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Here, I have often asked why the Liberal Democrats fail to emphasise economic democracy as a bulwark against political polarisation, which I believe stems from the lack of civic participation. Having greater say in workplaces will allow employees to have more control over their lives and in its essence, it is a liberal case. On economics, liberalism should not just be confined to 'free markets,' which often has excused growing monopolisation and the entrenchment of corporate power structures that often limit their workers' sense of freedom, such as obvious culprits like Amazon. Liberalism is in-fact incomplete if workers have no say in how their companies are run.

The early economic liberals like Adam Smith actually framed markets as a tool to end state-sponsored monopoly and protection, not as an end in itself, which makes it ironic that contemporary 'free market' liberalism often tolerates exactly the kind of concentrated private power its founders opposed.

Academic work on liberal-egalitarian routes to economic democracy argues this isn't a departure from liberalism but a fuller application of it, since a liberal commitment to non-domination logically extends into economic relationships, not just sociopolitical ones.

Rather than Labour's statism and the Conservatives' market fundamentalism, we could offer a genuinely liberal approach and this could be our differentiation. Why should we not vouch for workers having a say on company boards, and having stakes in the businesses that they work for? This is distinguished from redistribution, which only corrects unfair outcomes after the fact through taxation and transfers, meaning it treats inequality as a downstream symptom rather than addressing its structural source. We must make the case for pre-distribution to prevent the unfair concentration of wealth and power.

The 2024 For a Fair Deal manifesto does include employee ownership provisions, giving workers at companies with over 250 employees the right to request shares held in trust, and pushing for reformed fiduciary duty rules so company purpose statements weigh employee welfare alongside shareholder returns. However, meat was pulled off the bone: the Autumn Conference in 2012 had a pretty fledged-out policy paper - this was when we were in government, and yet it got squashed as a lot of exciting liberal ideas did that period in an effort to please our coalition partners. This was only to the detriment of liberalism. There is hope that this time round, things could work out differently. It starts now if we want a more dynamic, productive economy, rather than one where power accumulates at the top, away from those who produce the economic value in the first place.

Our aim will be to make the case for economic democracy to once again be at the heart of party policy: co-operatives, mutuals, social enterprises, and employee ownership as economic models that are completely compatible with a more democratised capitalism than the relatively unfree one we have now.

We have designed it deliberately as a campaigning organisation rather than a discussion group. There is a defined first objective, which is to put forward a policy motion to federal conference, and create a membership structured around real contribution, whether that means taking on tasks in the active core or backing specific asks as a supporter.

If this speaks to you, you can sign-up through this form today!

If you work in the co-operative, mutual, social enterprise, or employee ownership sector, we would genuinely love to hear from you as your input is key to formulating refreshing, newer ideas. Our group name is an eponym; Jo Grimond was the Liberal leader from 1956 to 1967 whose economic vision was based on the power of co-operatives as 'socialism without the state.' This way, we are tapping into our heritage and intentionally reviving the civic liberalism he stood for seven decades ago. It is less about where has time gone, but more about where have we gone as liberals.

Looking forward to hearing from you, it is time to make a difference!

I have been reading Lib Dem Voice for years now, and I am really pleased that I have been able to contribute with my two pence. I recently joined the party out of the belief that it was best placed to provide answers to complex problems by thinking outside of the box, and as an evidence-based, centrist party, could provide our political culture with more grace, and listening to each other.

I wrote about how and why I feel that our liberal democracy is under attack by growing resentment and populism, even though populism could be beneficial for democracy as it can contribute to debate, making us realise that problems have been overlooked. I mentioned how we must expand democracy beyond the ballot box to ensure civic participation and belonging becomes the norm in our society.

I am incredibly appreciative of those who have spent a few minutes reading my article, your feedback means a lot to me. :)

I initially felt a bit of trepidation as it is ultimately getting yourself out there, but if you feel that you have ideas to share, do not refrain - it is of great value to discourse within the party!

Under the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, employers must maintain a ‘reasonable’ indoor temperature, but no upper limit is defined. The HSE sets a minimum of 16°C (or 13°C for physical work) but explicitly states there is ‘no meaningful upper limit’ because industries like glassworks, bakeries, and foundries inherently operate at high heat.

