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American feminist writer and activist Meredith Tax died aged 80 on 25 September 2022. Tax, a pioneer of the women’s liberation movement in the US, was an active supporter of the Kurdish women’s movement and the Rojava Revolution.
She wrote her book A Road Unforeseen: Women Fight the Islamic State, published in 2016, to draw the West’s attention to the female-led Kurdish struggle against ISIS and the democratic revolution in North and East Syria.
Tax, actively engaged in the feminist struggle since the 1960s, was co-founder of many important prominent organisations such as the Women’s World Organisation for Rights, Literature, and Democracy; The PEN American Center Women’s Committee; The Center for Secular Space; as well as the pioneering reproductive rights organisation the Committee for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse (CARASA).
The radical feminist writer also co-founded the North America Rojava Alliance and the Emergency Committee for Rojava (ECR).
Kongra Star, a confederation of women’s organisations in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), issued a tribute message for Tax, who has been battling cancer for a long time and pointed up to her dedication to the Kurdish women’s movement despite her health situation.
“Within the committee, she organised not just solidarity and protest actions for Rojava but at the same time informed the public about the current situation there, put pressure on politicians, won new friends and supporters for the Kurdish liberation cause, and organised concrete solidarity,” the tribute follows.
Longtime journalist and author Debbie Bookchin, also a co-founder of the ECR, commemorated Tax on Twitter. “In the Kurdish struggle, she saw a paradigm for a radical restructuring of society that embraced neither centralised socialism nor an amorphous anarchism but rather a third way: a directly-democratic libertarian socialism or communalism that empowered people in their neighbourhoods,” she wrote.
Remembering the writer as “a mentor, a role model and a dear friend”, the ECR expressed condolences saying, “The world has lost a fierce freedom fighter and a wonderful human being.”
