NEWS CENTER – Kezban Dogan , spokesperson for the Kurdish Women’s Movement in Europe (TJK-E), said that Abdullah Öcalan’s philosophy “turned the woman, who had become the colony of a colony, into a goddess and a source of hope.”

 

Founded on 27 November 1978 in the village of Fis in Licê, Amed (Diyarbakır), the PKK led the Kurdish freedom struggle for 47 years before dissolving itself within the framework of Öcalan’s Peace and Democratic Society Process. Reflecting on the transformative role of women in this history, Dogan  said she encountered the PKK as a child and experienced its impact firsthand.

 

Growing up in a feudal society with deeply rooted negative views toward women, Kezban Dogan  said early anti-propaganda targeted at PKK’s mixed-gender participation reinforced these biases. But she noted that the resistance led by Ayten Tekin in Bagok, where 19 PKK members were killed, broke these prejudices and paved the way for a surge in women joining the movement. “In the late 1980s, participation from women increased dramatically across Kurdistan, shaking society and generating a sense of ownership,” she said.

 

FROM COLONIZED WOMAN TO A SOURCE OF HOPE

 

Kezban Dogan said the rise of women’s resistance gradually positioned women as active subjects and transformed Kurdish society itself. She stated Öcalan’s philosophy enabled women to understand their own reality and envision new paths. “Three years ago, during a conference titled ‘We Want Our World Back,’ even renowned philosophers said, ‘Leader Apo is our teacher; we remained in theory, he put it into practice.’ Rojava became the visible prototype of this,” Kezban Dogan  stated.

 

She added that women’s involvement from the first PKK congress and their leadership role in the final congress were parts of a single, continuous process. According to Kezban Dogan , Öcalan centered women’s liberation from the beginning, later developing a feminist, ecological, and democratic theory that challenged patriarchal structures. She said Öcalan criticized Karl Marx for overlooking gendered oppression and focusing solely on class.

 

Comparing 25 November—the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women—and 27 November, the PKK’s founding date, Kezban Dogan  said: “On one of these dates women were murdered; on the other, they were elevated and placed at the center of a new life.” 

 

She emphasized that Öcalan defined the socialist man as someone able to build dialogue with women and said the 47-year struggle transformed women from “raw material of capitalism” into courageous agents of change. “Capitalist modernity suffocated women, but Öcalan’s philosophy became oxygen for them,” she added.

 

DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY AS THE GOAL

 

Referring to Öcalan’s call for a Peace and Democratic Society, Kezban Dogan  said he envisions a new social model grounded in justice, women’s autonomy, and the nurturing, creative nature associated with ancient matriarchal cultures. “Two rivers run in parallel: the transformation of society and the transition to a new phase of struggle. PKK has always been a means, not an end. Our goal is to build a democratic society,” she said.

 

Kezban Dogan  concluded by stressing that without women’s freedom, society cannot be free, and that women should be the strongest defenders of the Peace and Democratic Society Process.

 

MA / Omer Ibrahimoglu