The TUC has long campaigned for a legal maximum indoor working temperature of 30°C (or 27°C for strenuous work), but this hasn’t been implemented.

Tiered thresholds by job type - a single number like 30°C fails to account for sedentary office work vs. physical labour; a tiered system (e.g., 30°C for offices, 27°C for physical roles) would be more nuanced.

Mandatory employer action triggers at a defined temperature, employers would be legally required to introduce cooling measures (fans, shade, reduced hours) before sending staff home.

Red Heat-Health Alert integration - the UKHSA/Met Office now issues red heat-health alerts (as happened this week across England); these alerts could automatically trigger legal workplace protections, giving the law a dynamic rather than static trigger point.

View Poll

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I came across these interesting graphs on a blog-post showing the vote in the general election and the intended vote last year by occupational groups. Unsurprisingly, there is an overlap between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, but will this change depending on who the next leader of the Labour party is?

If Burnham unveils a much more social democratic agenda than a tepid one we have seen so far, where there was certainly a lot of overlap, will the Liberal Democrats oppose it and fully take the centrist ground economically?

An article on how AI is shaping how we communicate, access information, and work and the lack of policy surrounding it.

>Almost no one is asking what purpose AI ought to serve, or whether our current mindset, institutions, and control mechanisms are capable of steering the technology toward broad-based improvements in human welfare. 

>What was taboo only a few years ago—AI-driven mass surveillance, algorithms selecting targets for killing—has become routine. 

The Nobel laureate economist Daron Acemoglu suggests that there should be anti-trust action towards the dominant platforms and regulation of surveillance and autonomous weapons, including data protections of workers and citizens.

An economist that I have been following for awhile is Mariana Mazzucato - I resonate with a lot of what she suggests. Her core argument is that the state should play an active role in being a co-creator of markets - not just a fixer of market failures.

Government should set bold 'missions' on climate or health to mobilise both public and private actors around them, while ensuring the public captures a fair return on the risks the state takes.

She argues current economics is trapped in a reactive mode; always correcting market failures after the fact, instead of building economies that serve people and planet. She proposes five guiding principles centred on reciprocity rather than extraction and collectivism rather than consumerism.

Crucially, she argues the how of achieving collective goals matters as much as the goals themselves - meaning participation, democratic accountability, and community involvement must be built into economic structures, not bolted on.

The state is not a bureaucratic bystander to capitalism - it is its most important actor, and it should stop apologising for that, start investing boldly.

What do you think?

Flag of the Mediterranean Union - waves represent the sea, the trident represents Poseidon, the olive wreath represents prosperity and peace, the sun rises on the east (why it is positioned there), and is 'balanced' by the crescent on the left-hand side.

The Mediterranean Union is a supranational union established by the Valletta Charter of 2033, uniting the littoral states of the Mediterranean Sea under a shared framework of economic integration, diplomatic coordination, and collective maritime defence.

Established	14 March 2033
Founding document	Valletta Charter
Latin name	Foedus Mare Nostrum
Secretariat	Valletta, Malta
The Cappella	Toulon, France
Full members	14 states
Associate members	5 states
Observer states	6 entities
Population (full)	~623 million
GDP (nominal)	~$14.2 trillion
Doctrine	The Blue Horizon Doctrine
Motto	Unum Mare, Plures Gentes
Secretary-General	Rotating (3-year term)

Formation: The Sail to Valletta

2025–2032: The Southern Vacuum

The geopolitical conditions that produced the Mediterranean Union were rooted in the compounding failures of the 2020s. The Union for the Mediterranean's 2025 progress report acknowledged that regional integration remained "below potential across different economic dimensions, due to persistent challenges to the movement of goods, services, capital, people, and ideas". A structural deficit that years of incremental cooperation had failed to close. Meanwhile, Gulf states, particularly the UAE and Saudi Arabia, had become major contributors of foreign direct investment across the MENA region, reorientating economic networks away from Europe.

The Mediterranean's southern shore was drifting into a dual dependency on Chinese infrastructure capital and Gulf financial flows, with European institutions unable to offer a compelling alternative.

