Like so many others, I first heard of the Kurds in Syria in 2014, when the news was full of images of women fighters defending their city and the world against ISIS. Alongside these images, the occasional reporter stopped to enquire not only what these women and their male comrades were fighting against, but also what they were fighting for. The answer was startling – inspiring. While we were arguing that another world was possible, far away, in the middle of a warzone, these people were actually building a different society: a society that, in accordance with the philosophy of imprisoned Kurdish leader, Abdullah Öcalan, prioritised community over the crude economic interests that we had been trained to regard as inescapable. That society is in mortal danger.