The Kurdish Women’s Movement in Europe (TJK-E) launched a new initiative with a press statement at the international women’s conference held in Zurich under the slogan “Peace cannot be without us.” Women who announced the start of the campaign, titled “Bi heza jin jiyan Azadî dema avakirina civake komînal e!” (With the strength of women, it is time to build a communal society) / “It is time to build a communal society with Jin Jiyan Azadî (Women, Life, Freedom),” said the initiative aims to strengthen women’s role in peace processes and expand organized struggle in society. In the statement, they called for the socialization of women’s freedom struggle, the construction of communal life, and the development of a democratic society under women’s leadership.
The full statement delivered in Kurdish and Turkish by Seda Can and Sidar Aydın, accompanied by the slogan “Jin Jiyan Azadî,” reads as follows:
“Dear women,
April 4 is not just a date; it is a symbol of peace, hope and a new beginning. It is the rebirth of the Kurdish people. In this sense, we celebrate this rebirth, first and foremost Abdullah Öcalan, the entire Kurdish people, freedom fighters and all peoples who insist on peace.
The peace conference we are holding on this meaningful day will be a gathering where ideas from the past are carried into the future. At the same time, today also marks the beginning of our new campaign.
This process, inspired by the common values of humanity, is a call to strengthen our hopes for peace and coexistence. The step we take today is the will to build the peace of tomorrow.
On this occasion, we respectfully commemorate all those who contribute to peace and everyone who has worked in this direction, and we call for building a hopeful future together.
Dear friends,
Today, we have gathered here as Kurdish women to announce the launch of a new campaign. The main aim of our campaign is to socialize our women’s freedom struggle and to deepen the longed-for free life in the process of positive construction, turning ourselves into active subjects of this struggle.
We know that all patriarchal eras have been shaped by destruction, annihilation, captivity, exploitation and domination. The rigid and destructive structures that open the door to wars have today taken the form of a patriarchal system that wages war against nature, humanity, societies and women. Because wars bring destruction and eliminate both humanity and natural sources of life, they also mean the narrowing and encirclement of spaces for free living. For this reason, women and children bear the heaviest burden of wars and pay the highest price. War is the suppression of what is natural. As Simone de Beauvoir said, ‘War should be seen as the greatest form of alienation imposed on women by a world created by men.’ Overcoming this alienation makes the defense of peace one of our fundamental responsibilities. Environments of peace strengthen the opportunities for women and societies to reinforce solidarity within democratic life and to develop one another in accordance with the laws of natural growth.
For this reason, building a democratic, communal and women’s liberation-based society is first and foremost a moment of decision to break out of this compressed state of war and ongoing crisis. We know that today the system has both pushed the individual into a crisis of meaning and identity by rendering them meaningless, and has kept society and women within a framework of continuous crisis identities, where problems deepen and solutions are obstructed. The philosophy of Jin, Jiyan, Azadî represents equality, freedom and a humane life. It is a way out of a spiritual and emotional world confined within these crisis-driven identities and moments. It is a process of conscious and determined participation in all the colors of social life, based on preserving one’s own existence.
Our campaign aims to strengthen the process of socialization against individualism, and to reinforce local governance, self-governance and self-organization against denial and invisibility. In this sense, the commune is a space of direct democracy where people can speak, act and organize; it is the smallest unit within our homes, and a ground for standing side by side, shoulder to shoulder, in struggle everywhere and with everyone.
In the work of building communes, we will deepen awareness and consciousness against power-oriented and statist mentalities in order to ensure the unity of equals. Rather than becoming women shaped by the family and the capitalist system, we will lead the commune through women’s knowledge and perspective. By incorporating men into the commune, we will make them visible within a democratic and free life. Recognizing that power-driven and statist logic can be overcome through communality, we will aim to raise men’s awareness of social problems and ensure that women and men come together in communal structures as a shared force for solutions.
