BERLIN – The 2nd International Women’s Conference of the Women Weave the Future Network will be held in Berlin, Germany, between 5-6 November. Translations will be made in Kurdish, English, German, Italian, Spanish, French, Arabic and Turkish at the conference to be held at Berlin Technical University. During the conference, discussions will be carried out under many topics and workshops will be held.
You can watch the conference here.
Gemeinsam Kampfen activist Redge Wolya, who was in the Preparatory Committee of the conference where women’s circles with different struggle experiences came together, answered the questions of the ANF.
“My name is Redge, I am part of Gemeinsam Kampfen and that is why I am part of the preparatory team for the 2nd International Conference of the internationalist, feminist organization in Germany as well as the Women’s Weave the Future Network in Berlin,” said activist Redge Wolya.
‘JIN JYAN AZADI PLACE WOMEN IN THE CENTER OF LIFE’
The 2nd International Women’s Conference is held with the motto “Our Revolution: Liberating Life”. While explaining the reason for preferring this slogan, Wolya drew attention to the current world system and said:
“Because the state of the world right now is like World War II, one topic of the conference is this third world war. Life must be liberated. Economic means build life, nature and ecology build; working against the power of the nation-state of capitalist interests builds safe differences. it’s actually like building life. What liberating life means is putting this vehicle back into people’s hands. Also, an important women’s conference will focus on the plight of women around the specific question of giving all these tools back to women. Jin jiyan azadi puts women at the center of life and leads them to freedom. “
‘WE TALK ABOUT HOW TO BUILD’
Redge Wolya said, “I think 2018 was like part of the conference to bring the struggle together and see that our struggles belong together, and now there are different situations of locality. There is a dictator like Putin in Russia, like the dictator Erdogan… There was a final result that became especially clear as well as the nation-states we struggled with. But also like this system that organizes patriarchy and different groups that cultivate such mechanisms of this system. And against it, on the other hand, there are clearly ‘Ni Una Menos’, ‘Black Lives Matter’ or ‘Jin Jiyan Azadi’ struggles, local struggles, grassroots struggles, women’s struggles. All struggles belong to each other and we continue the struggle together. And now the question is, how do we organize it? So that will be part of the conference. Different speakers, but also people from different regions, present their own struggles, how they are fighting for ecological justice and how they are fighting against patriarchal violence. But on the second day, we will talk about how we can make organization and free science the basis of our struggle and what the proposal of democratic women’s confederalism or supranational women’s organization is. And we’re actually going to talk more about organizing and take some steps there.”
‘WE CAN REALIZE THE HOPE OF THE WOMEN’S CENTURY’
When Redge Wolya made her call for the conference, “We are many and we are everywhere. Wherever women fight and organize, we will build, big or small. I think the world is in such a state now that we really need to learn history to bring our organizers together, and that’s actually the hope of the century. Abdullah Öcalan also called this century ‘the century of the women’s revolution’. There is potential for this. But I can say that we need to seize this chance and this conference has the power to bring that chance together.”
📢Kürt kadın hareketinin öncülüğünde Dünya Kadın Hareketleri 2. Uluslararası Kadın Konferansını gerçekleştiriyor.
🚩Konferans yarın Berlin'de başlıyor.
🚩İşte son hazırlıklar.#MedyaHaber#MedyaHabertvv pic.twitter.com/BAh2gCV31k— Medya Haber TV (@medyahabertvv) November 4, 2022
Preparatory Committee Member Songül Karabulut said that at the 2nd International Women’s Conference, they will not be content with just system analysis, but will also discuss ways and means to get out of this situation.
Why was the slogan “Our Revolution: Liberating Life” chosen?
We present our philosophical approach. The liberation of women as women, the women’s revolution is to liberate life in general, for example, when we planned this, there was no popular uprising or women-led popular uprising in Iran. The ‘Jin jiyan azadi’ there made the slogan of our conference visible to the world once again. We think that the women’s revolution is an important motor force against the capitalist modernity system in terms of making life fairer, freer, more ecological and more democratic. We think that the women’s revolution, women’s liberation is the engine of finding solutions to all the problems of capitalist modernity. We have consciously chosen such a slogan as women’s liberation against the existing system of exploitation naturally means liberation of life.
You know, as the Kurdish Women’s Movement, we declared the 21st century as the century of women, in line with our Leader’s foresight. We are in the first quarter of the 21st century. In this sense, we see how far we have progressed every day, or how we experience this on a daily basis, with the eruption of women’s uprisings. Not only theoretical-philosophical but also the developments confirm that our slogan is very appropriate and in line with the spirit of today.
When you compare it with 2018, when the first conference was held, what kind of conjuncture is it held in?
