Kobanê deserves all its praise. Yet Kobanê was not the first place where the Rojava’s defense forces beat back fanatical, murderous armed jihadists. In November 2012, Jabhat al Nusra attacked and occupied the city of Serê Kaniyê, but YPG threw off that occupation as well.

The embattled Kobanê is now liberated from ISIS. “Let ISIS know that just as the homes of Kobanê became their graves our villages too will become their graves," said YPG Kobanê commander Mahmut Berxwedan. "Our victory is the beginning of the end of ISIS in this world.”

The Syrian civil war is not all about the Islamic State, the al-Nusra Front and the Assad regime; it also hides a bold social experiment. Last December, an international delegation of scholars visited Rojava to learn about the revolution, gender liberation and democratic self-government.

A new radical approach must adequately address the new economic, ecological, technological, and cultural challenges of contemporary society; it must be one of theory and action, one that goes beyond the historical and theoretical limitations of classical Marxism, socialism, and anarchism.

Starting in 2012 a communalist social system has been in the process of transforming Rojava (West Kurdistan, or Syrian Kurdistan). This firsthand account of the institutions of that transformation was written in the early summer of 2014 and thus before the current war.

For some, the prospect of a civilizational collapse is invigorating: the more dire a future we face, the greater the urgency of radical action. But for most people, facing the unthinkable is merely a path to disengagement and despair. If apocalypse is inevitable, why bother with activism at all?

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