Hosted by Victoria Anarchist Reading Circle, Rojava Solidarity Victoria, Camas Books and Infoshop and Victoria Anarchist Bookfair.

 In Spring 2011, the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) of Northern Syria (Rojava) established a People’s Council of West Kurdistan around the concept of “democratic confederalism” wherein diverse peoples and political actors united under an autonomous anti-state structure of self-governance. Three regional "Cantons" formed a federated structure encompassing most of northern Syria. Rojava's revolution was defended by two militias -- the People's Protection Units (YPG) and Women’s Protection Units (YPJ). The emergence of a secular, feminist, anti-authoritarian system of self-governance in the midst of Syria's civil war was an extraordinary event and military victories against the Islamic State (notably the heroic rescue of minority Yezidi peoples besieged by Islamic State forces in the Sinjar Mountains) brought the Rojava revolution to world attention. 

Join Professor Ozlem Goner to learn about the roots of the Rojava revolution, its ecological, feminist, and anarchic democratic vision, as well as current threats to Rojava poised by Turkish armed forces in alliance with Russia. 

Ozlem Goner is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, College of Staten Island, City University of New York.  Goner has written on a range of issues, including memory and historicity; political economy and the environment; and outsider identities. In 2017 her book, Turkish National Identity and its Outsiders: Memories of State Violence in Dersim, was published by Routledge. She is a steering committee member of the US-based Emergency Committee for Rojava. 

January 14, 7PM, at Camas Books and Infoshop, 2620 Quadra St, Victoria, BC V8T 4E4, Canada

Hosted by Victoria Anarchist Reading Circle, Rojava Solidarity Victoria, Camas Books and Infoshop and Victoria Anarchist Bookfair.

https://www.facebook.com/events/2566667070231822/