It’s been one year since the US bombing of Kobanê—then partly occupied by Daesh [ISIS/IS]—and most of the buildings are still in tatters. Kobanê is in Rojava (meaning ‘West’ in Kurdish), a Kurdish majority region in the north of Syria that declared autonomy from the Assad regime in 2012.
The overall picture is one of a co-operative economy where basic needs are provided through local administrations yet where market structures still exist, albeit in limited forms. Skills and education, including those involved in self-defence, are being collectivised – with the aim being the eradication of hierarchies of knowledge and capacities for violence. The economic programme of Rojava, along with the other elements of the revolution, makes it an experiment in ‘democracy without the state’ which is worth supporting and learning from.
For Öcalan, democratic confederalism means a “democratic, ecological, gender-liberated society,” or simply “democracy without the state.” He explicitly contrasts “capitalist modernity” with “democratic modernity,” wherein the formers’ “three basic elements: capitalism, the nation-state, and industrialism” are replaced with a “democratic nation, communal economy, and ecological industry.” This entails “three projects: one for the democratic republic, one for democratic-confederalism and one for democratic autonomy.”
The point of the revolution, many people told us, is not to replace one government with another, it is to end the rule of the state. The question, the co-president of the Kurdish National Congress put it, is ‘how to rule not with power but against power’.
An interesting report by Zaher Baher of Haringey Solidarity Group and Kurdistan Anarchists Forum who spent two weeks in Syrian Kurdistan, looking at the experiences of self-government in the region against the background of the Syrian civil war and rise of Islamic State.
In early December an international delegation visited Rojava’s Cezire [Jazira] canton where they learned about the ongoing revolution, cooperation and tolerance.
Rojava seemed to me to be poor in means but rich in spirit. The people are brave, educated and dedicated to defending their revolution and their society. Their revolution is grassroots-democratic, gender equal, and co-operative. I’ve never experienced anything like it. The people of Rojava are showing the world what humanity is capable of.
The differences that this system presents is more clearly understood when one understands the reasons behind the revolution’s emergence and why it was necessary. Today the Rojava Revolution’s most important road map is the ‘Rojava Constitution.’ This constitution was formed and accepted by the Legislative Assembly of the Rojava Administration of Democratic Autonomy on January 6th, 2014 in the city of Amûdê in Rojava.
We, the people of the Democratic Autonomous Regions of Afrin, Jazira and Kobane, a confederation of Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Arameans, Turkmen, Armenians and Chechens, freely and solemnly declare and establish this Charter, which has been drafted according to the principles of Democratic Autonomy.
