ABYA YALA – Talking to our agency the collective Desde El Margen, from Ecuador (Abya Yala – Latin America) talked to our agency. The representative of the colective, comrade Andrea talks about the importance of the paradigm of Rêbertî and how the approach of oppressed people should be towards it.
A revolutionary greeting, my name is Andrea. I am from the Organization “Desde el Margen”, here in Ecuador, Latin America. What for us from the original peoples is the Abya Yala.
I – Solidarity is important, but what is beyond that? How can we build relationships that help the construction of the real revolutionary conjuncture?
A – We are in a context of a network society that also within the strategy of capital has generated many activisms that remain only in the comfort of “posting”, of sending a Twitter, a publication? Dissemination is very important, it is very important that people know what is happening and resistance is very important. But we, as “from the margin”, are clear that this is not enough. And this is what we share in the Long March 2022. It is not enough – just to spread the word – we need to build revolutionary processes in our territories. Because we get nothing out of just selling with admiration a process like yours, which is beautiful, which is wonderful. We would like to live there. Why don’t we do it?
It is not enough just to want to. We need to build these processes of liberation in each of our territories. Because the greatest gesture of revolutionary solidarity is to make the revolution. And that is a challenge. And that implies that we leave our comfort, or our thinking, which in many cases already feels defeated. Many comrades who have militated on the left already think that a revolution is not possible. That the only way is to take power. No?
Or staying in the comfort of academia. All, all of these – Academia, Art, Culture – everything is very important, but to build our own liberation process, the more liberated territories we have in the world, the more power and strength we are taking away from the Patriarchal Colonial Capital. We are reducing the power of the Nation States. At least we are sowing the question that another world is possible, yes! There are the examples.
And we are trying. For us this is – this is the foundation, this is the essence of revolutionary solidarity – to make the revolution in our territories because there is no other possible way.
I – The members of the Organization have participated in the actions of the Long Internationalist March for the liberation of Ocalan. Can you talk a little about this experience and the importance of internationalism?
Well, the first participation we had as an organization was in 2020. For us it was something new. We had heard about the Long March, we had followed it through networks and information channels. And this time we were able to attend. As an organization, it was very important. Because, as well as we were able to share a lot of knowledge, a lot of experience of our territory. Because that was the objective: to be able to generate a direct exchange, sitting down with the people, we also learned a lot. Something that I would like to highlight from the first participation we had in the Long March was to be able to learn from the criticism and self-criticism of the pedagogy of Tekmil in a more direct way. And this has contributed a lot to our realization and it is a lesson that we are sharing because we consider that it is the indispensable methodology of organization within each of the collectives, the organizations of the social movement.
Internationalism allows us to know each other among processes, there are many processes of resistance, but the strategy of capital is that each time – despite being in a network society, a society where there is a lot of information, the strategy of capital is that we distance ourselves, that we do not know the other processes and there are many processes that are taking place in other territories, in other continents that we do not know here and that the comrades there do not know. So, the Long March becomes this objective of bringing together processes at a global level so that the fabric of resistance expands and becomes stronger.
We come with a lot of experiences, a lot of knowledge from all these comrades from other territories and we also contribute to this. We also consider that internationalism should not only be based on attending the Long March and spreading the word. It is important, yes. But we as an organization, as “Desde el Margen”, consider that the greatest solidarity among the peoples that are developing a revolution is that we build that revolution in our territories. Because the more liberated territories, the more territories that build their revolution, the more we can sustain ourselves. We are a greater force. And we are fighting with more strength against the Nation States.
And in the year 2022, in this year, we were also able to participate in the Long March. Obviously, the situation was different because of the Covid issue. But even with all the barriers that – that within the borders and visas – we in Ecuador have to ask for a visa to be able to go to Europe, despite all those problems we managed to get there, and it was a very important experience. We got to know the militancy of other organizations, mainly young people. We believe that, the people who went to the Long March in 2022, we took with us the experience of sharing with young people, and that is very important. In our territory it is fundamental to have these experiences because we come from a process of depoliticization of the youth, a secondary movement that has not been organized since 1990, a university movement that is totally deprived, totally disarticulated by a neoliberal education system. We see that the youth is in a situation of alienation, of individualism, product of this neoliberal, capitalist, patriarchal and colonial system. So, to be able to get together with young people, and to be able to transmit this to our partners in the organization – many of whom are very young – has been very enriching. It gives a lot of strength, it gives a lot of hope. And that – that can only be done by coming together. Getting together, seeing each other, talking about our experiences and also about our contradictions in our militant practice.
I – How did the Organization find out about the Kurdistan Revolution?