Simultaneously, the Eastern Mediterranean had become one of the most militarised sub-regions in the world. The Greece–Turkey–Cyprus axis of tension, compounded by competing claims over Exclusive Economic Zones and undersea gas reserves, produced the Aegean Stand-off of 2030. This near-escalation that killed three Greek sailors and briefly suspended air traffic over the Dodecanese.

Turkey, meanwhile, remained estranged from Western institutions: suspended from formal NATO mechanisms following its purchase of Russian air defence systems and its confrontational posture in Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean. Israel, following successive Gaza conflicts and the extension of strikes into Lebanon and Syria through 2025 and 2026, had become diplomatically isolated from most Arab states while maintaining deep security ties with Greece and Cyprus.

>The sea does not care about our alliances. It connects us whether we choose it or not. The question is whether we govern that connection, or let it govern us.
- Remarks by Italian Foreign Minister at Peace at Sea opening session, September 2030

The conflicts consuming the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean - Gaza, Lebanon, Libya, Syria - had by the early 2030s created the largest sustained displacement crisis in Mediterranean history.

Libya remained a fractured state with competing power centres in Tripoli and Benghazi; Lebanon was in its fourth year of post-civil-war reconstruction; Syria's transitional government faced existential threats from IS remnants and Alawite separatist unrest in the coastal provinces. In the fictional timeline, the combined displacement from these four theatres - overlaid on pre-existing Sahel migration routes, caused a series of maritime disasters in the central Mediterranean that forced Italy and Malta to act unilaterally, straining relations with the European Union's migration governance framework to breaking point.

The Mediterranean Union operates a four-tier membership model designed to accommodate the full range of Mediterranean state circumstances from stable liberal democracies to transitional post-conflict societies, without imposing uniform political conditionality as a prerequisite for participation.

Membership Structure

Full Members — Economic, Diplomatic & Military Integration

State	Year of Accession	Notes
🇮🇹 Italy	2033 (founding)	Largest economy; eastern fleet contributor; led Palermo Dialogue
🇪🇸 Spain	2033 (founding)	Western Mediterranean anchor; key migration management role
🇫🇷 France	2033 (founding)	De facto capital at Toulon; dual-Atlantic Union associate; largest naval contributor
🇬🇷 Greece	2033 (founding)	Eastern Mediterranean anchor; Aegean de-escalation champion
🇲🇹 Malta	2033 (founding)	Secretariat host; central Mediterranean strategic position
🇵🇹 Portugal	2033 (founding)	Dual member: Atlantic Union (full) + Mediterranean Union (full); strategic bridge role
🇲🇦 Morocco	2033 (founding)	Largest North African economy; Strait of Gibraltar gateway; solar energy anchor
🇹🇳 Tunisia	2033	First Arab-majority full member; central Mediterranean route management
🇪🇬 Egypt	2033 (founding)	Most populous member; Suez Canal leverage; Eastern Mediterranean gas
🇩🇿 Algeria	2034	Gas and energy resources; Sahel stability gateway
🇭🇷 Croatia	2034	Adriatic anchor; bridges Balkans towards eventual accession path

Associate Members — Economic & Diplomatic Integration (Limited Military)

State	Year	Basis for Membership
🇯🇴 Jordan	2033	Stable Hashemite monarchy; key Levantine diplomatic node; refugee hosting capacity
🇲🇪 Montenegro	2034	Adriatic coastline; post-NATO accession state seeking Southern-tier orientation
🇦🇱 Albania	2034	Adriatic/Ionian coastline; Western Balkans integration pathway
🇲🇷 Mauritania	2035	Atlantic-Sahel gateway; strategic importance to Sahel Stabilisation Fund
🇲🇰 North Macedonia	2035	Balkan connectivity; overland trade corridor to Adriatic

Observer States — Active Conflict or Political Transition

Observer status was designed explicitly for states engaged in active conflict or undergoing fundamental political transitions, for whom full membership obligations would be operationally impossible. Observer states receive humanitarian and reconstruction support from the Union's Mediterranean Development Fund, and their governments may attend Council of Ministers meetings in a non-voting capacity. Accession is contingent on independently verified stabilisation benchmarks assessed by the Union's Transition Progress Committee.

