NEWS CENTER
The Kurdish movement understands that for any successful revolution to take place, a revolutionary spirit must have a comprehensive understanding of women’s liberation. Women, in turn, cannot be liberated unless they are free from the world’s capitalist systems. If women are to be free, this can only be achieved through the existence of a stateless democracy, for it is the state that defends class oppression and patriarchy. In the Kurdish liberation struggle, led by Abdullah Öcalan, women have developed their own system and decision-making mechanisms within the guerrilla. Therefore, they worked on a strategic role in the defense of women and their country. The emergence of a radical struggle for women’s liberation has its origin here.
Women in the armies of nation states become a copy of men and are sometimes in danger. It is almost impossible for a woman in a male army to preserve her personality and femininity, and to come out of it unscathed. Nation-state armies are nationalistic, racist and sexist. They are shaped by a culture of violence. Therefore, the strategic presence and leading role of Kurdish women in a guerrilla army is of historical importance. This is the challenge against the 5,000 year old male system of government. With the participation of women in the guerrilla army in Kurdistan, the falsehood of patriarchy was exposed.
Women in the guerrilla force are an incredible source of freedom and equality. They play an extraordinary role in making women’s historical reality visible. Women’s guerrillas have swept away all mythological, philosophical, religious and scientific representations of women as slaves and as a “second class sex. Women are present in the guerrillas with their own identity and decision-making structures. Their democratic and liberal way affects the whole guerrilla. The best female guerrilla commanders in history are in our ranks. A level of female command has been created that has a great deal of experience and leadership characteristics, and Women lead the guerrilla in action as well as in life.
The experience in Rojava
The system in Rojava is today a living example of the attempt to overcome patriarchy, capitalism and the State. Capitalism is the key oppressor of all; the liberation of women from class oppression is key to a free society. The capitalist class has always used a policy of “divide and rule,” particularly on the basis of gender. Capitalism invades every aspect of our lives, our social conditions, installs a hierarchy and maintains the hegemony of the ruling class over human society. Ultimately, capitalism often leaves women with the option of simply accepting the sexist and patriarchal system that confronts them. The existence of patriarchy preceded that of capitalism. But patriarchy was qualitatively transformed by the accumulation of capital throughout the world. To prevail, capitalism has had to resort to patriarchal oppression to ensure that men often go to work while women do so at home. It has also invaded the cultural sphere, turning women’s bodies into commodities to be bought and sold. It is important, therefore, to understand that the oppression of women under capitalism is not only a form of class oppression but one of the most brutal.
Then there is the cultural oppression of women in the current climate of capitalism, which is expressed in many ways, through the use of language, stereotypes, religion, and global culture. For example, the use of words like “Hoe”, “Bitch”, “Slut” are all forms of verbal oppression. Stereotypes follow examples of what a “feminist” looks like, or what “lesbians” look like, or how important an ideal mother should be, etc. Religion is also another key factor in the oppression of women: historically, the interpretation of religions has led to the systematic oppression of women, starting with the fact that Adam’s rib was, for the Christian religion, where Eve was born. With capitalism, the power of the (not only) Abrahamic religions organized by states and religious institutions that spread throughout the world, demonstrates a synthesis of capitalism with religion to elevate the most oppressive interpretations in opposition to the most liberating visions of religious communion, which maintain premises of gender equality.
The capitalist system today attempts to give women the false impression of gender equality. It tries to convince women that they should break the “glass ceiling” and not abolish the system itself. To the extent that a minority of women hold high positions in corporations, are decently paid, are politicians, and govern the finances of the state, we are told that capitalism is indifferent to or challenges women’s suffering. But capitalism only allows a minority of women to share its spoils. Why, of the Fortune 500 companies globally, do only 4.3% of women hold CEO positions? On average, women are paid 2.8% less than their male counterparts in all aspects of working life. On top of that, only 23% of the world’s politicians are women, and in the UK, of the 650 mayors, only 208 are women, or 32% after the 2017 UK general election. Therefore, to be a feminist is to become aware of this kind of underlying oppression that is not explicit, to realize the false hope and sense of gender equality that capitalism represents for the world, and to actively work to break down the barriers that it represents for women around the world.
Ideally, since the mid-1990s, the only answer to “What is a free Kurdistan” has been: a free Kurdistan where women are liberated. This approach has been the fundamental impetus behind the Kurdish movement. By realizing the discourse of capitalism, the systematic oppression of women through class division, the Kurdish movement has nurtured the desire to come together on the basis of gender equality and towards a stateless democracy in the Red Sea. Unlike the capitalism in the West, Europe and the Middle East, in Rojava women, both international and Kurdish, are at the heart of the struggle against ISIS and its allies (such as the Turkish state).
True freedom
The reason for the rise in femicide in the Middle East and around the world is due to the growing struggle for women’s liberation. Hegemonic men, the dominant male system, want to break women’s resistance. The alliances in which women in Istanbul have joined forces against violence are a great example. Women defend each other and leave no woman alone. They hunt down the killers and fight the perpetrators so that they receive the punishment they deserve.
Male and state violence against women comes from the same source. It is well known that the oppression of women, their restriction to the domestic environment, and slavery in the service of men is one of the most important methods of this. Women are kept in their place of slavery through violence. As women’s resistance grows, as women defend themselves and have the issue constantly on the agenda, it becomes increasingly difficult to win over the state and dominant masculinity. We believe that our struggle will become more and more proactive and self-confident. And we know that freedom begins in the mind. Democracy without the state offers women a position in all aspects of life, giving them the true definition of gender equality. Women’s academies, defense and police units, as well as the power of veto over any political or other decisions that affect them, allow women to have a say in everything.
As Kurdish women we have argued in a call launched on March 8 at a time of a “historic process”. At the end of this process, we will see the patriarchal and capitalist system succumb to its “deep structural crisis. This crisis will mostly offer us great opportunities to guarantee women’s freedom and not the kind of freedom that capitalism has only sold us as a dream. The hollow pillars of capitalism and liberal democracy, false freedom, are slowly coming to an end. Yes, it is gradual and it has taken centuries for women around the world to rise up against it, but the road will be paved for a free woman and a free life.
From this, I think it is important for us to conclude that no matter what sense of liberation we may feel living in the West or in Europe, or anywhere in the world, we are very oppressed as women. Young women are sexually objectified everywhere, sexism occurs in all aspects of capitalist structures. A liberation of society can only take place when women are free. Freed from stereotypes, from sexist language, from cultural and religious oppression; that’s what we face every day.
