The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement which historically operated throughout Kurdistan but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq. Since 1984, the PKK has been involved in asymmetric warfare in the Kurdish–Turkish conflict. Although the PKK initially sought an independent Kurdish state, in the 1990s its goals changed to seeking autonomy and increased political and cultural rights for Kurds within Turkey.
Abdullah Öcalan, also known as Apo, is a political prisoner and founding member of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Murray Bookchin was an American social theorist, author, orator, historian, and political philosopher. A pioneer in the environmental movement, Bookchin formulated and developed the theory of social ecology and urban planning within anarchist, libertarian socialist, and ecological thought. He was the author of two dozen books covering topics in politics, philosophy, history, urban affairs, and social ecology. Among the most important were Our Synthetic Environment (1962), Post-Scarcity Anarchism (1971), The Ecology of Freedom (1982), and Urbanization Without Cities (1987). In the late 1990s, he became disenchanted with what he saw as an increasingly apolitical "lifestylism" of the contemporary anarchist movement, stopped referring to himself as an anarchist, and founded his own libertarian socialist ideology called "communalism", which seeks to reconcile and expand Marxist, syndicalist, and anarchist thought.
Democracy & Nature was a peer-reviewed academic journal of Politics established in 1992 by Takis Fotopoulos as Society and Nature, obtaining its later name in 1995. Four volumes of three issues each were released by Aigis Publications from 1992 to 1999. From 1999 to 2003, five more volumes were released by Routledge. Publication ceased at the end of 2003, after which Fotopoulos established a new journal, The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy.
Contemporary anarchism within the history of anarchism is the period of the anarchist movement continuing from the end of World War II and into the present. Since the last third of the 20th century, anarchists have been involved in anti-globalisation, peace, squatter and student protest movements. Anarchists have participated in armed revolutions such as in those that created the Makhnovshchina and Revolutionary Catalonia, and anarchist political organizations such as the International Workers' Association and the Industrial Workers of the World have existed since the 20th century. Within contemporary anarchism, the anti-capitalism of classical anarchism has remained prominent.
The Kurdistan Communities Union is a Kurdish political organization committed to implementing Abdullah Öcalan's ideology of democratic confederalism. The KCK also serves as an umbrella group for several confederalist political parties of Kurdistan, including the Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Democratic Union Party (PYD), Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), and Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party (PÇDK). Finland and Sweden's alleged support for the KCK, is one of the points which caused Turkey to oppose Finland and Sweden's NATO accession bid.
The Democratic Union Party is a Kurdish left-wing political party established on 20 September 2003 in northern Syria. It is a founding member of the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change. It is the leading political party among Syrian Kurds. The PYD was established as a Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in 2003, and both organizations are still closely affiliated through the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK).
The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), also known as Rojava, is a de facto autonomous region in northeastern Syria. It consists of self-governing sub-regions in the areas of Afrin, Jazira, Euphrates, Raqqa, Tabqa, Manbij, and Deir Ez-Zor. The region gained its de facto autonomy in 2012 in the context of the ongoing Rojava conflict and the wider Syrian civil war, in which its official military force, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), has taken part.
The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy is a 1982 book by the American libertarian socialist and ecologist Murray Bookchin, in which the author describes his concept of social ecology, the idea that human social problems cause ecological problems and can be solved only by reorganizing society along ecological and ethical lines. The book is considered Bookchin's magnum opus, but it has also been criticized as utopian.
The Women's Protection Units or Women's Defense Units is an all-female militia involved in the Syrian civil war. The YPJ is part of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the armed forces of Rojava, and is closely affiliated with the male-led YPG. While the YPJ is mainly made up of Kurds, it also includes women from other ethnic groups in Northern Syria.
The Movement for a Democratic Society is a left-wing umbrella organization in northern Syria founded on 16 January 2011 with the goal of organizing Syrian society under a democratic confederalist system. TEV-DEM is currently chaired by co-chairs Zalal Jagar and Kharib Heso.
Syrian Kurdistan is a region in northern Syria where Kurds form the majority. It is surrounding three noncontiguous enclaves along the Turkish and Iraqi borders: Afrin in the northwest, Kobani in the north, and Jazira in the northeast. Syrian Kurdistan is often called Western Kurdistan or Rojava, one of the four "Lesser Kurdistans" that comprise "Greater Kurdistan", alongside Iranian Kurdistan, Turkish Kurdistan, and Iraqi Kurdistan.
Democratic confederalism, also known as Kurdish communalism or Apoism, is a political concept theorized by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan about a system of democratic self-organization with the features of a confederation based on the principles of autonomy, direct democracy, political ecology, feminism, multiculturalism, self-defense, self-governance and elements of a cooperative economy. Influenced by social ecology, libertarian municipalism, Middle Eastern history and general state theory, Öcalan presents the concept as a political solution to Kurdish national aspirations, as well as other fundamental problems in countries in the region deeply rooted in class society, and as a route to freedom and democratization for people around the world.
Asya Abdullah is a Kurdish politician working to establish democratic autonomy in Rojava, Northern Syria. Asya Abdullah is the current co-chairwoman of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the former co-chair of the Movement for a Democratic Society (TEV-DEM) coalition, and serves as a senior permanent member of the Syrian Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), serving in its upper administrative body. She has presented at numerous conferences to reach out to activists, academics and world leaders to garner support for the Kurdish political project in Rojava.
Hêvî Îbrahîm Mustefa is the Democratic Union Party (PYD) prime minister of the Afrin Region, a de facto autonomous region of the Democratic Federation of North and East Syria.
Kongra Star, founded in 2005 under the name of Yekîtiya Star, is a confederation of women's organizations in Rojava, Syria. The name Star "refers to the ancient Mesopoamian goddess Ishtar, and nowadays the name also refers to celestial stars." They have been instrumental in the significant advances made in gender relations in the region. Its work is based on the claim that "without the liberation of women, a truly free society is impossible." One of its founding members is Îlham Ehmed, former Co-Chair of the Syrian Democratic Council.
The Rojava conflict, also known as the Rojava Revolution, is a political upheaval and military conflict taking place in northern Syria, known among Kurds as Western Kurdistan or Rojava.
Jineology is a form of feminism and of gender equality advocated by Abdullah Öcalan, the representative leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the broader Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) umbrella. From the background of honor-based religious and tribal rules that confine women in Middle East societies, Öcalan said that "a country can't be free unless the women are free", and that the level of women's freedom determines the level of freedom in society at large.
Besê Hozat is a leader in the Kurdistan Workers' Party and is the co-chair of the Kurdistan Communities Union alongside Cemil Bayik. She is the sixth member of the General Presidential Council, the most authoritative body in the PKK.
Anarchism in Syria emerged as a largely disorganized movement during the authoritarian rule of the Assad government, but following the initiation of the Arab Spring has been a particularly notable factor in the Rojava conflict during the civil uprising phase of the Syrian civil war.