Entity	Status Rationale	Accession Conditions
🇱🇾 Libya	Competing governments in Tripoli and Benghazi; UN-recognised GNU fragile; no unified military command	Unified government with functioning parliament; ceasefire verified by MEDCOM
🇱🇧 Lebanon	Post-civil war reconstruction (2nd phase); Hezbollah disarmament incomplete; sovereignty partially compromised by ongoing Israeli strikes 2025–26	Full sovereignty restoration; functioning central bank; Hezbollah militia disbandment
🇸🇾 Syria	Transitional government (post-2024 Assad fall); IS remnants active; Alawite coastal separatism; Turkish and US forces present	Ceasefire with all armed factions; territorial integrity; transition roadmap ratification
🇵🇸 Palestine	Non-state entity; Gaza reconstruction ongoing; West Bank Palestinian Authority governance contested; no contiguous territory	Recognised state with defined borders; functioning civil authority across both territories
🇧🇦 Bosnia-Herzegovina	Dayton Agreement political dysfunction; Republika Srpska secessionist pressure; ethnically divided governance	Constitutional reform; Dayton successor agreement
🏴󠁥󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Western Sahara	Contested territory; Moroccan administration disputed by Sahrawi POLISARIO Front; unresolved UN decolonisation case	Status acknowledged as contested; accession deferred pending UN resolution. Morocco (full member) has formally objected to observer status.

Special Status Partners

Partner	Status	Nature of Relationship
🇹🇷 Turkey	Suspended Partnership	Participates in maritime exercises and MedGrid gas framework; formal accession frozen pending resolution of Aegean EEZ dispute with Greece and Cyprus, and democratic governance benchmarks following 2020s democratic erosion
🇮🇱 Israel	Strategic Partnership	Outside formal membership; bilateral defence and technology agreements with Italy, Greece, and Cyprus; participation in Eastern Mediterranean gas governance framework; full membership blocked by North African member objections over Palestinian status

The Blue Horizon Doctrine

Pillar	Name	Content
I	Roots - Civilisational Plurality	No Union mechanism may be invoked to impose a single political, religious, or cultural governance model on a member state. Democratic conditionality applies only to observer-state accession, not to full-member obligations. This secured North African and Levantine participation.
II	Branches - Economic Interdependence	Internal energy union (the MedGrid) connecting North African solar/wind capacity to European consumers; unified agricultural trade zone (the Blue Table Agreement); joint Mediterranean Development Fund (€800B capitalised) financing cross-border infrastructure.
III	Fruit - Human Security	Framing migration, desertification, freshwater scarcity, and climate adaptation as primary operational concerns — not security threats.

Achievements Since Creation (2033–2040)

Economic

• 📈Intra-Union trade grew by 34% in the first five years, exceeding projections by 12 percentage points, driven primarily by the Blue Table agricultural agreement and MedGrid energy flows.
• ⚡The MedGrid renewable corridor — anchored by Moroccan and Algerian solar arrays and Tunisian wind capacity — reduced energy poverty across North African member states from 31% to 14% of the population by 2039.
• 🏗️The Mediterranean Development Fund financed 47 major cross-border infrastructure projects, including the Trans-Maghreb Rail Corridor (Casablanca–Tunis) and the Eastern Mediterranean Desalination Network serving Cyprus, Israel (under Strategic Partnership), and Lebanon's reconstruction zones.
• 📊Collective GDP growth across full member states averaged 2.8% annually (2034–2039), against a global average of 1.9%, with Morocco and Egypt recording the highest individual growth rates (4.1% and 3.7% respectively).
• 🔗The Union successfully displaced Chinese Belt and Road successor investment as the dominant infrastructure financing vehicle in Morocco and Tunisia by 2037, reducing strategic economic dependency on Beijing across North African full members.

