A unique social and political experiment is taking place in North and East Syria: Around five million people are governing themselves. They are developing a democratic alternative to patriarchy, nationalism and jihadism that have plunged the Middle East into its current deep crisis. In thousands of local communities, councils and cooperatives, Arabs, Kurds, Yazidis and Christians, both men and women, are organizing themselves. What does this confederal democracy beyond the nation state look like?
The basis is the self-administration of the population in local communes, which comprise between 150 and 1500 people. They are always led by a dual leadership consisting of a woman and a man. The communes ensure the supply of energy and food and organize self-defence, education, health care and conflict resolution. Everyday life and political participation come together in the communes. Starting from this basis, there is a system of councils, from the neighborhoods and villages, through the cities and cantons, to the entire self-administzration. These councils have a mixed composition: Directly elected delegates meet representatives of organized social groups, such as ethnic groups, religious communities, youth and women.
TEV-DEM, the umbrella organization of civil society organizations, and Kongreya Star, the association of all women’s organizations in North and East Syria, act as a counterweight to the self-administration. The liberation of women is one of the greatest successes of the Rojava-revolution. Through the „dual leadership“ and their own women’s structures in politics and the military, women’s cooperatives and women’s shelters (Mala Jin), women in North and East Syria have fought for independence and political participation.
The basis of this political system is the social contract. The term itself shows that self-administration is not about establishing a state of their own. An updated version of the contract has been in force since late 2023, as the previous version was adopted in 2016 before the liberation of the predominantly Arab cantons of Raqqa, Tabqa, Manbij and Deir ez-Zor from ISIS. After the military victory over jihadists, the entire society revised the social contract – a good example of the vitality of democracy in North and East Syria, which is based on the participation of all population groups. The social contract thus also represents an opportunity for a peaceful solution to the current Syrian crisis.
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