The ECR is holding its second session of our spring series of reading groups focused on the political economy of the Kurdish Middle East, including Rojava, on Friday, February 26, 6:00 - 8:00 PM EST.

This session will look at the emergence of the PKK within the context of capitalist exploitation and internal colonialism in Northern Kurdistan/ Bakur (Turkey). In our next sessions, we will move on to the anti-capitalist economic vision developed by the Kurdish movement in theory and practice, with a particular focus on the emerging cooperative economy in Rojava. We will have a conclusion session on the transformative potential of the democratic confederalist model.

The readings for the second session, February 26:

1. An excerpt (pp. 4-7) on internal colonialism from Mehmet Kurt's article "My Muslim Kurdish brother: colonial rule and Islamist governmentality in the Kurdish region of Turkey"

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/101793/1/My_Muslim_Kurdish_Brother.pdf

2. Excerpts from Chapter 4 of Veli Yadirgi's book Political Economy of the Kurds of Turkey: pp.191-198 and pp. 201-206. The rest of the chapter is recommended. (Please RSVP for this PDF)

3. Article by Jongerden and Akkaya Born from the Left: The Making of the PKK

https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/3101192

To receive the Zoom information for this meeting, please RSVP to info@defendrojava.org.

Feel free to join the discussion even if you don't get a chance to do all the readings!