Well, we as an organization have been in a continuous search for revolutionary processes that are built around the autonomy of the peoples. No? Leaving aside the practices of the traditional left, which are patriarchal, which seek the seizure of power; in this search, we came across the Kurdistan revolution. In the beginning we had little access to information because language was a barrier, and it is not like now that there is a lot of material in Spanish, at that time there was none. In 2013, with the liberation of Rojava, the Kurdistan process became much more visible in Ecuador and in Latin America. That is when we decided to establish a contact, to look for, to try to find a contact with comrades there to have a more direct communication and to enrich our processes.
From that moment on, as an organization we have had a direct connection; and our formation as a revolutionary organization is based on the examples that you have given us, on your revolution. For us, it implies a lot of hope The Kurdish revolution is, it means the possibility that other worlds can be built from the liberation of women as the liberation of all the people around the world for us that has been a great learning the criticism and self-criticism, and how to organize life; The recovery of our own history, the paradigm of Abdullah Ocalan. Democratic confederalism; It has become an example, we are studying it a lot and we are seeing what possibilities and what connections we have here and how we can build it with our own realities, our own history and our own contradictions in the territory.
I – How does the organization analyze that the paradigm of the Democratic Nation and DemocraticConfederalism is applicable in the territories of Abya Yala and in Ecuador in particular?
Well, there is something that has become a deep discussion within our organization is how we are building our own process with the examples of the revolutionary processes that we follow, the revolution of Kurdistan, the Zapatista movement, which is also one of our great references. We could say that, as “Desde el Margen”, these two processes, the Kurdish revolution and the Zapatista Movement are our great referents, obviously no revolution and no process is transferred as it is, because here there are different social contexts, different contradictions. The challenge is there, as the only organizational alternative.
The construction of Democratic Confederalism is our main referent, we, here in Ecuador, in our process of organization, in the political project of “Desde el Margen” we call it Rebel Autonomous Territories. We are beginning to build them in the neighborhoods, in the cities. No, we are thinking about the generation of autonomy within the neighborhoods, mainly in the areas of health, food, and education. Thinking in a Democratic Nation and not in a Nation State is basic. Because when we stop thinking so much in the State, and being part of the State, we are breaking this dependence. Within the neighborhoods, we have absolute dependence on the State. If you want health, the State. You want education? The State. The type of food we are eating, what we are feeding ourselves with, is defined by the State. Security? The State, leisure, culture? The State. There is an intrusion of the State in every pore of our body, in every activity of our lives. And replacing this figure by a Democratic Nation, which is constituted by the people, by the people, by a dynamic assembly. It is fundamental, otherwise, to think of a Rebel Autonomous Territory is not possible.
The form of organization of Democratic Confederalism, this duality, this presence always of a companion of a companion is fundamental in the construction of an anti-patriarchal political project, which is our line, our political project is based mainly on the liberation of women as the main form of liberation, as you have taught us of the liberation of the peoples. We are thinking about the children, the boys and girls, so that they can have a voice. So the assembly dynamics, the assembly organization to collectively build the processes and the decision making is fundamental. Ecology for Latin America is one of the most important struggles, we have been colonized for more than 500 years. Our nature, the nature of this territory is on the prowl. Dispossession characterizes the life of the people of Latin America. The struggle against mining companies for the defense of water, the struggle against oil companies, the struggle against industries. It has generated millions of deaths in Latin America. We cannot think of a revolutionary process, an autonomy, without thinking of Mother Earth. It is fundamental, it crosses us, it is part of us. Here in Latin America a thought has been generated that is called the body-territory. What happens to the territory, what happens to the water, the contamination of the water, of the air, of the earth, goes through our bodies, it makes us sick, so they are not separate things, we are the same. And based on this thought, this thought that becomes body, that becomes flesh, we build and make political decisions without separating ourselves from nature, because it is part of us.
The axis of construction and organization together with women and with the voice of women is fundamental, that is why it is important for us to learn from Jineolojî. Because we go much further, because we have seen that we need to recover our history. To recover our history to be able to build another mentality. To destroy this dominant mentality, which is still present and which is still present in the organizations. Because, if anything has characterized left-wing organizations in Latin America, it is that they are tremendously patriarchal. And there are organizations that do not want to generate this change. And then there is the women’s revolution, the paradigm of Abdullah Ocalan. It is fundamental to go out thinking in another way, to take out the positivist thinking that the Eurocentric social sciences have given us, and to think from the territories. To think from life, from the care of life. For us, this has been fundamental in our construction.
I – One of the biggest current problems in Abya Yala is precisely the issue of violence against women and the culture of violence. Ingrained in the mentality of society due to the process of colonization of the territory and its devastating consequences. The Kurdistan revolution, which has as its main pillar the revolution and the liberation of women. How can these struggles be led in the same line?
