Fighting Monsters

Book excerpt: Former British soldier Jim Matthews gives up a lucrative career teaching English in Saudi Arabia, and returns to northern Syria to fight ISIS alongside the Kurdish forces. But why, after years as a revolutionary, left-leaning, anti-war protester does he find himself pulled once more into a conflict zone. Does he miss war? Jim is attracted by what he calls the Kurds' "Democratic Confederalism: " 'a grassroots political system, where everyone had fair and equal representation in social decision-making.' But he is never quite convinced of his own reasons for going to Iraq. He is no cold avenger, righter of wrongs or money-grabbing mercenary. In fact, he remains apart from those around him and more in conflict with himself, even when recalling his activities in Palestine. For Jim the real conflict is within himself. An intelligent and evocatively written memoir, that makes the war zones and broken, twisted, dusty battlefields and border towns of northern Syria spring to life.