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“We did not emerge because of ISIS, and we will not disappear when ISIS is gone. Our existence is rooted in a philosophy of free and democratic life." Viyan, YPJ
In March 2025, radio journalist Virginia Lee was invited by Kurdish-led women's group Kongra Star to join a delegation of women to tour the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES)—a radical experiment in democracy and women's empowerment better known to much of the world as Rojava.
Adapted from a podcast she made after returning home, After the Fall allows the reader to join along with Virginia as she meets with women and men engaged in projects like self-managed refugee camps, transformative justice centres for women facing domestic violence, and the women-only militia which was instrumental in the defeat of ISIS: the YPJ.
The Kongra Star delegation came at a pivotal point in Syrian history. In late 2024, the armed forces of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) finally overthrew the Ba'athist regime of Bashar al-Assad. This was in many ways the conclusion of the Syrian Arab Spring, which began in 2011 with youths painting the Spring's slogan on the walls of Daraa: "The people want the fall of the regime." After a brief flowering of radical experiments in grassroots democracy across the country, the Syrian Revolution quickly became the Syrian Civil War. It was in this context that the nationally-oppressed Kurds in the country's northeast were able to obtain and hold substantial autonomy, which they then used to build a system based on democratic confederalism: a political philosophy of decentralized democracy, ecology, and gender equality.
The same retreat of Ba'athist power that made this radical experiment possible also enabled another radical experiment in society-building, albeit one diametrically opposite in almost every way: the Caliphate of ISIS. The Kurdish defense of their areas against this fascist conquest—which turned to an offensive push to liberate the Caliphate's former territory as it crumbled—made the Syrian Kurdish experiment well-known around the world, as the striking images of the armed women of the YPJ filled media coverage of the conflict, in stark contrast to the invisible women living under ISIS’s patriarchal system.
HTS—which emerged from non-ISIS forces who were also anti-Ba'athist Islamists—has sought to unite the country into one political system for the first time in well over a decade. The DAANES, which has long expressed its desire to form a semi-autonomous part of a federal Syria (rather than an independent state) signed their first agreement with the new government just days before Virginia arrived.
The people on the ground in North and East Syria expressed a wide variety of reactions to this agreement and to the new government’s hastily drawn up constitution. From some there was hope that a unified Syria would be better positioned to end Turkish assaults on the region. From others, anger that an agreement would be signed without women's participation or inclusion when the DAANES structure includes male and female co-chairs of every institution and parallel women-only structures at all levels to ensure that women are empowered and heard.
A year later, it is clear that the most optimistic responses have not been born out. The Syrian government seems unwilling to accept anything like the autonomous, confederal structure which the DAANES advocates and models, and despite public pronouncements to the contrary, they do not seem to be building a Syria inclusive of national minorities or those who do not practice their rigid, patriarchal form of Islam.
As Jenni Keasden, co-author of Worth Fighting For: Bringing the Rojava Revolution Home, writes in the Foreword,
In January 2026, the new Syrian government (urged on by Turkey and granted permission by the US) went on a brutal offensive to take back huge areas of North and East Syria. The stark reality is that many of the places described in this book are no longer run through direct democracy, no longer empowering women institutionally and socially, no longer places of religious and ethnic diversity and tolerance. In this context, it’s even more important to understand how we got where we are, what is under threat or (at least temporarily) lost, and exactly why it’s so important to care.
History is a series of moments, a series of present tenses. All politics and struggle is made up of these moments, and the individuals living in them and shaping them, and yet is always much more than the sum of these parts. I invite anyone who cares about making a better world to join along with Virginia’s visit to North and East Syria, in a moment that is ever more beautiful now that it has become history.
In addition to the material that constituted the podcast After the Fall: Dispatches from the Women's Revolution, this book contains full transcripts for all the interviews the delegation participated in, a glossary, and reading lists for further study.
