Internationalist Young Women’s Perspective
We ended the last internationalist young women's perspective by saying that summer is coming and historic steps are waiting to be taken in the struggle for freedom. Three months have passed since we wrote the last perspective. Three months of summer, of heat, of struggle, which have brought changes that we must evaluate from the point of view of young women in order to look to the coming months with a clear perspective.
The importance of mother goddess culture
The times we are in are characterized by war and violence. We call it the third world war or the war of capitalist modernity against democratic modernity. The capitalist forces are in a state of upheaval, of reconstruction. They are rearranging themselves month by month, day by day, to secure their power and hide the collapse of the system. For it is more obvious than ever that the system is full of holes and continues to crumble. Women are the first colony in this war, were the first to be attacked. With the emergence of patriarchy and the first strike of organized forces against the mother goddess culture thousands of years ago, a war against society began. Over 5,000 years later, Abdullah Öcalan talks about the importance of resistant culture for revolutionary processes and the revenge women must take on patriarchy. He says young women will take the lead in the cultural revolution, lead the song and set the tune and beat.
The strike against the mother goddess culture was a strike against the woman who, as the natural authority at the center of society, protected society's values and passed them on to the next generation. What were these values? They were the values that make up a society - a free communal life, the fight against individualistic and violent tendencies as well as emotional intelligence and the connection to the land and nature. At the time when women were recognized by society as pioneers, communality was the value that ensured the survival of society. The common good came before the individualistic good and at the same time the problem of an individual was seen as a social one and treated as such.Due to their close connection to life, to the next generation and to the creation of something new, women established these societal values. The woman was the one who created the values, set the standards and protected them by passing them on.
In order to assert the individual interests of a few against this communality, it was therefore clear that women had to be overthrown and removed from their role. Just as society was oppressed, enslaved and exploited in the role of the woman back then, this struggle has continued in the capitalist system: The culture (or rather: lack of culture) of dominant masculinity is still at war with the values of the mother goddess culture and, especially in recent months, is in an ever-increasing crisis - both materially and immaterially.
The material pillar of the system includes the accumulation of products and wealth, especially in Western countries, which is not limited to material things but also includes knowledge, a certain standard of living and power. This wealth is based on the exploitation of large parts of the world, its resources and nature, which is why the system must spread physically in all directions. If this does not work through means such as assimilation, offers or treaties, wars are waged. In the Middle East
in particular, the system is currently reaching its limits, triggering one crisis after another, and war zones are expanding worldwide.
At the same time, the capitalist system relies on a second pillar, the immaterial pillar or its ideology. Abdullah Öcalan, Rêber APO, defines ideology as a world view, a way of thinking that explains the world and thus influences the entire way people think, feel and act. Because the way we explain the world to ourselves, the way we see meaning in life, is how we will behave. The ideology of capitalism is liberalism, a world view that completely serves capitalism and is also intended to make people serve the system in all their thoughts, feelings and actions. It is an ideology that focuses above all on protecting the system and silencing any form of resistance. Liberalism as an ideology is carried everywhere in the world and thus brings capitalism even to places where it has not yet been able to consolidate itself materially. It spreads primarily by eradicating all diversity and cultures. One of its war tactics is the standardization of people's way of life. It creates a superficiality in thinking, feeling and acting and is directed above all against the values and culture of women's resistance.
The superficiality that the system creates in the lives of young women it’s both material and immaterial. Young women are taught that consumption and possessions are the most important things in life. And when young women's search goes beyond the material, liberalism creates an image of freedom in which being free means being able to do anything, anywhere, anytime, to be anything. Especially in Europe, the image is created for young women that they can cut themselves off from everything, their home, their family, their history and identity and completely reinvent themselves.
The disintegration of a rootless system
But the identities that are created, the life that is propagated, have no foundation, no deep roots and are therefore currently falling apart. Patriarchy is based on the interests of a few - the interests of dominant men who have distanced themselves from society - and therefore cannot offer a solution to society's problems. In the same way, capitalism, which is based on an ideology that is removed from life - liberalism - will not provide these solutions either.
Liberalism, with its superficiality, is like a hollow tree that has grown without roots and that knows how to present itself beautifully but does not do justice to the depth of life.
In recent months, the system's struggle for survival has intensified and new means have been resorted to in order to preserve itself materially and immaterially. The system is reaching its physical limits and is therefore using more and more physical violence and wars. Militarization is being carried into society and women in particular are being recruited into it. In order to recruit young women into the ranks of the state army, the system uses the attachment and loyalty of young women to their own society and homeland, their values and the country, and abuses young women for its own interests. It is no longer enough for the system to distract women and young people from the situation in the world; it must actively engage them and is using all the means at its disposal to do so in an increasingly brutal manner.
The young woman is placed in a state in which she is mentally locked into a world of virtual reality and physically locked into a military uniform. She is told to move her dreams of a better world into the virtual world, forget her desire for peace and instead obey the system's commanders.
But obeying contradicts her and she believes in overthrowing the system which is what young women all over the world prove.
Both consumerism and liberalism's answers to questions about the meaning of life are no longer enough for young people and women. They are looking for faith, hope and meaning, deeper feelings. When even in Europe, the stronghold of capitalism, the search for freedom beyond the material is growing and liberalism can no longer be the answer. This is a sign that the hollow tree is collapsing and the façade is crumbling. And that is the moment when something new must be created and brought to life. It is up to the young woman to create a new way of living. This means making demands on life, carrying the standard of freedom into every moment and sparking uprisings.
