In Rojava, Syrian Kurdistan

“… this modern prison in Derik, south of Qamishli, the capital of Syrian Kurdistan. […] The guards are helmeted, masked, dressed in black. And you can’t gain access to the top-security section without passing through a series of corridors, fences, and armorplated doors.”

Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See

“Except for one who was wounded when his legs got caught in a scrap metal trap, who shouts at me in his northern French accent, ‘We know who you are!’ This is followed by a clamor of pitiful complaints along the lines of ‘Do you know who is going to try us and when?’ ”

Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See

“A dozen inmates are gathered together at the end of the cell, backs turned as we arrive, praying. At the call of the guard stationed at the peephole, they turn as one and I find myself face-to-face with jihadists who are, I am told, among the most vicious assassins of Raqqa. But in this cell so brightly lit that no shadows are cast, a cell that smells like an old basement full of piles of bedding in garish colors, they look more like poor wrecks in dirty sweatpants and polo shirts, weary-eyed, resigned.”

Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See

“A few kilometers away is a second prison. This one is for children. In reality, it’s a sort of cloister lined with arcades and only recently converted into a correctional facility.”

Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See

“In it we find a hundred-odd adolescents, all boys, who, like Nelson from New York or little Ahmed from Toulouse, say they’ve never committed any crime except to have a father or mother who was a terrorist. They are like small, hunted animals. Many of them don’t know whether their parents are alive or dead. And they have that air of desolate anxiety that is the hallmark of children forever deprived of a future.”

Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See

“I think of the women warriors of The Iliad who protected the cities.”

Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See

“I think of Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons, who loves Achilles, engages him in one-to-one combat, and, in Kleist’s version, succeeds in killing him.”

Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See

“When we arrive at dawn, the soldiers are busy with calisthenics.”

Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See

“… these young women do not love their enemy or anyone else. These warriors are married to Rojava as the monials are to Christ. No seduction, no passion: the lay puritanism of an order of Antigones who watch over the eleven thousand kinsmen and kinswomen killed in the war against the Islamic State — and now against Erdoğan.”

Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See

“Kurdistan is her nom de guerre. She is a tiny woman, pretty, her hair in braids. She commands a battalion of about a hundred women stationed somewhere near the front line.”

Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See