Review by Choice Review
This book argues that Kurds in Turkey and Syria should strive to achieve self-determination not via ethnonationalism or a national state, but rather by means of libertarian municipalism "wherein seizing state power through a revolution is replaced by building ecological and grass roots [sic] communes and autonomous towns and cities in Kurdistan, with or without authorization from centralized states" (e.g., Turkey and Syria). The author is a supporter of Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) in Turkey and the post-Marxist theoretician Murray Bookchin, both of whom posited impediments due to the "detachment" of Kurds from state-building projects and self-rule. Both have opposed a "single state" entity and a one-state constitution. The Kurdish movement itself is also opposed to the nation-state and to the universalism of the "Islamic Ummah," both of which, they argue, are antithetical to Kurdish self-rule allowing Kurds to have control over the means of violence and natural resources. The "Kurdish model" they advocate should increase understanding of citizenship, cultural/territorial boundaries, and autonomous/self-rule. The author acknowledges, however, that forces deployed by other political actors--here one may think of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, or Syria--will decide the fate of the model they proffer. So yes, indeed, this book makes a very dense and difficult argument. Summing Up: Optional. General readers. --Robert W. Olson, emeritus, University of Kentucky
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
