NEWS CENTER – A video based o the history of the women’s movement of Kurdistan was made by the Kurdish Women’s Relation Office:
HISTORY OF THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT OF KURDISTAN
In recent years, the Kurdish women’s movement has gained a lot of attention around the world fighting oppression and fascism. It has become the most organized and dynamic women’s movement in the Middle East. It became a source of inspiration and hope for many movements around the world, fighting for freedom.
How did this happen? How did such an inspirational movement grow within one of the most oppressed society?
To really understand the Kurdish women’s movement, we need to have a closer look at the movement’s history and the conditions in which it developed.
CHAPTER I :
THE NEOLITHIC REVOLUTION AND THE ROLE OF WOMEN
The Kurdish people’s origin trace back to Mesopotamia, the cradle of society. At the time, in Mesopotamia, there were goddesses long before gods. Innana – also known as Ishtar or Astarte – was one of them, it symbolized the important role of women in Mesopotamian society.
During this period, women had a forefront role in society, building up life, creating knowledge and sharing both material and immaterial values. Women laid the foundation for a settled village lifestyle based on farming and connected to nature and communal life. This period, around 12,000 BC, is known as the Neolithic Revolution which was a women’s revolution because of its role.
Though 5000 years ago, male elites, priests and kings confiscated women’s creations and knowledge, outside them, and starting the foundation of the patriarchal society. Women became a property of men, and the subject of family members, they were seen as objects or birth-giving machine. They were deprived of their rights.
Abdullah Öcalan describes this process as a “counter- revolution” against women. He sums up the severe destruction and alienation describing women as “the first and last colony”. In ancient times Kurds were mostly animists and Zoroastrian with a strong connection to nature and the mother goddess culture. Though from the 8th century onwards, Islam was enforced in the majority of the Kurdish society and patriarchal codes were imposed on women through religion, too.
CHAPTER II
WHO ARE THE KURDS?
Today the Kurds are over 40 million people, making them one of the largest populations without a nation-state. Kurdish people are mainly Muslim though there are many other faiths such as Alawi, Ezidi, and many others. Kurdish is an Indo-European language that has several dialects: Kurmanci, Sorani, Zazaki, Kelhuri, and Hewrami/Gorani.
Until 1914, the Kurds mostly lived under the Ottoman and Persian Empire during which they were able to preserve their language and culture due to tribal revolts often led by women. Thanks to this resistance, they were able to maintain a certain autonomy.
After World War II, in 1923 in the Treaty of Lausanne, international powers drew a new map of the Middle East, creating four new nation-states: Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. Kurdistan split between these four parts, and Kurds were forced to live in them. The Kurds as a nation were left with no legal status or rights. Kurdish language and names were banned, their own existence was denied, while the nation-states started a homogenization process. Any resistance or revolts were met with oppression, massacres and genocides. Women were suffering from both state oppression and patriarchy.
Economical neglect, national and political oppression in all 4 parts of Kurdistan lead to displacement and migration. This is why today there is a 4 million Kurdish Diaspora; 2,5 Million of them living in European countries.
CHAPTER III
THE PKK AND THE STRUGGLE FOR WOMEN’S LIBERATION IN KURDISTAN
In the 1960’s freedom and liberation movements spread around the world, including Turkey where there was a strong youth revolutionary movement. In this context Abdullah Öcalan started the Kurdish liberation movement “Kurdistan is a colony”.
In 1978, together with Kurdish and Turkish students, Öcalan funded the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, a revolutionary movement for the Kurdish people’s right to self-determination. Inspired by Marxist-Leninist and Maoist theories the aim of the PKK was to reach an independent, united, socialist Kurdistan.
Since the beginning women joined the party. Sakine Cansiz was amongst the funders of the PKK. For women this struggle meant not only to oppose the colonial state but also the patriarchal restrictions of family and society.
Sakine Cansiz described this way the early days:
“This movement has addressed the essence of humanity. All our debates, our educations and discourses start with humanity and human values. We were talking about the human situation in the past, in different historical stages and discussing the values of humanity. Women who wanted to understand, they were finding themselves within this movement. In the very beginning of the struggle for Kurdistan and political struggle the involvement of women was very difficult. Yet, we have succeeded and this gave us the strength to shape our movement”.
In 1980, during a NATO-orchestrated fascist military coup, leftist movements were nearly wiped out. Tens of thousands were killed or imprisoned. In the jail of Diyarbakir, PKK prisoners opened a new front of resistance with the call “Berxwedan jiyan e!” – Resistance is life!
