Women’s call to struggle: “We know what we want”

The book ‘We Know What We Want’ has been created by the feminist editorial group “Gemeinsam Kämpfen – Struggle Together” as a result of their experiences in Rojava between 2018 and 2019, is still being promoted in Switzerland.

On August 17, the Swiss Rojava Committee kicked off the Swiss leg of its promotional days in Basel. Following stops in Lucerne, Zurich, and Bern, the book ‘We Know What We Want’ arrives in Solothurn on Saturday.

There will also be a slide and cine-vision screening prepared in the form of a panel where the editors will share their experiences during the promotional event. The Swiss stage of the event will conclude at the 8th Sakine Cansız Women’s Festival, which will take place in Zurich on August 22.

“We moved from Germany to Rojava in 2018 as internationalists in an effort to put the idea of creating a society in which all identities are liberated into practice, with the effect of Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan’s women-oriented libertarian paradigm,” Amara, a member of the feminist editorial group, said.

‘WE WANTED TO BE A PART OF THE REVOLUTION’

“The major reason we were in Rojava was to experience the Rojava revolution, which was established around Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan’s paradigm of women’s independence and ecological existence,” Amara added.

For two years, we have had the opportunity to experience the ecological living model, which is centred on women and their freedom.

After nearly 6 months of effort, we, 14 women of various identities, founded the “Struggle Together” editorial group at the end of our two years here.

The book “We Know What We Want” arose from our attempts to transmit and promote democratic confederalism throughout Europe based on women’s libertarian, democratic, and ecological bases.

‘ROJAVA REVOLUTION HAD A SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON US’

“By publishing this gender libertarian, ecological, grassroots democracy model into a book, we wanted to unify the German or European feminist struggle through the interviews and documents on the experiences and analyses of the Kurdish women’s movement,” Amara said, emphasizing that the Kurdish women’s movement’s pioneering role in the Rojava revolution had a significant impact on them.”

“We needed such an experience to strengthen ourselves, to inform ourselves about historical and current conditions, to protect ourselves from attacks with our own mental and physical self-defence, and to have a say over our own lives,” Amara said, adding, “We wanted to see which projects we can realize efficiently by taking steps towards the liberation of society. Promotional days for the book ‘We Know What We Want’ are being planned for this aim.

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