Debbie Bookchin on Rojava

I came to political consciousness in the decade 1968-1978 while I lived in New Orleans. In 1973 my son Seth was born, nine months after his father left the USA. I was living alone with a baby, working full-time and going to graduate school full-time, so I couldn’t find time to read the dense philosophical books all my anarchist and socialist mentors were reading and raving about. I absorbed Murray Bookchin’s ideas indirectly at potluck dinners and social gatherings. A hero to my cohort, Bookchin predicted climate catastrophe as a result of capitalism, and he advocated a post-Marxist system that was not racist, not patriarchal, not based on dominance. In 1973.

Murray Bookchin’s daughter, a journalist, is now in Portland, talking about what’s happening to the Kurds and to the autonomous region of Rojava. She described the three beliefs Rojava stands on: the belief that women and men are equal and should have equal say in government, the belief that the earth is sacred and humans are its stewards, and the belief that non-capitalist direct democracy can work.

I have been dismissed and derided for “idealism” all my life. “Oh,” people say, “you’re an idealist,” waving a hand as if to brush away a gnat. They say it as if idealism is airy-fairy, soft-headed, no threat to the status quo. But Debbie Bookchin makes idealism look intelligent. She makes it look edgy. She makes it look practical. Read this interview for more depth, or go to this website to see what you can do for Rojava.