The Kurds

For my final series I chose to draw the story of the Kurds, specifically at the time of the podcast for New York public radio. The Kurds are an ethnic minority in Syria/Turkey/Iran/Iraq. They in recent years have been, as our allies, engaged in armed defense of their communities, protecting residents of all ethnic groups from ISIS and Al Qaeda. In their defensive autonomy they have started to organize their communities governments and have taken a unique guiding philosophy for their hierarchy. A philosopher that I am a big fan of, Murray Bookchin, actually corresponded with them back in the 70's when they founded their beliefs. I've read a couple of his books and his idea is that all of humanity should be founded on the principles of harmony with nature, an idea he believed would result in human equality and the prevention of environmental collapse. To do so requires having people care about their situation, something they are capable of but asked to do in too abstract a sense in modern times. Bookchin argues that if we center our attention on our local communities and give them the capacity to organize, people who live around the problems care enough to fix them usually. Pretty simple idea to save the world eh? Their constitution is quite literally called "The social contract" and within it they entail how society should be working in harmony with their communities and nature. In contrast to many of their neighboring cultures, Kurdish culture is very pro women's rights and has women equal in all levels of society, including combat. While the prevailing culture around them is rather patriarchal, women in Kurdistan participate and are equally respected members of society. The podcast highlighted how society has been restructured to not only include women as equals, but all members of society and minorities as equals. While the Kurds can identify as an ethnic group they do not exclude any from their communes. While private property does still exist, everything not claimed is public property and resources, and while they haven't been out of war long enough to truly define how those resources would be split, they share the belief that everything is "for the people." I chose to the female freedom fighters, the social contract and the ideas of Murray Bookchin, and finally the departure of American support to the Kurds. This final panel is a tragedy unfolding currently, as the Kurds have made enemies of most of their power hungry neighbors and without American support retribution against them threatens to destroy the whole culture. Not only would many lives be lost but it represents the death of another non-capitalist government from outside influence. Symbolically I chose to make the final panel a representation of the withdrawing of American support, represented by outstretched flowers, a token gesture of our politicians apologizing for Kurdish suffering. The chains that are holding the Kurds back from joining the world in established hierarchy are their own creation, as it is my view that the status quo is not prepared for a commune structure as successful as the Kurds have been. If they were to flourish it would call into question all the issues we have in late stage capitalism. While their is no source to admit that idea, it very much fits with the narrative I see as truth in the world. Irony that I wanted to express by connecting the chains the anvil is that their unique philosophy chains them down as the world won't support them, but it also breaks their chains as it frees them from the issues it saw to begin with. While granting freedom and community, the social contract denies them the capacity to compete with the status quo. It is my hope and wish that their community and philosophy succeeds and that American support withdrawing isn't the death of the idea. Listen to the podcast if you're interested, and if you want more try reading Ecology of Freedom by Murray Bookchin. A little wordy as it is a philosophical text but really quite the inspiring concepts.