Islamic State is harvesting the world’s attention, but meanwhile, Kurdish freedom fighters are using the disintegration of Syria to carve out an autonomous state they call “Rojava” (sunset). Their vision is of creating a completely new kind of society based on radical democracy, diversity, tolerance and gender equality – shaped by the ideas of a forgotten American revolutionary thinker called Murray Bookchin. The formerly socialist PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan discovered Bookchin’s writings whilst in solitary confinement in a Turkish prison on a tiny island and found a new template.

This clip from Submedia TV shows how men and women have been fighting the head-chopping ISIS to create a libertarian commune along the border between Syria, Iraq and Turkey.See also this more in-depth documentary from anonymous journalists who had to dodge Turkish army patrols to enter the autonomous zone area to meet Kovan Direj, a Kurdish activist, and read Adam Curtis’s post and analysis of the situation.
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