Author: admunisty

When Bookchin died in July 2006, the PKK assembly saluted “one of the greatest social scientists of the 20th century.” He “introduced us to the thought of social ecology” and “helped to develop socialist theory in order for it to advance on a firmer basis.” He showed how to make a new democratic system into a reality. “He has proposed the concept of confederalism,” a model which we believe is creative and realizable.” The assembly continued: Bookchin’s “thesis on the state, power, and hierarchy will be implemented and realized through our struggle . . . We will put this promise into practice this as the first society that establishes a tangible democratic confederalism.”

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.