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Eugene DSA is pleased to present a report by journalist and author Debbie Bookchin, who has recently returned from the autonomous Kurdish-led region known as Rojava. She will talk about why it is critical to defend this feminist, ecological, democratic project from the ongoing onslaught by Turkey and its jihadi allies as well as the Syrian regime, and how ideas of social ecology have influenced the Kurdish freedom movement. This report is part of the speaking tour that ECR envisions as a step towards building a nationwide network to support Rojava and the Kurdish movement at a time when they are in grave danger.

Debbie is a journalist and author, and one of the founding members of ECR. She has reported for a variety of high-profile publications, and her initial report from Rojava appeared in The New York Review of Books in April this year. She has also co-edited a book of essays by her father, Murray Bookchin (The Next Revolution: Popular Assemblies and the Promise of Direct Democracy (2015), and co-wrote, with her husband Jim Schumacher, The Virus and the Vaccine: Contaminated Vaccine, Deadly Cancers and Government Neglect (2004). She served as press secretary to Bernie Sanders for three years when he was first elected to Congress in Washington. Debbie has given talks about Rojava at many events in the U.S. and in Europe. Most recently, she presented at an event co-sponsored by Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, NYU, together with David Graeber.