Diplomatic

• 🕊️The Cyprus Reunification Framework (2036): brokered after sustained Union facilitation - represented the first substantive progress on the Cyprus question in over 60 years, producing a federated cantonal model under Union arbitration and an agreed phased withdrawal of Turkish forces from northern Cyprus.
• ⚓The Aegean Code of Conduct (2035) between Greece and Turkey, negotiated through Union channels, established a permanent joint maritime incident prevention hotline and demarcated a provisional EEZ boundary pending a final International Court of Justice ruling - de-escalating the 2030 Standoff and unlocking Turkey's Suspended Partnership status.
• 🌡️The Mediterranean Climate Accord (2037) - the world's first binding regional climate adaptation agreement - mandated coordinated coastal infrastructure investment across all full members against projected 60cm sea-level rise by 2060, with a joint insurance mechanism for climate-displaced populations.
• 🤝The inaugural Gibraltar Summit (2034), convened jointly with the Atlantic Union, established the Strait Council as the premier bilateral diplomatic forum for Atlantic-Mediterranean coordination on energy, migration, and naval affairs.
• 🗳️The Libyan Stabilisation Process (ongoing), facilitated by Union envoys from 2035, achieved a partial merger of the Tripoli and Benghazi governments into a provisional National Transition Council by 2039 - insufficient for full accession but sufficient for conditional reclassification as "pre-accession observer."

Military & Maritime Security

• 🛡️MEDCOM (Union Maritime Command, Toulon) reduced Mediterranean piracy, people-smuggling vessel incidents, and irregular arms transfers by 61% between 2034 and 2039, through continuous naval patrol, aerial surveillance, and the destruction of 23 smuggling infrastructure nodes in international waters.
• 🛰️The MedSat intelligence-sharing satellite constellation — developed jointly with Atlantic Union assets — achieved full-coverage Maritime Domain Awareness across the entire Mediterranean by 2037, providing real-time vessel tracking to all member-state coast guards.
• ⚔️Fourteen annual Mare Nostrum joint naval exercises were conducted between 2034 and 2040, with France, Italy, and Egypt providing the largest force contributions. The exercises included, from 2037, Turkish units operating under Suspended Partnership protocols.
• 🔒The Eastern Mediterranean Gas Security Framework (2036) established a multilateral governance structure for the Levantine Basin gas fields, preventing the bilateral resource competition between Greece, Cyprus, and Egypt from escalating into a repeat of the 2019–2020 confrontations.

Humanitarian

• 🌊The Union's Migration Governance Framework — replacing the EU's failed ad hoc bilateral deals with a permanent quota-based resettlement system co-managed by European and North African member states — processed 4.2 million displaced persons in its first six years, the largest coordinated humanitarian operation in Mediterranean history.
• 🌿The Sahel Stabilisation Fund (€120 billion, 2035–2045) invested in climate-resilient agriculture, freshwater infrastructure, and renewable energy access across the Sahel belt, aiming to reduce the root-cause pressures driving northward displacement at source.
• 🏥The MedHealth Network — a joint public health architecture established after the post-pandemic institutional lessons of the 2020s — coordinated responses to two regional disease outbreaks (2036 and 2038) with zero cross-border epidemics among full member states.
• 🎓The Mare Nostrum University Exchange Programme (modelled on Erasmus) placed over 180,000 students across member states by 2039, with North African student participation exceeding European for the first time in 2038 — a symbolic milestone in the Union's commitment to genuine civilisational parity.

I am a Briton of what I always perceived as Turkish origin, but I have come to reconcile with my Zaza roots. My parents mentioned their parents speaking Zazaki, but I always shrugged it and found it too distant to really look into it, particularly due to the lack of existence of a Zazaki identity, and it often being absorbed by the larger Kurdish fold. It seemed pointless to ever refer to myself as a Zaza, but looking into the history of the Zazas, it has been interesting to learn more. I thought to myself, what if that history turned out differently, what if my family still referred to themselves as Zaza today?

How things could have turned out:

Republic of Zazaistan (domestically), or Zazakia (internationally)

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Capital	Dersim
Largest city	Çewlîg (Bingöl)
Official languages	Zazaki, Turkish
Recognised languages	Kurmanji, Armenian
Demonym	Zaza
Government	Federal republic
Legislature	Assembly of the Peoples
Religion	Secular state; Alevi majority in the north, Sunni plurality in the south
Currency	Zaza lira (ZL)
Motto	“Mountains do not make a nation, but they teach it endurance.”

