Written by Ercan Ayboga The History of Cities in North Kurdistan After the foundation of the Republic of Turkey, the cities in North (Turkish-occupied) Kurdistan became progressively poorer relative to those in the Turkish state. This led to comparatively weak municipalities ruled by so-called system parties, which were hierarchical, corrupt, and extremely alienated from the […]
Read More The Democratization of Cities in North Kurdistan
Written by Havin Guneser with Eleanor Finley What sets us apart as humans—especially those who struggle for freedom and reject injustice, inequality, oppression, and exploitation—is our imagination. We can refuse to accept that which is simply handed over to us as truth. Let us begin here in our exploration of the journey of the […]
Read More The Evolution of the Kurdish Paradigm
This interview has been sponsored and published by the Peace in Kurdistan Campaign Connor Hayes speaks with Dr Federico Venturini, associate researcher at the University of Udine, about a recently published book he has co-edited entitled “Social Ecology and the Right to the City: Towards Ecological and Democratic Cities,” published by Black Rose Books. Topics […]
Read More Thinking Ecologically, Acting Globally – An Interview with Federico Venturini
ISE board and faculty member Brian Tokar reports: Dilar Dirik, a noted international voice of the Kurdish women’s movement, was a keynote speaker at the recent fifth international conference of Trise (Transnational Institute of Social Ecology), the European s cial ecology organization. Speaking via Skype from Cambridge, England to an audience of well over 100 […]
Read More Presentation by Kurdish feminist, Dilar Dirik
A group of human rights activists, among them British actress Maxine Peake and former Icelandic Minister of Justice Ögmundur Jónasson, travels to Turkey to visit the imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan. He is currently being held in Imrali Prison, under conditions of complete isolation. Here is a short documentation of the 2019 Imralı Peace […]
Read More Short documentary on the 2019 Imralı Peace Delegation
Written by Mathew Little I’ve been doing a lot of reading about Rojava (the predominantly Kurdish region in Northern Syria) recently and I think what they are doing in terms of building democracy from the street upwards (in contrast to our barely representative systems) deserves our studied attention. It certainly appears very impressive and they aren’t […]
Read More Democratic Revolution in Rojava
Article by Thomas Jeffrey Miley. First published at ROAR Magazine in October 2017. Could Öcalan’s democratic confederalism offer a revolutionary alternative to the stalemated outcomes of the Catalan and Kurdish independence referendums? Police violence against peaceful demonstrators in Barcelona. Military occupation by Iraqi army forces in Kirkuk. Institutions of autonomy and self-rule severely […]
Read More The Perils and Promise of Self-Determination
Written by Yavor Tarinski Introduction Life on this planet, as we know it, is a result of fragile environmental conditions that the contemporary predominant neoliberal system has already began to alter. Capitalism and its doctrine of unlimited economic growth seems to completely neglect this dependency and continues to violently exploit nature for the benefit of […]
Read More Commons, Social Ecology and the Transcending of Capitalism