A women's assembly in the city Qamishlo. Image: Janet Biehl.
Late last month Kurdish militias drove Islamic State forces out of the northern Syrian town of Kobane. The militias are part of what some are calling the Rojava Revolution. Popular assemblies have been set up, there are women and youth councils, there’s a feminist army, the YJA, and education for all is prized.
Inspired in part by the vision of social ecologist and anarchist Murray Bookchin, the autonomous region of Rojava in the North of Syria has adopted the vision of libertarian municipalism calling for Kurds to create self-governing communities.
Writer Janet Biehl was part of a delegation that visited the region last year and is the author of the forthcoming Ecology or Catastrophe: the life of Murray Bookchin. She spoke with Wallace Chapman.
A textile cooperative the city Deri.
