About the Komun Academy

The Komun Academy is part of the Kurdish freedom movement and aims at discussing and finding solutions to both, local, specific problems as well as universal contradictions (human freedom issues, women’s oppression, ecological crises, capitalist exploitation, racial supremacy, colonialism, knowledge imperialism, poverty, war, etc.) through the perspective proposed by Abdullah Öcalan’s democratic, ecological, and women’s liberationist paradigm with Democratic Confederalism as its political system. We want to make our contribution to dismantling Capitalist Modernity and its ideological pillars through our contribution to Democratic Modernity via a freedom-based notion of knowing, learning, and educating.

As the fundamental units of Democratic Modernity, people’s academies constitute the theoretical groundwork of societal mentality in favour of freedom. These units which we could even define as village academies work to guarantee society’s ability to become aware of its own needs and organize around them, through an ethical-political mentality. The Komun Academy is not here to merely engage in theoretical discussions, but illustrates the practical implementations and mobilizations of this paradigm in lived experience. Because a paradigm which does not achieve the unity and interplay between theory and practice will not only fail, but might even work in the service of the system.

The Komun Academy does not aim at idealism which will only appeal to a small section inside society. Instead, it works to portray the real struggles that organize themselves around this paradigm all over the world. We want to be the agora of the mothers, workers, laborers, strugglers, rebels, youth, and militants!

In this sense, the Komun Academy’s understanding of academy constitutes the opposite of the academia as presented by the status quo. Rather than producing science for states, elites, and profit, the Komun Academy aims to rightfully re-connect knowledge with the community.

The Komun Academy will furthermore reflect the practical struggles of society’s return to its egalitarian and liberationist essence. Against the third world war, the rise of right-wing populism, class exploitation, patriarchal fascism, and ecological catastrophes, the academy’s discussions will view diversity as richness, organize common life and develop a mentality outside of state and power.

In the spirit of radical democracy, as one of the fundamental dimensions of Democratic Confederalism, the Komun Academy knows that your critique, participation, suggestions, interpretations and contributions will be of great importance. As the energies of individual and society nourish each other, the contribution of each individual will broaden the freedom sphere of the discussions.