Also in prison, Sakine Cansiz was one of the leading figure of this resistance, showing how revolutionary women could struggle under any conditions, challenging the women’s perception in Kurdish society.
In 1984, the PKK armed resistance started against the Turkish State and hundreds of years of repression and slavery. During that period also Kurdish society, especially in rural areas, organized themselves under the banner of the National Liberation Front of Kurdistan (ERNK).
In 1987 Kurdish women established the Union of Patriotic Women of Kurdistan YJWK which drew huge inspiration from the analyses of the PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. His theory that “liberation of Kurdistan and Kurdish society cannot be reached without the liberation of women” gave women more and more confidence to participate actively in organizing and resistance.
During the 1990’s uprisings, hundred thousands of women joined the resistance in North Kurdistan, and took to the streets with the will of freedom and rocks in their hands. By doing so they became the main force behind these revolts.
By the 1990’s the PKK became a mass movement. Thousands of women joined the guerrilla force and took up arms, challenging patriarchal gender roles in society and even in the movement.
Women militants had to struggle with the feudal and patriarchal attitudes of their male comrades, perceiving women as ‘weaker’ and ‘more vulnerable’. Many women fighters and commanders like Bêrîtan (Gulnaz Karataş) embraced this struggle, emphasizing women’s will and rightful place on each front of the resistance. She said:
“Fight my dear, fight strong! By fighting we exist. By fighting we become free and beautiful and more. By fighting we love.”
In the Kurdish mountains, the women’s Liberation Movement benefitted a lot from Abdullah Ocalan’s perspectives. In the 1990s Abdullah Öcalan was developing radical new ideology for the liberation of gender and society. He saw that neither freedom nor love can be realized in the relationships and gender identities of dominant power relations. The Theory of Separation laid out the path for women to overcome their enslaved identities; by separating themselves mentally, emotionally and culturally from the male dominated system. His theory of “Killing the man” encouraged men in turn to subvert and struggle against the dominant masculinity that is not just a gender but a huge system of power and exploitation.
In his analyses on how to overcome the impact of patriarchy and colonialism on Kurdish society, he developed methods of ‘personality analysis’: deeply questioning the mentality of the oppressed woman and the dominant man, the family structures and gender roles underlying it. The most essential step for women was to develop love and respect towards their own gender and identity; overcoming alienation and gaining self-confidence as well as trust in other women.
In 1993, Ocalan pushed for the creation of a Women’s Army within the guerrilla forces. It became a great challenge for women who had to organize themselves as an independent body, deciding about all aspects of life and guerrilla warfare. Women had to confront their own internalized patriarchal patterns, while also analyzing male domination. Revolutionary changes took place in the mindset, in comrade relationships between men and women as well as in Kurdish society. This was nothing less than a revolution within the revolution.
In 1995, 300 women held the first National Women’s Congress in the mountains, and established the Kurdistan Women’s Freedom Union YAJK, implementing autonomous women’s organizing based on women’s own will and political and social perspective. It was a crucial stage.
On March 8, 1998, The Women’s Liberation ideology brought the women’s freedom struggle to the next level. Its framework includes the principles of loving and defending the homeland against colonialism; to think freely and build up free will as women; to organize and struggle for liberation as well as to build up a life with a free understanding of aesthetics.
Exactly a year later, on march 1999, Kurdistan Women Workers’ Party PJKK, was also established. In 2004 was restructured into the Women’s Freedom Party of Kurdistan (PAJK) which play a role in four parts of Kurdistan.
On February 15, 1999, Abdullah Öcalan was kidnapped and imprisoned in a NATO operation. The operation attacked the very existence of the Kurdish people. In solitary confinement in the island of Imrali, in Turkey, Öcalan elaborated a new paradigm for the freedom struggle which goes beyond the solution of the Kurdish problem and proposes a society based on democracy, ecology and women’s liberation.
Democratic confederalism is an alternative to the state structures. It promotes a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-linguistic Democratic Nation which is organized in autonomous structures. Ocalan’s proposal is for a radical democracy with equal representation of all identities including minorities, and direct participation of all. Society has the right to self-defense against war and violence, exactly like a rose defends its existence with thorns. If it doesn’t defend itself, a society’s condemned to exploitation and oppression.
