Hope Without Hope: Rojava and Revolutionary Commitment

Lark & Bloom Library invites you to attend the Brighton book launch of Hope Without Hope: Rojava and Revolutionary Commitment with author Matt Bloomfield and panelists Lara Montesinos Coleman (University of Sussex) and Cole Macdonald (Stop L3Harris). All tickets include free light bite and drink, and after the discussion there will be time for questions, and book signings.

Hope Without Hope
What can the women-led, direct-democratic revolution in Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) teach our own embattled Left movements about organisation, resistance, and hope in hopeless times? How has the Kurdish movement followed in the footsteps of other revolutionary movements to develop an unexpected, utopian response to catastrophe? And amid genocide, global conflict and climate collapse, how do we manage to hope and organise here in the UK?

These are the questions author and journalist Matt Broomfield sets out to answer in his new book inspired by the three years he spent living and working in Rojava, Hope Without Hope: Rojava and Revolutionary Commitment.

Timings for the evening
18:30 Doors open - drinks + snacks from Chilli Shaak available (on the house)
19:00-20:15 Panel Discussion
20:15-21:00 Live Music and Book Signing
21:00 End

The panel
Matt Broomfield is a British journalist, poet, and organizer. His writing has appeared in the Independent, New Statesman, VICE, The Nation, and Jacobin, among others. From 2018 to 2020, he spent three years living and working in Rojava (North and East Syria), where he cofounded the Rojava Information Centre, the top independent, English-language news source connecting the Kurdish-led autonomous regions with the international press. For this evening, Matt will be joined in conversation by Lara Montesinos Coleman (University of Sussex) and Cole MacDonald (Stop L3Harris).

Lara Montesinos Coleman has worked for many years with movements facing armed repression in the context of Colombia’s armed conflict and has written about hope in the face of catastrophe in her book Struggles for the Human (Duke University Press, 2024). She is a singer/songwriter with the house band and a founding member of the Lark and Bloom Library collective. She is also a professor at the University of Sussex, where she teaches on the MA in Human Rights.

Cole MacDonald is an activist who was remanded to prison last year after a direct action at Stansted Airport. They are also involved in Brighton’s Stop L3Harris campaign. Stop L3Harris is a group focused on the L3Harris factory in Brighton, which makes bomb release mechanisms and bomb racks for the F-35 fighter jet that is sold to Israel's occupation force as well as other states around the world. 

Ticket details
Tickets are £5, with a free option available for those who need it. We also very much welcome any donations you can make to the work of the Lark & Bloom Library.

If you opt to purchase a copy of the book along with your ticket, you can collect this on the night (option to buy the book will be available at checkout, once you select your tickets).