El Camino Kurdish Now

The YJA-Star (Free Women’s Troops) and the YPJ (Women’s Protection Units) in Rojava (northern Syria) changed the global narrative of women in combat. For these fighters, the camino is not just about national liberation but about psychological and patriarchal liberation. The ideology of Jineolojî (the science of women), developed by imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, posits that the Kurdish road to freedom is impossible without the destruction of male supremacy.

Unlike the well-marked, cobblestone paths of northern Spain, the El Camino Kurdish is etched into rocky goat trails, minefields, and secret smuggling routes. Older generations recall the "Revend" —seasonal migrations where Kurdish nomads moved their herds from winter pastures (in modern-day Iraq) to summer pastures (in Turkey and Iran). These paths, used for millennia, became the arteries of a nation. el camino kurdish

Thus, the El Camino Kurdish became a secret classroom. In the remote mezhe (villages), elders would teach poetry by Ahmad Khani or the revolutionary verses of Cigerxwîn in hushed tones. During the 1990s in Turkish Kurdistan, speaking Kurdish in public could lead to arrest. So, the pilgrimage moved underground. To speak Kurmanji was to walk the path. To sing a dengbêj (storytelling ballad) was to mark a waypoint. The YJA-Star (Free Women’s Troops) and the YPJ

Thus, the political leg of this journey is marked by betrayal as a waypoint. For every victory—such as the autonomous administration in Rojava—there is a Turkish drone strike or an Iranian mortar. To walk the Kurdish camino is to trust no milestone, to know that the road ahead might be bulldozed by a superpower’s realpolitik. The central question haunts every Kurdish conversation: Where does this camino lead? Unlike the well-marked, cobblestone paths of northern Spain,