March | 2016 | Co-operative Economy in Rojava and Bakur

The Women’s Co-operatives of Rojava Have Made Significant Advances

Co-ops in Rojava

Originally published in Turkish on Hawar News Agency on 15 July 2015

DÊRIK – The Women’s Agricultural Cooperative was founded by the women of Derik at the end of 2014 with the aim of improving social life, against the patriarchal system. The Women’s…

Ownership and equality in northern Syria

Co-operative Economy in Rojava

By Rebecca Harvey. This article appeared on Co-operative News on 9 March 2016

Ownership in a warzone is complicated idea. This is especially true in northern Syria, where internal conflict has escalated to mass movement of people, border disputes and international military involvement. But…

Rojava – the formation of an economic alternative: Private property in the service of all

Co-operative Economy in Rojava

Afrin Economy Minister Amaad Yusef and a co-operative in Afrin

by Michael Knapp, Historian; Translated from German original by Richard Braude. Originally published on Peace In Kurdistan on 6 February 2015

The revolution in Rojava (West Kurdistan/ North Syria), which started in Kobanî (Ain al-Arab) and spread like wildfire through Afrîn, Dêrik (Al-Malikiya), Qamişlo (Al-Qamishli), Amûdê and Serê Kaniyê (Ras al-Ayn) –…

Personal Account of Rojava

Co-operative Economy in Rojava

This article originally appeared on Rojava Plan

In light of what has happened and what is going to be it seems to me that the time has come for an assessment of the state of affairs in Rojava….

Building autonomy in Turkey and Kurdistan: an interview with Revolutionary Anarchist Action

Co-ops in Bakur

Originally published on 27 August 2015 on Corporate Watch

Below is the transcript of our interview with three members of the anarchist group Devrimci Anarşist Faaliyet (DAF, or Revolutionary Anarchist Action) in Istanbul during May 2015. DAF are involved in…

The Experience of Co-operative Societies in Rojava

Co-operative Economy in Rojava

By TEV-DEM. Originally published on 10 February 2016 on pasewan.com

Economy in Western Kurdistan (Rojava) has been exposed to plunder and exploitation on a large scale by the Syrian state, which controlled the country’s entire resources, rendering the community powerless. This…

The co-ops rebuilding war-torn Syria

Co-operative Economy in Rojava

By James Sullivan. Published on 22 January 2016 on Co-operative News

As well as looking at the UK’s co-operative movement, the January 2016 Ways Forward conference in Manchester broadened its scope to the Middle East. An afternoon workshop chaired by journalist and…

Bookchin, Öcalan, and the Dialectics of Democracy

Co-operative Economy in Bakur

A speech by Janet Biehl, given in February 2012. Published on New Compass

February 3-5, 2012, a a conference was organized in Hamburg, Germany. The theme was “Challenging Capitalist Modernity: Alternative concepts and the Kurdish Question.” The following text was delivered as a speech…

Democratic Autonomy in Rojava

Co-operative Economy in Rojava

By Michael Knapp, member of the Rojava delegation of Campaign TATORT Kurdistan. Translated by Janet Biehl. Originally published on 10 October 2014 on New Compass

In the past 33 years, the Kurdish freedom struggle, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and its leader, Abdullah Öcalan, have not only reacted to social changes but shaped them and proposed…

Rebuilding Kobanê

Co-operative Economy in Rojava

By Tom Anderson and Eliza Egret. Originally published in January 2016 on Red Pepper

‘We have cleared 1.5 million tonnes of rubble,’ Abdo Rrahman Hemo (known as Heval Dostar), head of the Kobanê Reconstruction Board, tells us humbly as we sit in his office in…

6 Notes on the Economics of the Rojava Revolution

Co-operative Economy in Rojava

By Nic Beuret. Originally published on Novara Wire on 16 March 2016

Much has already been written on the revolution in Rojava, a territory comprising three largely Kurdish cantons in Northern Syria made famous by the defence of the town Kobane against the…

The new PKK: unleashing a social revolution in Kurdistan

Co-operative Economy in Bakur

By Rafael Taylor. Originally published on 17 August 2014 on ROAR Mag

As the prospect of Kurdish independence becomes ever more imminent, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party transforms itself into a force for radical democracy. Excluded from negotiations and betrayed by the 1923 Treaty…