HDP Youth Assembly: We will strengthen our resistance in every field

The final declaration of our HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party) Youth Assembly’s 3rd Ordinary Congress, held on December 26th, has been released.

“At this time when sovereigns are attempting to deprive young lives of security and freedoms, our Youth Assembly held its 3rd Ordinary Congress with the slogan ‘Now is the Time for Youth’ in Diyarbakır on December 26, 2021,” the declaration stated, and continued:

“We dedicate our congress to all our comrades in person of our HDP Youth Executive Board and Youth Education Commission Member, Ozan Yıldız, whom we lost untimely. We kneel humbly in front of the loyalty of all our comrades who have died in the battle up to this point, and vow once more that their memory will be a source of hope for us!”

‘THE ANTI-KURDISH ATTITUDE IS THE SOURCE OF THE CRISIS’

Following the first and second imperialist distribution wars, the ‘international order’ based on certain balances is undergoing structural modifications and the geography we reside in is the most affected region. Border, homeland, nation, country, and even civilization are losing their old meanings because global and regional crises converge, and leaders make crisis and constant fighting the standard part of life. The policy of expansion, which Turkey’s sovereign powers adorned with conqueror and colonialist references and Turkist dreams, and added a new dimension to the Islamic world, has had an impact on many countries in the region, from the Middle East to Africa, from Central Asia to the Caucasus, in some way.

It seemed inevitable that this daring and resource-sucking foreign policy, this expansionist and conquering mentality that seeks to develop by using military power as a ram, would move on despite economic, industrial, scientific, and cultural problems, international failures, humanitarian tragedies, migrations, conflicts, massacres, xenophobia, and social traumas.

This military-political-industrial coalition is still a “bloc of deadlock” in the face of the Kurdish question. It has set itself against the subjugation of Kurds in all geographies where Kurds reside, with attacks based on causes that violate the laws of war, international law, the immutability of boundaries, and the principles of territorial integrity.

‘WE SHOULD FIGHT FOR EQUALITY AND FREEDOM’

This government, which relentlessly pursues misogyny by undermining women’s fundamental rights, has devolved into a masculinity crisis in the face of women’s freedom and equality. As young women, we should fight for equality and freedom on a large scale against these systems that enslave, usurp, and deprive people of their right to existence. Our multifaceted struggle is critical to the long-term sustainability of women’s rights, liberties, and victories, as well as to the end of discussions about the female body.

‘WE WILL BE MORE ORGANIZED’

Fearing the transformative potential of youth and women, the government implements all kinds of dirty schemes to prevent them from coming together and organizing. Young people face all kinds of attacks, from abduction and detention to intimidation, spying policies, unemployment, usurping the right to education, criminalizing the youth and making them vulnerable to all kinds of middle-of-the-road violence.”

At a historical juncture where even official numbers show that one out of every four young people in the country is unemployed, all manner of ideological tactics is being deployed to keep young people out of the productive dynamics of society and to keep them as the subject of consumer culture.

The AKP-MHP bloc, who is heir of the republic’s project of creating monotype people, has similarly based its education system on monism; instead of egalitarian, mother tongue, and independent education and has created a dogmatic and nationalist-conservative education system.

The siege launched by fascist tactics in the person of Abdullah Öcalan on Imrali is spreading to all social sections and tries to destroy the will to live in harmony. Under the leadership of the youth, the siege of Imrali against fascist policies will be broken, and the voice of the oppressed will be heard.

Starting with our party, we will intensify our fight against hierarchy, which has expanded in every moment and place in social life. It is our historical obligation to spread our policy, which has a young awareness, spirit, and viewpoint, against the understandings that embezzle politics to gerontocracy, from neighbourhoods to cities, and from cities to Turkey and the Middle East as a whole. In this regard, we should continue our effort by proclaiming, ‘We began young, we will succeed young,’ and we will undoubtedly see the results.

We continue to look to the future with optimism, despite our self-criticism for failing to fulfil our responsibilities up to this point. We think it is time to break the blockage that fascism is using to jail and strangle the youth in order to build our bright future. We believe that now is the time for more organization and solidarity. Now, we declare, “Youth Time is the Time to Win” against capitalist modernity and fascism that are destroying mankind, nature, and life!

As HDP Youth Assembly;

In this new period, we will serve as a roof for all young people who are overlooked and ignored because of their language, identity, and belief.

We will construct solidarity centres where young people who are working, unemployed, or in precarious employment can organize, increase the struggle of young people in colleges, and adopt integrated policies that cover all youth.

We shall create alternative universities by intensifying the fight for an autonomous, mother tongue, free, and democratic education system. We shall organize in all spheres of life and struggle to socialize politics as young people who are striving to be excluded from politics.

We will continue to support the Rojava Revolution, which is the projection of the progressive international revolutions in the Middle East, and the principles it defends until the end, acting with the awareness and responsibility that the youth are the driving force of the new life policy. As our principal responsibility to our people, we will continue to regard the struggle for the Third Way as a line of the struggle for a democratic and free Middle East.

We shall defend the Kurdish people and their will everywhere, including universities, journals, and newspapers, as well as on the streets, against any hegemonic discourse that denies, distorts, and instrumentalizes the Kurdish people’s values and existence.

One of our key goals will be to intensify the struggle so that the political institution, which has had its share of patriarchal mentality for thousands of years as much as any other social organization, reaches content based on women’s equality and freedom. We will carry out an ambitious struggle program, particularly for young women to develop their original organizational fields and to eradicate the patriarchal discourses and attitudes that have been visible in our organizational structures in recent years.

We are the forerunners of the ecological, libertarian, and gender-equalitarian struggle against the political-economic system that capitalist modernity is attempting to justify. With our worldview that unites the struggle of class, identity, and nature, which is based on the struggle of the oppressed, we see ourselves as an elementary part of the global revolutionary movement.

‘WE WILL WIN!’

We will triumph with the vitality and resolute attitude of youth against those who are unable to interpret the spirit of the times! We will be successful! We draw our strength, belief, and righteousness from the resistance and battle tradition on which we rely.

We are prepared to intervene in history once more and reverse this catastrophic past, drawing strength from our resistance tradition and hope from a democratic future! We despise sorrow and forgetfulness! Now is the time to blow the hope whistle in all areas, including squares, factories, streets, and campuses. In opposition to the sovereigns. ‘Now is the Time of Youth,’ we say, to intervene in history once more to support the oppressed!”