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The most natural fork in history is the Sheikh Said rebellion of February 1925. In reality, Sheikh Said - a Zaza Naqshbandi Sufi sheikh from Piran in Bingöl, mobilized thousands of Zaza and Kurmanji Kurds, briefly capturing Palu, Elazığ, Genç, Muş, and parts of Diyarbakır before being crushed and hanged by the Turkish Republic in September 1925. In this alternate timeline, the rebellion succeeds.

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The key change: Britain intervenes diplomatically rather than staying neutral. In reality, Turkey accused Sheikh Said of being a British agent anyway. In this timeline, that accusation becomes reality - Britain, wanting a buffer state against Soviet-aligned factions and a weakened Ankara, covertly supplies weapons and backs international recognition of a new Zaza-Kurdish highland state, much as they had backed the Kingdom of Hejaz or various Hashemite arrangements elsewhere.

The emergent state would likely be called something like Zazaistan, or Zazakia, centered on the mountainous plateau between the upper Euphrates and Tigris rivers, covering roughly what is today Tunceli, Bingöl, Erzincan, and parts of Elazığ and Diyarbakır.

If Zazaistan had emerged from rebellion, it would likely have started as a tribal-religious coalition state, not a modern civic republic. Over time, pressure from education, bureaucracy, and foreign diplomacy would push it toward nationalism and secular institutions, but the early state would almost certainly have been shaped by clan bargaining and religious legitimacy. Internal fallout would have been likely.

Geography and Economy in Early Zazaistan

The new country would be entirely landlocked, mountainous, and poor by industrial standards. Its territory would encompass:

• Rich pastoral highlands ideal for animal husbandry
• Timber and mineral resources (chromite, copper) in the Taurus and Pontus mountain edges
• The headwaters of the Euphrates, giving some leverage in future water politics

Without the infrastructure investment of the Turkish Republic, early Zazaistan would resemble rural Afghanistan or interwar Kurdistan more than a modern European state. Agriculture and pastoralism would dominate for decades. The state's best economic asset would ironically be transit — sitting between Turkey, Persia, Soviet Caucasus, and the Arab world, it could tax trade routes and receive foreign aid in exchange for strategic cooperation.

Political Trajectory: Three Phases

Phase 1 — Foundation and Fragility (1925–1950)

The 1920s and 30s would be consumed by nation-building under constant external pressure. A truncated Turkey, still emerging from the Ottoman collapse but without its eastern hinterland, would repeatedly probe the borders and attempt to destabilise Zaza tribal leaders with bribes and propaganda. The Soviet Union would court the leftist and Alevi factions in the north. In this environment, the state would likely oscillate between authoritarian tribal rule and unstable parliamentary coalitions. Zazaki would be declared the official language, but with literacy rates very low, this symbolic act would take a generation to bear fruit.

Phase 2 — Cold War Balancing (1950–1980)

This is where Zazaistan's story gets most interesting. Sitting at the crossroads of NATO Turkey, Soviet Armenia, and Ba'athist Syria/Iraq, the small republic would become a Cold War prize. It would likely follow a non-aligned path similar to Yugoslavia or India - accepting American military aid to deter the Soviets while maintaining economic ties with Moscow to prevent dependency on Ankara.

By the 1950s–60s, the Alevi-left fusion that happened in our timeline in Turkey would happen here too, but at a state level. Zazaistan's urban intellectuals, educated abroad in Beirut, Paris, and Moscow, would return with socialist and social-democratic ideologies that mapped naturally onto Alevi egalitarianism. The result would likely be:

• A dominant social-democratic party rooted in Alevi values but using secular nationalist language.
• A smaller but vocal Sunni conservative opposition in the southern provinces, periodically backed by Saudi or Turkish influence.
• A genuine internal culture war between urban Dersim secularists and rural southern traditionalists.

Phase 3 — Identity and Survival (1980–present)

By the late 20th century, the same forces that weakened small states globally would hit Zazaistan hard: brain drain, economic stagnation, and the pull of globalisation toward larger states. The Zazaki language would be in a stronger position than in real history, having had state schools and media for 60 years, but urbanisation and emigration to Europe (especially Germany, where 150,000–200,000 real-world Zazas already live) would still erode rural communities. The state would likely look like a small, semi-democratic Caucasian republic - think Armenia or Georgia: proud of its culture, perpetually nervous about its neighbours, and somewhat dependent on diaspora remittances.

