CENTRAL NEWS
Matria, Minerva and María Teresa Mirabal—three sisters from a middle class family, all married with children—may not have seemed the most likely revolutionaries. But living under the Dominican Republic’s brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo in the late 1950s, the Mirabal sisters took their lives into their own hands and became the meaning of freedom for millions of women.
During Trujillo’s 31 years in power, the regime violently repressed civil liberties and dissent. The Mirabal sisters organized the underground movement challenging the regime, and were repeatedly arrested for their activities.
Minerva once dismissed her allies’ fears for her life, saying “If they kill me, I’ll reach my arms out from the tomb and I’ll be stronger.” She fulfilled the promise. The state’s murder of the three sisters, aged 36, 34 and 25 on Nov. 25 1960, outraged the public and was a key trigger for Trujillo’s own assassination by a group of dissidents and former allies six months later.
The three butterflies
The Mirabal sisters, or the Three Butterflies, became the symbol of altruism and courage for millions of people around the world, and are commemorated every year on November 25, on the global Struggle Against Violence Against Women Day. This culture of resistance is heavily embedded in women’s organizations around the world, with the PKK a key example.
The PKK’s paradigm, an ecological and pro-women’s liberation idea by the peoples’ leader Abdullah Ocalan, was formed on the basis of a similar struggle to that of the Three Butterflies. Being established as a pro-equality national liberation movement, the peoples’ leader spent years developing a model of administration which does not envision the exploitative, consumerist mentality of the state. In developing these thoughts, the peoples’ leader constantly focused on the human, rejecting to reproduce another system which contributes to the spiral of violence being created by the administration system of capitalism, which is the State.
Thus, taking into account, humanity’s history of socialism, the Leadership developed a natural and humanitarian model of administration which embodies the concept of a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-linguistic Democratic Nation. This model of administration is a non-hierarchical system of local governance and is currently being implemented in Rojava (West of Kurdistan), in various places in Başûr (South of Kurdistan) and in Syrian cities such as Raqqa, Deir-ez Zor, and Aleppo.
The humanitarian approach to the woman issue
In his studies, the peoples’ leader revealed that power and hierarchies are not merely political and military; they are based on the oppressive relationship of men over women, which reproduces itself in every aspect of life. Starting from rebuilding free gender relations, the Leadership outlined that all the parts of life must be reconsidered on the basis of democratic principles, solidarity and respect. Ocalan’s proposal is for a radical democracy with equal representation of all identities including minorities, and direct participation of all.
On this basis, the Leader developed different dimensions to the freedom of gender, and promoted the essential need for legitimate self-defense. “A society without self-defense is condemned to exploitation and oppression,” the Leadership explained.
Since 2005, women from all four parts of Kurdistan as well as Kurdish women in exile and women from other countries have been organized under the confederation of the Communities of Women of Kurdistan (KJK). KJK has established various groups and organizations according to the situation in different places, with a common goal: social transformation based on women-centred egalitarian values that recognizes the needs of all social and ethnic groups. Women’s communes, councils, academies and cooperatives have been established from the grass-roots as an alternative way to organize life and society.
Today, the KJK organizes in every field: from politics to social organizing, from ecology and communal economy to health, from education and media works to culture and arts, to building up structures of local administration, women’s justice, and diplomacy. Women’s self-defense is being organized in various ways according to the situation in different regions.