In fact, there were very serious women-led women’s uprisings around the world in 2018. On the basis of more women’s rights, for example in Latin America, millions of women took to the streets against abortion. Violence against women was a very basic agenda. Women occupied the streets in this direction. In the Middle East, the Rojava Women’s Revolution, led by the Kurdish Women’s Movement, and women’s self-defense had a very serious impact on the world. Later, the global epidemic process developed and the women’s struggle was also negatively affected. In this process, III. World War II has reached the borders of Europe. With the Russia-Ukraine war, the contradictions are getting deeper and deeper. The pressures of the systems are increasing more, that is, the pressures of capitalist modernity and nation-states towards the people are much more intense.
Afghanistan is very important for us. Afghanistan was handed over to the Taliban by the United States. The first thing they do is to oppress women again, to push them out of all areas of life, to suppress them. Afghan women continue to resist despite all the pressure. She declared that she was inspired by the Kurdish Women’s Movement and nourished spiritually from there.
Now there is a similar situation in Iran. Under the leadership of women, the slogan ‘Jin jiyan azadi’ came up again very clearly. I want to say this; The struggle of women in the first place gradually turns into a social struggle. Now very different segments of society; religious unions, ethnic groups, sexual differences, age differences all express with this slogan that they see their own freedom within the freedom of women. In this sense, the realization of the century of women’s revolution has become more evident in 2022 than in 2018. For this reason, we will not be content with just system analysis, we will discuss ways to get out of here, how we can fulfill our responsibility better, and how to create the needed organization and struggle tools. What kind of a common mentality, common point of view, common feeling and knowledge will we reach for this, we will consider them all. It aims to be the answer to the process we go through.
Pointing out that conference applications have been terminated before and that there is a number restriction in the conference hall due to pandemic measures, Sultan Öger said, “The second conference will be held. Applications for preparations have been completed. Now our participants are coming. Registrations are now being taken. Progress continues. There will be participants from four continents and 41 countries. Speakers, representatives of institutions, activists will attend. According to the number we have so far, about 800 people have registered. However, the number of applications was much higher. However, due to the corona measures, more people we wanted to attend were not allowed to attend the conference hall. This was a reason. That’s why such a conference will be held”
THE CONFERENCE HAS LONG HISTORICAL HERITAGE
Sultan Öger said, “I would like to tell you the purpose of the conference. The potential level of this conference to be held, its participants, the interest in it is very strong. It has historical reasons. These are the results of years of struggle. Participants are also activists. They organized their organizations, their institutions. They are also activists and they struggle as a social struggle, women’s liberation struggle and as a people. As a people, there are those who struggle for their national identity. Undoubtedly, a heavy price has been paid for many years. And as a result of these costs, the struggle of a strong organization emerged. Such a conference is the result of that. In other words, it is the product of years of struggle. At the same time, Kurdish women have a leading role here. How shall we say it? Kurdish women are struggling for a long historical process. There is a women’s struggle. At the same time, the social struggle continues. And the national liberation struggle is being waged. Through this, they lead the world ideologically, organizationally, and truly operationally. This reality must be seen as the truth,” she said.
Activist Sultan Öger, drawing attention to the crisis situation in the world, said that this crisis produced wars and that women and children were victims of the current system. Sultan Öger said, “The world we live in is in crisis and chaos. You also observe that the systems that exist today, such as the systems that were built, the nation-state system, are now being destroyed. Because these systems are on a class basis, on an ideological basis, on domination and on the exploitation of women. Therefore, the world is in a crisis. The current wars are also the result of these crises. For this reason, there are wars in this crisis environment and in many places in the world, it is called the 3rd World War. Of course, it is women and children who suffer the most from him here. We say it many times”.
A STEP IN CONFERENCE HISTORY
Stating that they are more experienced than the first conference held in 2018, and that they will combine the struggle with the workshops, Sultan Öger stated that the conference is an important step in bringing the differences together. “Again, there will be workshops at the conference to embody and clarify this. Because, in conferences, the workshop studies are rooted in piecemeal evaluations and at the same time become concrete. Important class recommendations are developing. Therefore, our conference was planned with these results in mind. It has been preparing for a long time. We consider it an important and historical step for women, women’s movements and for us as Kurdish women. We believe that he will reveal his products along with himself. Because we see The first conference was held in 2018. Of course, the atmosphere was strong, enthusiastic. But it was the first. Today is the second. There is one more experience. It also takes into account what kind of needs they have. On this basis preparations were made. We believe that it will be an important step in solving the problem, in terms of bringing the differences together”.
You can watch the conference at: https://www.youtube.com/c/WomenWeavingFuture