The 1980s onward would introduce three forces pulling in opposite directions:

Pushing toward secularism:

• European integration ambitions and EU candidate status requirements.
• Diaspora youth in Germany returning with liberal, post-religious identities.
• A growing urban middle class in Dersim city who are culturally Alevi but personally non-practising.

Pushing against hard secularism:

• A Zaza Alevi revival movement from the 1990s onward, similar to real-world Kurdish and Alevi cultural revivals, demanding that the state formally recognise and fund Alevi institutions rather than pretend neutrality.
• A rising Zaza nationalist conservatism - not Islamist, but arguing that stripping religion and spiritualism from public life erases culture.

Foreign Policy

Zazaistan would almost certainly apply for European Neighbourhood Policy partnership in the early 2000s, gaining access to trade liberalisation, development funds, and institutional reform support without full membership. This is the realistic ceiling for most of this period. Its Alevi-influenced secular-democratic system would be broadly compatible with Copenhagen Criteria - rule of law, democracy, human rights.

By the 2010s–2020s, the EU's eastward logic would have created a precedent: Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia all received candidate status, making the case that geography is not an absolute barrier.

Turkey's blocking power - as an EU candidate itself (since 1987, still unresolved), Turkey would almost certainly use its diplomatic weight to complicate Zazaistan's application, viewing the country as a territorial and symbolic affront. Turkey would view Zazaistan as an amputated eastern limb and a symbolic threat to Turkish nationalist identity. Their relationship would look like Armenia and Turkey in reality - deeply hostile at the elite political level, practically intertwined at the economic and human level. Zazaistan would never formally reconcile with Turkey on the founding narrative (Turkey would never acknowledge the legitimacy of the 1925 partition), but by the 1970s–80s pragmatic trade agreements, border protocols, and people-to-people ties would normalise the relationship below the rhetorical surface. Turkish investment in southern Zazaistan's Sunni-majority provinces would be a constant source of internal political tension - essentially economic influence masquerading as cultural solidarity.

Iran and Russia's influence - both would lobby against Zazaistan deepening EU ties, and their economic leverage over the country would be used as pressure. Iran would be nervous about a Zaza/Alevi state inspiring its own Kurdish and Alevi minorities across the border. Russia would want to prevent a Western-allied state on its southern flank.

The Soviet Union would court Zazaistan hard, particularly its Alevi-left factions. Zazaistan would accept Soviet economic aid and technical assistance during the 1950s–70s - it needs the money, but would resist full political alignment, having watched what happened to Soviet satellite states. The key leverage point would be the Euphrates headwaters: Zazaistan sits on major river sources that flow into Soviet Armenia and eventually Syria/Iraq, giving it a rare natural bargaining chip. However, it would allow American intelligence presence on its territory (monitoring Soviet Armenia and Iran) in exchange for security guarantees - the same deal Finland implicitly made with the West. Internally this would be deeply controversial, with Alevi-left parties accusing the government of selling out to imperialism.

Zazaistan would maintain correct, transactional relations with Iran - energy imports, border management, religious site access for Alevi pilgrims crossing into Iranian Azerbaijan, while keeping political distance from Tehran's ideology. After 1979, Zazaistan would explicitly distance itself from Khomeini's revolutionary model, causing a diplomatic chill that never fully warms.

Small economy - with a GDP probably comparable to Moldova or Kosovo, Zazaistan would need enormous structural funds to meet EU standards, making it a costly addition.

How would it be today?

Zazaistan in 2026 would feel like a crossroads between the Caucasus and the Middle East - mountainous, deeply spiritual, communal, and fiercely proud of its distinctiveness. Its defining cultural atmosphere would come from Alevism, the syncretic, nature-venerating tradition that blends pre-Islamic Anatolian customs, Sufi mysticism, and a reverence for rivers, mountains, and sacred springs. Visitors would describe it as one of the most uniquely atmospheric small countries in the world - remote but not closed off, spiritual without being theocratic, and strikingly egalitarian in its treatment of women in public and religious life.

