AFP has a great story about a new Kurdish effort to establish cooperative agricultural communities in Turkey's southeast region. The story tells about the creation of the first of these villages, where a group of 48 pioneering families have broken ground on a new community. From the story:
The 48 Kurdish families last month descended from their crowded rented apartments on the outskirts of the city of Viransehir, rolled up their sleeves and started work on a vast, green plain surrounded by far-away mountains.
"This should be a message to the state, which believes that we are dependent on it. No, we can build our lives on our own and this is proof," said one of the builders, Huseyin Aksoy.
Such villages are being promoted by Kurdish grouping the Democratic Society Congress, not just to build homes but also to promote peace and lay foundations for a "new life" in a region scarred by war and chronic poverty….
….This "peace village" will be named Ax u Av which means "soil and water" in Kurdish.It will be organised as a farming cooperative based on a system of "democratic autonomy" that even allows children above the age of six into decision-making processes.
This initiative follows a general trend that is developing in Turkey's Kurdish movement, which is emphasizing moves towards greater political and cultural autonomy in the southeast. More on that in this previous post.
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