The Free Women's Movement (Tevgera Jinên Azad-TJA) launched a new movement with the slogan "Jin ji bo azadiya Serokatî, ji bo çand û zimanê Kurdî, li dijî tundiya li ser jinê têdikoşin (Women struggle for the freedom of the Leader, Kurdish language and culture, against violence against women)". Women made a statement at the Dicle Culture and Art Association in Amed. DBP Women's Assembly Spokesperson Berivan Bahçeci and DEM Party Women's Assembly Spokesperson Halide Türkoğlu as well as many women attended the statement. The declaration was read in Kurdish by DBP Provincial Co-chair Sultan Yaray and in Turkish by TUAY-DER Co-chair Yeter Erel Tuma. 

 

The declaration reads: "Today, the Middle East has once again been turned into the center of the 3rd World War with the genocide of women, cultural genocide, denial and extermination through male-dominated and capitalist nation states and the transnational capitalists who rule them. Although it is seen as the ground of the deepest contradictions of state civilisation, it should not be forgotten that the Middle East is the homeland of the life models of the forces of democratic modernity based on freedom and equality and the resistances carried out for this cause. It is the truth that we see, know and experience that it keeps social resistances alive with its historicity, pluralism and diversity based on free women's culture and that it contains the closest moment to liberation. That is why the struggle of the current representatives of both civilisations to make their ideological lines and systems dominant is at the threshold of victory. 

 

One side of the struggle is represented by the nation-states, which are the source of all social, economic, political and cultural crises worldwide with their ideologies of religionism, nationalism, scientism and sexism. It is clear that the Middle Eastern and African practices that massacre women, turn every home into a prison system, systematise child rape and massacres, and the policies that exploit women under the name of freedom, devalue their labour, turn them into a commodity and deepen women's poverty come from the same source, capitalist modernity. The recent developments in Syria have once again shown that no lasting solution can be found without overcoming the monist nation-state mentality of capitalist modernity. After the overthrow of the Baath regime, Syria has evolved into a process in which all regional and hegemonic powers are trying to build a system for their own interests, but the peoples' struggle for freedom is again ignored.

 

ÖCALAN OFFERS A NEW MODEL OF LIFE

 

On the other side, there is the democratic confederal system of the democratic ecological women's libertarian paradigm that has come to life in Rojava and the representations of the mentality on which it is based. The power of both the solution and the way out of the darkness in which we are being strangled by capitalist modernity today is undoubtedly the creator of this idea, the Kurdish People's Leader Mr Ocalan, who offers a new life model with the democratic nation perspective to the freedom struggle of peoples and women. With this power and belief, women and Kurds, who are the pioneering subjects of democratic modernity, will not once again surrender their fate to any nation-state. 

 

The Kurdish women's movement, which makes sense of itself, the society and the universe it lives in, and develops how it wants to live in this struggle, defines its truth with free life. A democratic and free life for women and peoples will only be possible through a democratic confederal women's system that is purified from the mentality on which the nation states of capitalist modernity are based. The aim of the 3rd World War we are going through is to erase this ideal of life from the minds and emotions of peoples and women, and to destroy women's culture. World War 3 is an unlawful and immoral war against women, even though it is not called as such. 

 

The most concrete indicator of this is the torture regime in İmralı, which has been shaped and intensified as the sum total of the war policies that have been going on for a quarter of a century, which is rare in history with the international conspiracy. The genocide policies, in which cultural genocide attacks deepened, the isolation system was tried to be established in all areas of life, the peoples were condemned to hunger and poverty for the sake of war financing, directly targeted the body, life, labour, culture and freedom claims of women against the female comradeship of the Kurdish People's Leader Mr. Ocalan with the concept of special war. The answer of women who are condemned to live under violence at every moment, who face hunger and poverty the most, who are removed from their language and culture, who are wanted to be destroyed in the darkness of reaction and feudalism is clear; isolation will be broken and physical freedom will be achieved with the women's freedom struggle.  

 

ABSOLUTE FREEDOM AGAINST ABSOLUTE ISOLATION 

 

With this claim, the uninterrupted line of struggle that has continued since the international conspiracy has rendered the isolation policies inconclusive and opened a breach in this system. After 44 months of absolute incommunication in İmralı, the 3 meetings with Kurdish People's Leader Öcalan were the result of the struggle led by women. Although the talks have created great hope and morale in the whole society and women, the fact that the isolation continues has once again shown us that we must take a determined and continuous line in the struggle as a basis. We see the statements of the DEM Party delegation and the 7-point declaration as important for the solution of the Kurdish issue and the democratisation of Turkey. This will and wisdom for a solution will not only be the solution to Turkey's problems, but will also be the basis for a model of free and coexistence in order to overcome the global system crises. For this reason, it is necessary to evolve the developing dialogue searches into a permanent solution. The way to this is through the dismantling of the genocide system carried out in İmralı and ensuring the freedom of Kurdish People's Leader Öcalan.

 

As TJA women, with the awareness that we are the pioneers of this process, we declare to the press and the public that we have started our movement focusing on the demand for a solution to the Kurdish issue and freedom for Mr Öcalan. Our move will be based on the construction of a democratic ecological women's libertarian life, the democratisation of Turkey, women's demand for freedom and equality, and will be organised with the awareness that all these will develop with the breaking of the absolute isolation. 

 

On this basis;

 

* We will continue our move until we break the isolation on the basis of ensuring the free living and working conditions of the Kurdish People's Leader Mr Ocalan.

 

* We will fight against the solution perspectives to be presented by the Kurdish People's Leader Mr Öcalan during the developing period, considering ourselves responsible.

 

* We will struggle uninterruptedly for the democratic solution of the Kurdish issue and the constitutional guarantee of the rights of the Kurdish people.

 

* We will organise a common struggle around the solution perspective offered by Kurdish People's Leader Mr. Ocalan to oppressed peoples and women, especially in the Middle East.

 

* We will increase our cultural values against all kinds of assimilation and genocide policies on Kurdish language and culture.

 

* We will defend our geography, which is tried to be turned into the center of feudalism and reaction, the children whose future is blackened by the policies of genocide, the youth and women who are targeted by the special war, with the perspective of democratic society.

 

* On the basis of the women's liberation theses and women's perspectives of the Kurdish People's Leader, which is the basis of liberation from the genocide of women and cultural genocide; we will develop gender consciousness, gender love, free life and self-defence consciousness.

 

* Based on all of these principles of struggle, our movement process, which we have initiated, will continue until the Kurdish People's Leader Mr Öcalan's freedom is achieved. 

 

While the magic words ‘jin, jiyan, azadî (Woman, life, freedom)’, which have become universal and have become the manifesto of women all over the world, call for the organisation of a new life, we, the women of TJA, reiterate our call to all the peoples of Turkey, especially women, and to the democratic public opinion, to participate with their minds, hearts and actions in the movement we have started in order for the process to evolve into a ground where everyone will gain freedom with great gains."