in each of us can we make a difference. These are difficult times, I know, but don’t despair, never give up hope, never! Not even for a second.
Even when all seems lost, when the evils afflicting the earth and humanity seem insurmountable, you must find strength, you must inspire strength in your comrades.
It is in the darkest moments that we have the greatest need of your light.
And always remember that every storm begins with a single raindrop. You must be that raindrop.
I love you, I hope you will treasure these words in the future to come.
Serkeftin!
Ⓐ︎Orso, Tekoşer, Lorenzo.”
“And always remember that ‘every storm begins with a single raindrop.’ You must be that raindrop. I love you all, I hope you will cherish these words in the future.”
