With quantum physics the example comes to light: by characterizing it, the complementarity of the corpuscle-wave duality was discovered. We also know that atoms and neutrons have vitality. But how much do we perceive this reality? We tend to consider matter as something inert, without realizing how it really responds, as a form of structuralized energy. The proportion of energy in the form of each material is different. Even our thoughts and feelings are energy, what we live is what we think. The more we increase our energy, being aware of our social force, the freer we will be. And the history of women is the struggle for the pursuit of freedom.
I want to give an example: Newton, referred to space and time as absolutes, “because of their equal and immovable nature and without relation to anything external”. Quantum physics speaks of another nature of space and time, it speaks of non-locality, or rather of correlation, so that the behavior of each particle directly and instantaneously affects the behavior of the other, regardless of the distance between them. Correlation, the way in which the particles of the universe of which we are made communicate, does not speak to us of ahistorical eternity and non-places, it speaks, rather, in interhistoricity, of the simultaneity of processes in different places. What I mean is that the deep consciousness of the space we inhabit, if we really fill with meaning the moment in which we speak here among ourselves, makes us at the same time be in the free mountains of Kurdistan; and we are with COPINH now to support the struggle for the sacred waters of the Lenca people together with the daughters of Berta Cáceres; we are in Mexico together with the uprisings for Cleo; we are in Mexico together with the uprisings for Cleo; we are in the mountains of Kurdistan; we are with COPINH now to support the struggle for the sacred waters of the Lenca people together with the daughters of Berta Cáceres. Uprisings for Cleo; we are in Brazil in the multitudinous parades that at this moment fill the squares of dreams that remain as a promise of future struggle of Marielle Franco; in Palestine side by side with the women protesting against the arrest of Ahed Tamimi. To live the social reality fully can mean to feel deeply all the emotion of the formation of each moment we live by experiencing all its experience of the past, feeling together deep hopes for the future.
We were reminded how on April 4, 2017, a historic initiative was held in Kobane under the slogan “The true strength of women is the security of a free society”: a meeting on women and self-defense, which was attended by 16 military forces and 160 female delegates from all over the Middle East. Organizations such as the Civil Defense Forces (HPC-Jin), Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), women’s freedom force, TKP/M-MLKP, Women’s Shengal Units (YJŞ), Women’s Defense Units (YPJ), Women’s Self-Defense Units (YPJ), Women’s Self-Defense Units (YPJ) and Women’s Self-Defense Units (YPJ) participated in the meeting.
Women’s Defense (YPJ), Shehba Women’s Defense Forces and those from liberated Manbij. The meeting lasted two days and included five sessions: the first session discussed the impact of the war on women in the Middle East; the second, women’s self-defense against the patriarchal mentality and the state system; the third, the role of women in defense, in all fields. The fourth session was related to education; the last one concerned the organization of the units. The whole meeting was not only linked to the military aspect. First of all, self-defense was discussed in the fields of politics, economy and all other spheres: with an analysis of the previous revolutions in history, with the developments experienced in global revolutions until today. They have also seen how in Egypt, Tunisia, Palestine and elsewhere, women’s defense units in Rojava have inspired the organizational renewal of women’s movements. They then analyzed how past revolutions failed to achieve their goals due to the lack of women’s self-defense organization. In Rojava, no matter what happens, every woman who suffers violence can say that she has a self-defense force she can rely on. This meeting was very important for the creation of a general council of women’s self-defense, for an exchange of experiences, for co-organization.
experiences, for co-organization.
Co-organization and the exchange of experiences are the basic principles of self-defense.
Think of the guerrilla units: self-defense here is collective self-knowledge and knowledge of the enemy, but above all it is to feel deeply in the unity with which one builds together a more just life every moment. Self-defense is based on a true communitarian way of organizing life, of continuous relational learning. In the struggle, the best way to end an attack is not to use a merely reactive response. What is the best way to neutralize an ambush? It is to know how to spot it, and to change the path and build a different one. The objective is not to destroy the enemy with the same methods – all those forms of combat that do not allow him to escape are excluded – but to make him harmless, to make us unreachable, so that a new scenario unfolds. From new ways we are able to create a situation of strength. Each guerrilla tends to feel everything as her comrades feel it and with them she knows how the greatest weapon used to divide us is patriarchy and state capitalism with its individualism and selfishness. And where they want to destroy and divide us, our most effective response is to unite. Knowing how to walk, all together at the same pace, being able to communicate, the participation fills the history of common struggle, in a conscious and special listening there is no need always to talk or see each other.
The enemy uses the most expensive military technology, but it is with discipline, with a meticulous attention and union with the environment that all this raw power is frustrated. In guerrilla education, the aim is to learn together from life experiences, history, personalities and societies, cultures of origin. The formation is not individual absorption of knowledge, but the development, continuous, in the differences, with deep friendship, of an unbreakable common will. It is a theme every day and every second it is rediscovered, what a deep sense has the hevaltî, the friendship. Two and a half years ago, a commander of the YPJ Women’s Defense Units in Kobane, recommended to me: “When you go back to Europe, you have to tell all the women you know that if you continue to talk about self-defense only as a role in the armed struggle and you don’t know the long journey of the organization, of our forty-year history and the history of women fighting in the world – which makes us say that the struggle that we women carry out here is no different from the one carried out everywhere in the world – you will never be able to move towards self-defense, towards self-organization as women at all levels.”
With Jineolojî as the basis for Democratic Confederalism, a journey opens up. A journey that does not start from immutable laws, but from principles that require creativity and our contribution, and today, in these times of unprecedented strength, our organizational action becomes more urgent than ever. Our different historical contexts do not make it impossible to have a historical union.
I deeply feel and believe that the revolutionary Lêgerîn, is in this, for all of us, a living example. Born at the foot of the Andes, she told us about Argentina and Cuba, of the deep-rooted legacy of the struggles from which she emerged, which had led her to flourish in the free mountains of Kurdistan, all the way to Rojava. She once said that she had only found in the Kurdish women’s liberation movement the deep sense of beauty, with new questions and new answers for our time. One of the last times we met, returning from Latin America, she reminded me that we must never forget that the Kurdistan women’s movement is also based on a basic rule of nature: everything that is born, once again, does so on its roots. This is one of her letters written some time ago, whose words I feel she addresses to us, as a mandate:
“We need to organize ourselves Vilma! It is urgent and cannot be postponed! Otherwise the struggles do not accumulate, do not generate a sense of belonging, do not broaden our views without losing the horizon. If our objective is crystal clear, the forms must also be clear (this was Apo’s answer, in a very difficult moment for the women of the movement). And they fought back. They became a block and emerged solidly from the autonomous women’s organizations. I don’t see any other way. At least this is one that has shown that it takes a lot of INTERNAL struggle, but weaves in the long run as you say. Think about it, if we manage to organize ourselves as women, structurally organized, discussing what I was saying to Manu, the social contract, the framework, which also involves the conjuncture, it does not exclude it. This revitalizes the organization of society in general. That is what we mean by liberating women in order to liberate society as a whole. Women with all that each one reflects and represents, and women with all that for society. women with all that they energize and regenerate for society. We can aim at the general and then organize ourselves as women or we can organize ourselves as women to organize the people. With our views, broad, more quantum, inclusive. Without thinking that it is a matter of women. I want to believe that we can. But we have to show this vein of emancipation. Our struggle is already an example.”