Culture

Cultural policy foregrounds oral poetry, semah traditions, village lament songs, and the restoration of dede genealogies. National museums are less focused on imperial statecraft than on household objects, shepherd routes, migration stories, and the reconstruction of villages lost to war, depopulation, or renaming.

The republic's best-known annual event is the Munzur Festival of Language and Memory, a week-long gathering that combines music, archive exhibitions, mountain walks, and public lessons in Zazaki. In the speculative imagination of this page, the festival becomes for the Zaza world what Bloomsday is for Dublin or Newroz is for the broader Kurdish sphere.

Music would be Zazaistan's biggest cultural export by far. The bağlama (a seven-stringed lute) would be to Zazaistan what the bouzouki is to Greece - a national instrument, instantly recognisable, played at every occasion from weddings to political rallies. Traditional Dersim music is already characterised by haunting, modal melodies tied to Alevi cem ceremonies and folk laments.

A globally recognised folk-fusion scene, blending bağlama with electronic production - think the international appeal of Armenian duduk music or Georgian polyphony but with a darker, more psychedelic edge.

A Munzur Music Festival held annually on the banks of the sacred Munzur River, drawing tens of thousands from Europe, Turkey, and Iran.

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Food

Zazaki cuisine would be a highland pastoral cuisine - rich, hearty, dairy-heavy, and deeply tied to the seasons. Think Georgian or Armenian food with a more austere, mountainous flavour profile. Signature dishes and products would include:

• Cave-aged herbed mountain cheeses made with wild herbs from high plateaus, exported as a premium artisan product across Europe.
• Tarhana çorbası (fermented grain soup), consumed daily in winter as a staple
• Slow-roasted lamb from the region's highland pastoralism, seasoned with wild thyme and sumac
• Walnut and pomegranate dips influenced by Caucasian neighbours
• A distinctive Zaza breakfast spread - fresh curd cheese, mountain honey, dark sourdough bread, dried mulberries, and bitter herbal tea, which would have become internationally trendy in European food culture by the 2010s–2020s, much like the "Turkish breakfast" became fashionable in reality.

The country's olive oil and honey from lower-altitude zones would likely carry EU Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status, similar to Greek feta or Champagne.

Crafts and Materials

Eastern Anatolia's craft traditions would be the backbone of Zazaistan's artisan economy:

• Kilim and carpet weaving using natural vegetable dyes - deep reds, burnt oranges, and indigo blues derived from local plants would be Zazaistan's most recognisable export product, sold in design boutiques across Paris, London, and Tokyo.
• Copperwork and silversmithing, traditions already centuries old in the region, would be nationally subsidised crafts, with Zazaki copper coffee sets and silver jewellery competing with Turkish and Iranian equivalents in global markets.
• Wood carving, drawing on dense highland forests, producing everything from architectural panels to musical instrument bodies.
• A growing contemporary design scene in the capital Dersim, where young designers fuse traditional geometric kilim patterns with modernist aesthetics for international fashion brands.

Tourism

Zazaistan's biggest untapped asset by 2026 would be eco and spiritual tourism. The Munzur Valley - already described in reality as one of Anatolia's most breathtakingly beautiful and mystically charged landscapes would be a national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site. Tourists would come for:

• Alevi pilgrimage routes to sacred springs, rivers, and mountain shrines.
• Trekking and wild camping in untouched highland valleys.
• Attending cem ceremonies as invited guests - a profoundly communal, musical, and spiritual experience.
• The Newroz celebrations on 21 March, a massive national holiday with bonfires, music, and dancing that would be one of the most spectacular festivals in the wider region.

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Just had some spare time to look into this. I am aware that Tunceli, where my family traces its roots may not be a great reflection of how an entire country would form as it is only a province, but there are cultural causes of why it has high book reading rates, highest gender parity in schooling, and one of the highest school enrolment rates that in an alternate history may have been embedded in the ethos of Zazaistan based on humanistic Alevi values.

Hi there! I hope everybody's well. I recently started a blog to write about humanism and further the case for liberal socialism. If you would like to have a platform to write your ideas and takes, feel free to get in touch with me. I want to create a legitimate space for this kind of socialism that is often overlooked.

Have a nice day!