The uprisings of the oldest colony
The worldwide uprisings of recent months are directed against the colonialist and patriarchal forces that are reorganizing themselves and taking action against women in an intensification of violence, feminicides and planned gang rapes. These are uprisings of the oldest colony, the woman, against her colonizers, against her rapists, against the system of violence and oppression. In 2022, in response to the murder of the young woman Jina Amini, women and men in Iran and then all over the world took to the streets with the slogan “Jin Jîyan Azadî”. Almost two years later, on the anniversary of the uprisings, the loud outcry in Iran may have become somewhat quieter, the regime is expressing itself in accusations with penalties of execution. But this is exactly how we see that the culture of that very revolution has been carried on, has not become silent but, on the contrary, has spread its seeds all over the world.
One of these seeds flew to India, settled there and blossomed in August. It took root in the ground and burst out of the soil, the asphalt, at the moment when another seed was suffocated, when another woman's life was taken. After the gang rape and murder of a female doctor, women and men across the country poured onto the streets to protest against the systematic violence against women.
And they are demonstrating in the tradition of the uprisings in Iran, opening a poster with the inscription ‘Jin Jîyan Azadî’ and carrying the revolution forward. They are protesting in the tradition of the mother goddess culture, which was based on the connection between women and life. They are protesting in the tradition of the three words woman, life and freedom, which Abdullah Öcalan made the basis of the ideology of women's liberation.
If we understand the Jin Jiyan Azadî revolution as many seeds scattered all over the world, which are just about to take root in every young woman, then they must now be made to grow and sprout.
Each of these seeds has the potential to awaken a militant personality. But for this to happen, every young woman must launch an offensive within herself, initiate changes within herself and thus become a pioneer for others. The current situation requires socialist personalities with a cultural approach to society. This means developing a deep love for one's own identity and striving to change society. To free oneself from individualistic thinking and to think and act for every other woman.
Revolutionary culture
It is not enough to wait for a new seed to be smothered and for great uprisings to arise. Rather, the young woman must bring together the uprisings that are already taking place, be it street fights, resistance at home or demonstrations against feminicides, and connect them through a common culture.
In a time of protests and uprisings, avenging the first blow to mother goddess culture means transforming the values of communal society into organised resistance and revolutionary culture.
For when does a temporary outcry become a long-lasting, society-changing revolution? When a culture emerges from it, a revolutionary culture with lived values. Only when a new way of life is reflected in a revolutionary culture and there are pioneers who carry this into their own lives and beyond into society will real change occur.
When the revolutionary spirit not only spreads to the streets, but from there into homes, universities, schools and relationships. To achieve this, young women must change their behaviour, develop trust in each other and challenge each other. Strengthen their connection to society and at the same time criticise it in an exemplary manner.
When the values according to which young women live, organise themselves and give meaning to life change, we can speak of a cultural revolution. Young women must separate themselves from liberalism and fill their identity with what defines them: the connection to society, to nature, to each other.
As young women in this world, our home is the revolution that we carry everywhere we go. It is the revolutionary culture and its values that make us one across borders and continents.
Young women must insist on socialist values such as communalism and spread them everywhere. The building of revolution has no borders, it can take place anywhere, anytime. Living communalism means making revolutionary culture flourish always and everywhere. Feeling a connection with every young woman you meet, starting a conversation, starting discussions and building relationships.
And bringing these networks into an organised framework, developing shared traditions, celebrating important days and commemorating women revolutionaries. Culture flourishes in traditions and symbols of togetherness in which every young woman can find herself.
This culture will make no distinction between feeling, thought, speech and action. Every contradiction must be expressed and overcome, every feeling organised. The revolution must begin here and now in us, in every young woman. The young woman must be honest with herself and her comrades and thus develop a radicalism that is unstoppable. A radicalism that engages every young woman in the revolution and convinces her of her culture.
The foundation of this revolutionary culture is Hevaltî, comradeship. In a new way of life, which is already being realised by young women in their pioneering role, Hevaltî means the combination of love for comrades and the struggle with them, which is conducted with methods such as criticism and self-criticism. Young women will exemplify a new form of relationships that is expressed in every contact through openness and honesty. Young women are characterised in the women's revolution by the way they laugh, speak, build friendships and change society through their ideas.
The young woman's line of action
In July, culture found an expression of its synthesis of feeling, thought and action in Strasbourg. In the action days of the Kurdish and internationalist young women's movement, young women showed that it is the thoughts of Rêber APO that bring them together, that make them understand their own identity and translate it into cultural action. Strasbourg has shown that when young women come together, intertwine their roots and become one with the ideology of Rêber APOs, they can attract the attention of the whole world. In the four days of action full of dance, music and theatre, the young women's identity has been filled with values. It is their identity that unites militancy, conviction and fighting spirit with ethics, aesthetics and culture.
And the action in Strasbourg was just the beginning, it was a call from young women to every other young woman to get out of standing still and into action, into movement.
Young women all over the world are currently on a quest for a world view that is close to life and an identity that expresses this. This search can only come to fruition through action and movement. And of course it is not enough to take action once - every young woman must take action every day, change something every day and convince at least one other young woman of the revolution every day. It is up to the young woman to make the longing for liberation that she sees in herself, in her colleague, sister or classmate, a part of the women's revolution and to revive communal values.
The autumn months ahead of us are the last months before we enter a new quarter of the 21st century, the century of the women's revolution. These are the last months before a new phase that Rêber APO initiated and foresaw over 25 years ago. These 25 years have only just been the beat of the song of the revolution, but the melody has yet to be played, the instruments manned and the verses sung.
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