Read the Foreword
Virginia’s After the Fall is a moment in time. The title alone reminds us of this, and the experiences and stories shared within it are about a present tense, full of open questions, ongoing problems, works in progress, and struggle that doesn’t end. The Assad regime was finally gone from Syria just a few months before she arrived there. But the moment after the fall was increasingly unstable and it wasn’t clear what the future would hold.
Since then, much has changed. If Virginia was to return to North and East Syria and remake her project, she might find parts of it unrecognizable. She certainly couldn’t visit the way she did. As I write, a year later, many of the projects described in this book are no longer able to do their work. Tragically, some of the people she met will have lost their lives and many will certainly have been displaced or had to flee. Does any of this make After the Fall irrelevant, no longer important? Far from it.
I was in North and East Syria at the same time as the group Virginia was a part of visited. We met at a couple of the events and celebrations described in the book. I’d been there for a long time at this point and it wasn’t my first visit. As the struggle becomes normal life, it’s easy to lose a sense of the big picture, and to start to take things for granted. Whenever a new group of “internationalists”—activists from outside the Middle East—arrived, you looked at the place and people anew, like they did. I remember how impressed she and her group were, the excitement and joy with which they took part in the celebrations and the insightful questions they asked. It was a reminder to stop for a second and be impressed, inspired and determined by the sheer reality of it all: a complex, diverse society is remaking social relations and power structures. What leftists, feminists and activists in the West read, talk and dream about, is actually being put into practice. Belief in social transformation, and a beautiful life, is more than just theory. We get there through real grassroots democracy, long term ecology, and women’s liberation. And we do that right now, off the tremendous effort of thousands of women, young people, and organizers across the region. The reality is messy and that’s how you know it’s real—and what makes it so impressive.
For those completely unfamiliar with the Rojava revolution, the Kurdish struggle, and the project in North and East Syria, Virginia provides some context to guide you in. But most of the book consists of interviews, the people of the region speaking for themselves. They talk about running neighbourhood democracy; governing a huge area and staying democratic; women’s organizing in every walk of life; living in the aftermath of ISIS’s misogynistic fascism; the huge challenges facing them materially; the ongoing war; justice; celebration in the face of hardship; and much more.
Virginia lets us see her and her own story as well, as we journey with her through North and East Syria, and this is important. The Rojava revolution isn’t a museum, a dead point of interest, to just observe. It’s living, breathing struggle made by real people. We connect with it as real people too, and it’s an inspiration for how we can do things in our own contexts. But we can’t copy and paste, and we shouldn’t try. It’s when we meet the revolution as our real selves that something exciting can happen.
In January 2026, the new Syrian government (urged on by Turkey and granted permission by the US) went on a brutal offensive to take back huge areas of North and East Syria. The stark reality is that many of the places described in this book are no longer run through direct democracy, no longer empowering women institutionally and socially, no longer places of religious and ethnic diversity and tolerance. In this context, it’s even more important to understand how we got where we are, what is under threat or (at least temporarily) lost, and exactly why it’s so important to care.
History is a series of moments, a series of present tenses. All politics and struggle is made up of these moments, and the individuals living in them and shaping them, and yet is always much more than the sum of these parts. I invite anyone who cares about making a better world to join along with Virginia’s visit to North and East Syria, in a moment that is ever more beautiful now that it has become history.
Crucially, we must remember, and remember to shout out, that things may indeed have changed but this is not the end. Far from it. Some areas may have been lost but much still remains, and despite all hardships the social project continues. The determination, abilities, and sheer courage visible in these pages will help you understand how that can possibly be, and see that things will change again. The moment we are in now will not stay the same forever either. It’s the job of all of us to shape the future.
—Jenni Keasden
co-author of Worth Fighting For: Bringing the Rojava Revolution Home (Active 2023)
About the Author
Virginia Lee is an anarchist in Montreal, occupied Haudenosaunee territory. She has been involved in women-led abolitionist and prisoner support projects (among other things) for two decades.