#kobani

I’ve read almost all the material you can on the Rojava Revolution [in english], the current expression of the Kurdish freedom movement, “one of the world’s longest running contemporary resistance movements—a one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old struggle stretching the opulence of the Ottoman Empire to today’s bloody civil wars in Syria and Iraq [p. 5]” and this short collection of anonymous essays is my favorite.
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The one redeeming thing I can see out of our disastrous occupation and invasion of Iraq is peace and security for the Kurds, and democratic confederalism and social ecology are two beautiful underpinnings to such a tragic story.
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“A revolution has its moment. Whether it is the Arab Spring, or the Occupy Movement, or Ten Days That Shook the World, there is a time when a spark hits some kindling and a time, or place, ignites. Whether the flame becomes strong, or withers without additional fuel, or gets put out, violently, always remains to be seen.
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And so, now, we have Rojava. A man serving a life sentence in Turkey found one of Murray’s books, decided to read them all, and then convinced his followers [PKK] to create a real-life laboratory of liberatory expression. In a most difficult historical situation, in a most remote region, surrounded by enemies on all sides, this egalitarian exercise could almost be on a fictional moon. But it is real.
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“To inspire our own work at home, we need to hear from those creating fragile and imperfect oases of freedom.” [p. 6] (at New College of Florida)