Well, the whole territory of Abya Yala, since the conquest more than 500 years ago, entered into a very strong process of objectification of women. The women of Abya Yala become a bargaining chip. In this currency of war within the processes, also, of resistance. This does not mean that patriarchy came with the conquest, it is not like that. In social organizations, no? The way of organizing life before the conquest also had patriarchal practices, of course the Incas had patriarchal practices, of course that is something that women who are weaving thought, mainly within what is called community feminisms here in Abya Yala, have been rescuing that process of building, of rescuing their own history.
The patriarchy has gone through us. It is clear to us that capital is sustained by patriarchy. Because patriarchy allows capital to have private property and the main private property is over the family, over the bodies of women, of children, of girls. Instrumental reason, isn’t it? The great contribution of the European western thought has been separation with nature. In that man, the man who reasons is the one who has power over nature, and the bodies that are considered as natural, women’s bodies.
This has done us profound damage in the construction of societies in Latin America. In the times of dictatorships in Latin America, there have been genocides, in many countries, in many territories, right? After the conquest. Practices that have been maintained since that time, against the bodies, mainly of indigenous women. Where the entire military apparatus of the Nation States, seeking a whitening, destroyed or sought to destroy the womb, to destroy the bodies of women so that they could not have children and that the population would continue to grow. That was one of the objectives.
So, the feminicide. Rape, as a practice of punishment, as a practice of control of women, has always been a form of patriarchy within the conquest. The form of correction, the form of controlling women, is rape. Here, in Ecuador, we have rapes every day! Rapes to all kinds of women and feminized bodies. Just to say that the designation of budgets to combat gender violence has been decreased to increase the budget of the armed forces. This is just a small example of how states and justice work. How can we seek justice if that justice is patriarchal? If it is a justice that condemns women, that blames women. A justice that does not think about reparation.
Faced with this, with these realities, women in Latin America have come together with an idea of struggle, with an objective of struggle, which is that we want to be alive. That is a basic primary objective to be able to build other societies. We want to be alive. We think of the struggle as the care of life in common, questioning patriarchal justice, creating, thinking ourselves justice. There, the Kurdish women’s revolution has become a very important example. Of organization, of organization from women, of generating our own spaces for organization. Of destroying the dominant thinking that we women have, of course, because we have been created within a patriarchal education and we have many patriarchal practices, which we have to destroy in order to build other worlds, of course.
Self-defense is fundamental. We can no longer let them kill us. We need to take care of our political processes, the construction of other worlds needs to be taken care of by all means. The recovery of our history. The organization of education. The organization of health. I think that something that you have taught us and that for us, not only for us as “Desde el Margen”, but for all the organizations that see as an example in Latin America the revolution of the Kurdish women is that the liberation of women is the liberation of all peoples, is the liberation of life. The moment that we, who are the ones who live the greatest oppression, liberate ourselves, we liberate everything. Because we are liberating our families; our sons and daughters are being raised differently. The organization in the neighborhoods, the organization in the communities. Why? Because we take care of life. Because we are life. And these revolutions are for life. And the other revolutions are for life. And the other revolutions of the traditional left have already shown that they could not emerge, why? Because they were based on patriarchal thinking. We cannot at that moment, after the example of the Kurdistan revolution, no left organization can think that it is going to make the revolution and that it is going to succeed in sustaining it without questioning its dominant thinking and its patriarchal thinking.
I – Is there any final word you would like to add?
Well, to send you a revolutionary greeting, of resistance, comrades in this marvelous revolution that is the revolution of the Kurdish people, to tell you that here in Abya Yala we thank you very much for your struggle and we want you to know that we are also struggling, that we are together, that you are not alone, that we continue building, believing and dreaming in other worlds that are possible. That we are together, that you are not alone, that we continue building, believing and dreaming of other worlds that are possible. Know that here in Ecuador there is also a process, a seed that wants a plant of liberation to grow, a process of revolution here. Do not falter, comrades. We are fighting alongside you. What is happening in these moments, all the bombings of the Turkish Genocidal State, here we are also spreading, here we are creating ways to be able to sustain your revolution as well. It is very important that we know each other, that you know that you are not alone. And that this process continues, and that what you are doing, you are also doing in other territories as far away as ours here in Ecuador. But we are here, and we are still in the struggle, comrades. Jin, Jiyan, Azadi.
From Ecuador, Latin America, Abya Yala, we call this June 11 to global action to defend the revolution of Kurdistan against the attacks of the genocidal Turkish state. This revolution continues walking, comrades.
