“We will emancipate society!”

The Rojava experiment

The model of an anti-hierarchical, confederalist democracy that the Kurds in Rojava, in northern Syria, are advancing on the border to Turkey represents an authentic alternative to the forces in the Middle East. The vehemence and violence with which the authoritarian Turkish state is reacting to this indicates how strongly the state feels challenged and fears that the conceptual, and already practiced, radicalism with which the people in Rojava are pursuing cultural change could spread across the border. In the importance that this project attaches to the emancipation of women, I've discovered much of what I was able to observe and occasionally film among politicized Palestinian and Sahrawi women. On this I would like to place the main focus: What role do the women play in this exceptional project. I am convinced that despite all the setbacks, in the long run the pioneering spirit driving this project will leave its mark not only in the hearts and minds of the individuals, but also the region. I am not interested in statements from functionaries, politicians, ideologues or senior officials. I am interested in the war and the combatant status only insofar as it is an involuntary part of daily life. Much more important for the film are the projects and structures that are in the process of being set up or have already been realized: direct democratic self-governance, which begins with the neighborhood; reorganizing the economy and meeting the needs of the population through cooperatives; the multiethnic, multicultural and multireligious concept of the schools, educational facilities and cultural centers; the women's centers; and the justice centers, which place reconciliation above retribution.

Needless to say, the film will point out the contradictions in building a new society: private versus common property; the centuries-old influence of tribal, patriarchal and religious means of exerting power; direct democracy through local councils versus the traditional party system that had hitherto exercised political power; and the confrontation of the sexes with a new role model for women. All this cannot proceed without friction or resistance. Apparently, the radical changes are taking place largely without the use of force, existing private property remains untouched, and people are proudly proclaiming that no blood has been shed.

A central question of concern to me for decades has been the return of combatants into civil society structures: How can one prevent the logic of a necessarily hierarchical command structure from leaving its authoritarian imprint on a society committed to radical democracy? Or is it possible that a society at war has to grant its people more democratic freedoms, as Janet Biehl* writes, in order to be able to mobilize them for the resistance against Islamic State and the Turkish military?

In the still occupied Palestinian territories, the development of a civil society that wields effective political influence has more or less failed. The consequence is depolitization, a retreat into the personal sphere. Will Rojava's future be different?

 

* Janet Biehl was Murray Bookchin’s partner and collaborator. Murray Bookchin’s writings on a communitarian model of democratic governance via people’s councils are the central source of inspiration for the Rojava project.