Rojava to Minneapolis: Organizing & Social Ecology Without the State in Northeast Syria
You may have heard of a region in Northeast Syria known as Rojava from past news coverage of women defending their communities from the Islamic State (or ISIS). If you haven’t, it’s an autonomous region where people have undertaken an “experiment in feminism, pluralism, democracy and environmentalism“ that includes a sweeping vision of social ecology which centres women as leaders and that has provided protection for minorities in Syria (in sharp contrast to successive Syrian Governments). Parts of the region closely resemble the Canadian prairies.
There are few simple fixes in an area that has faced a long history of conflict and genocide. But now Kurds and other cultural minorities in Rojava are also being threatened with the prospect of ethnic cleansing by the new Syrian Transitional Government of Damascus that has attacked Rojava. For context, the new Syrian Government has ties to Al-Qaeda and is friends with the U.S. Administration – it seems a common disdain for womens’ rights and for minorities is enough to bring them together.
In a special two part podcast series we look into Rojava’s social ecology approach and the current humanitarian crisis in Rojava (also known as the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria):
- In Part 2 (recorded January 27th, 2026, listen here on the podcast platform of your choice or listen below) we examine the history of conflict in the region and the humanitarian crisis unfolding right now and the threat from the new Syrian Government to Kurds and other cultural minorities in the area with journalist James Stout. We also delve further into organizing-without-the-state skills from Rojava of use to anyone anywhere including here.
- In Part 1 (recorded on January 7th, 2026, listen here on the podcast platform of your choice or listen below) we talk with a journalist and Emergency Committee for Rojava representative (Arthur) about the experiment in social ecology in Rojava and what we might be able to learn from it in Canada.
James also recently returned from reporting on I.C.E.’s invasion of Minneapolis which we discuss in Part 2. As James puts it:
“I met an older lady in Minneapolis… she said ‘we wish our politicians would do more [to stop I.C.E.], but they’re not going to, so that’s okay, we’ll do it ourselves.’ And I wish people would just take that, if they take nothing else from my book [on Rojava], if they take nothing else from what is happening in Minneapolis, it would be that:
You don’t have to wait [for politicians to act], you can do it yourself, and maybe you can do it better… And I think that’s something I took from Rojava – I took a sense of hopefulness.”
One way you can help call for a peaceful resolution to the situation in Northeast Syria is by spreading the word about what’s happening in Rojava to others in Canada.
We often cover community solutions to environmental crises in Canada, giving communities more autonomy via renewable energy and mutual aid systems, and how organizing from the ground up can help Canadians protect our environment. Rojava is a vital example of similar initiatives being attempted at scale and how these initiatives have brought resilience to communities in some of the hardest conditions imaginable.
– This is an excerpt from a January 30th edition of our weekly eNewsletter.