Abdullah Öcalan states: ‘For me, the best thing that can be done for women is to explain the truth to them as clearly as possible. Women achieve communality better. This has been the case since the beginning of history. There will be rigorous education within the commune. Starting from young girls, both women and men will be educated.’
Now is the time of women; in this sense, it is the moment to meet the truth and to weave it with this sense of responsibility. Truth is the awareness of rights and the establishment of justice. Now is the time of women to affirm existence on the path of rights and truth. “We existed, we exist, we will exist” is not only a statement but also the transformation of a historical legacy into a contemporary form of organization and the construction of a democratic society under women’s leadership.
Building projects and forming organizations while constructing communes is indispensable for the Women’s Time campaign. We are aware that what sustains a woman is communality and social life. As the primary founding subjects of this sociality, we will take on a greater role than anyone else. Our reason for existence is organization. We have existed to the extent that we are organized. The unity of organized women is the unity and vitality of society.
Neither the language of the nation-state nor the language of male domination can find a place in a communal society. Because the language of the nation-state is commanding and enforces obedience, while the male-dominated language imposes subjugation and submission. We know that both of these approaches produce hegemony and power. The success of the commune must limit the language of the state and male domination and strengthen the struggle against it. For this reason, developing the ethical and political concepts of the commune, based on participation, sharing and the face-to-face relations of equals, which constitute the language of a democratic society, will mean the expansion of spaces of freedom.
Our campaign, “It is time to build a communal society with Jin, Jiyan, Azadî,” is about creating our own time and multiplying moments of freedom. Through this campaign, it is aimed to weaken and erode the foundations of “voluntary servitude” that sustain the capitalist system. Against the passive, non-objecting, obedient and subdued attitudes produced by capitalism, developing rebellion, objection and refusal around women’s values is among the gains of women’s time. It is about transforming women’s collective struggle into a philosophy of free life against male-dominated policies that consume women both spiritually and physically without recognizing any ethical or political boundaries.
Capitalism has turned the female body into a sexual commodity, making it an object of market power. For a woman to protect her spiritual, emotional and physical integrity, and to establish her inner harmony, it is necessary for her to define herself and develop self-respect. To become Xwebûn (being oneself) is for a woman to rebuild the destruction within her inner world, to produce, and to develop her creativity.
Femicide is being reproduced moment by moment through policies of women’s annihilation and social destruction. Alongside those who directly target women’s lives, there are also constant personal and psychological attacks that insult, belittle, humiliate, degrade and otherize women’s spirit, emotions and intellectual capacity. These perpetrators have systematized the deadly aggression they inherited from their rigid and destructive predecessors in order to establish hegemony and domination. If men seek to be free, they must demonstrate the greatest difference by protecting the communal values of humanity against this destructive legacy. By struggling against the phenomenon of masculinity that kills women physically or verbally, men must stand in solidarity with women in the construction of a democratic society and take part in building communality. They must distance themselves from false pursuits of life that confine women within the triangle of ‘love, romance and marriage.’ They must understand that this triad, which creates slavery and dependency, has also become a chain that enslaves and renders men dependent.
Because Öcalan believes that the commune will sustain and liberate both society and women, he emphasized that the commune is a source of energy and life. On this basis, he made the following historic call: “Every communalist who is aware of living in this era and geography must take on this responsibility as a consciousness of existence. To live the spirit of communality means to build the future within oneself; it means commitment to one’s land, people, history and culture.”
In response to this call, we as women raise our voices from Europe and declare our will to build our own future together with our people, our friends and all women in the construction of a democratic society, within our lands, our families, the neighborhoods and districts where we live, and alongside our neighbors and sisters. The time to build a communal society with Jin, Jiyan, Azadî is the time to strengthen the democratic unity of Kurdish women. It is also the time to unite and expand the struggle with all women in communal and internationalist spaces.
Jin, Jiyan, Azadî!
Greetings to women who create their own time!
An Azadî, An Azadî (Time for Freedom, Time for Freedom), Bijî Berxwedana Jinan (Long live women’s resistance)!”
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