Kurdistan. Real democracy in conditions of war and blockade

The book "Kurdistan: Real Democracy in the Conditions of War and Blockade" is a study of a unique political experiment in the Middle East. Through national assemblies, councils, cooperatives and schools, the Kurds are asking to build a horizontal model of society with equality and self-organization. In the conditions of external pressure, internal contradictions and the constant threat of violence, this model becomes an example of living resistance and an alternative to the usual statehood.

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For centuries, the Kurds have been an oppressed people who still do not have their own state. But despite everything, after the weakening of the governments of Syria and Iraq, there was an opportunity to radically change the situation.

Today, the people of Kurdistan are asking to build a system of national assemblies, to achieve social justice and gender equality, to establish accountability and election of military commanders. It reminds the best impulses of anarchists during the Civil War in Spain or cooperators after the Russian Revolution, when people built their lives in a new way.

As part of their field research, the authors studied how the synthesis of new ideas with traditions takes place in Kurdistan using concrete examples - schools, volunteer battalions, district councils.

On the one hand, the Kurdish experiment is threatened by terrorists and the Turkish government, on the other hand, it is criticized for cooperation with the USA and Russia against ISIS, and insufficient revolutionaryness. Can direct democracy survive in a hostile environment?