- DEMOCRATIC NATION
- DIRECT DEMOCRACY
- CONFEDERALISM
- ECOLOGY
- WOMEN’S FREEDOM
- EQUAL REPRESENTATION
- DIRECT PARTICIPATION
- SELF-DEFENSE
The Communities of Women of Kurdistan (KJK), established in 2005, organizes women from all over the world and established groups and movements in different places. The common goal is to promote a social transformation that recognizes the needs of all social and ethnic groups. In order to that the KJK organized life and society through women’s communes, councils, and academies in every filed of society.
In 2011 Jineolojî, the science of women, was established. The Jineolojî Academy identifies challenges of the women’s revolution and strengthens understanding of the democratic, ecological paradigm of women’s liberation.
CHAPTER IV:
THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT IN THE 4 PARTS OF KURDISTAN AND THE ROJAVA REVOLUTION
As the political theories continued to advance despite being constantly under threats by violence and the fascist states, the women’s movement started working in a very practical way.
In 1991, in Turkey, after the funding of the first pro-Kurdish party, many Kurdish women have been elected as mayors and Members of Parliament. In 2014 the co-chair system of gender equal representation was implemented in all political and administrative bodies. The women in Northern Kurdistan organize themselves autonomously under the umbrella of a huge movement.
The Turkish ruling party AKP has targeted women, their democratic gains and institutions. Thousands of Kurdish women activists, including mayors and MPs were imprisoned and hundreds of women’s associations and organizations banned.
In Iran the Free Women’s Community of East Kurdistan KJAR has been clandestinely organizing and educating women, despite the cruel state repression that led to executions.
In 2003 Southern Kurdistan, Iraq, gained autonomy after the military intervention against Saddam Hussein. It is known as Kurdistan region of Iraq. While some women took part in political life, a strong autonomous grass-roots women’s movement did not develop.
The Kurdish women’s diaspora also organized in the 1980’s and 90’. They have made Kurdistan Liberation and Kurdish Women’s Movements known worldwide, and connected with other freedom movements, creating important networks of solidarity and alliances. Since 2014 they organize under the umbrella of the Kurdish Women’s Movement in Europe TJK-E.
Though Europe is not safe for Kurdish women. On January 9, 2013, Sakine Cansiz with with her comrades Fidan Dogan and Leyla Şaylemez, was assassinated in Paris by the Turkish Intelligence Service. The Rojava Revolution brought the Kurdish women’s movement on the forefront of the international stage.
In 2011, the Syrian uprising against Bashar Al Assad regime gave the opportunity to organize Rojava, Western Kurdistan, with the Democratic Autonomy’s system. The Rojava Revolution became known all over the world. The YPJ, the Women’s Protection Unit, was praised for the effectiveness and willingness to fight not just ISIS but patriarchy within society. Women commanders played a leading role in major battles. Fighters like Arîn Mirkan and Avesta Xabur who sacrificed their lives for the revolution became the symbol of women revolutionaries. Internationalist women like Ivana Hoffmann from Germany, Alina Sanchez from Argentina and Anna Campbell from Britain also joined and fell martyrs while defending the revolution.
Women’s councils, communes and organizations are the beating heart of Rojava. Women are organized in the Women’s Movement Kongra Star.
Kongra Star empowers, mobilizes and educates women to self-organization in order to make sure that the Rojava revolution will stay a women’s revolution. Women who were restricted to the role of mother and housewife have reclaimed their rights and are participating in community organizing, women’s cooperatives and institutions. North and East Syria’s “women’s laws” promote freedom and equality, protecting women from violence and discrimination within the family context.
The co-chair system of gender equal representation is in place at all levels in all political and administrative structures of the Self-Administration in North and East Syria. Political life is no longer a male dominated domain.
All the achievements of the Rojava revolution are the result of a long, difficult fight and great sacrifices of many. Many women have been willing to sacrifice because they see the path to change, to love and to beauty. Every woman fallen in struggle, lives on in the mothers, fighters, and young women of Rojava, reclaiming their lives and futures.
The Kurdish Women’s Movement is still an embodiment of the slogan from the beginning: Resistance is Life! And the goal of life is freedom. Without women’s freedom there will be no free life and so another cry that has echoed around the world from the Kurdish Women’s Movement is Jin! Jiyan! Azadi! Women! Life! Freedom!…
Some martyrs of the women’s liberation struggle
“The Women’s Revolution is the light of the future of society” Abdullah Öcalan
Kurdish Women’s Relation Office (REPAK)
