Bese Erzincan evaluates 2022:Humanity needs women’s revolutions

In the wrap up of 2022, we interviewed KJK Coordination Member Bese Erzincan. She reflected on a year of intense struggle in Kurdistan and all over the world and welcomed a new year of resistance. Here is the conversation evaluating topics, from the women’s revolution to the uprising that developed around the slogan of Jin Jiyan Azadi. Bese Erzincan also discusses the attacks targeting the revolutionary women leaders and the meaning of Abdullah Öcalan for the women’s movement.

How do you evaluate 2022 in terms of women’s freedom struggle?
As the women’s freedom movement, we spent 2022 in resistance and struggle, with the spirit of freedom. The need for leadership from women’s liberation movements is becoming clearer for the solution of the contemporary crises of humanity. Women as the oldest colony, lead the opposition against injustices, inequalities and ecological destruction. Today, the impact of women’s liberation movements is widely accepted. Scattered, fragmented women’s movements are gradually evolving towards a more integrated struggle.
The crises experienced by humanity can only be overcome by women’s revolutions. Despite all the oppression and violence of nation-states and fascism against women and society, our goal of realizing the women’s revolution continues unabated. In this sense, the determination that ‘the 21st century will be the century of women’ reveals itself as a daily truth that we feel and live.
With the rise of women’s liberation struggles across the world, the dominant male system develops strategies and tactics such as the attempt to reverse the gains of women’s liberation struggles, making women’s resistance invisible, deflecting the radical women’s liberation struggle, and prolonging its own life through reform. The system is in a very comprehensive war of aggression against women in order not to disrupt the social order built on the basis of the exploitation of women’s labour, mind and body.

We see the echoes of the women’s revolution in Rojava echo around the world. How do you define the women’s revolution?
The revolution that took place in Rojava is a source of inspiration. The Rojava revolution is taking shape as a women’s revolution. An attempt is made to create a democratic system against the state and power. Women fought alongside men in the revolutions during the 19th and 20th centuries, predominantly with class and national perspectives. They played a pioneering role with great courage and self-sacrifice in the foundations of revolutions.
They thought with well-intentions that women’s problems would be resolved naturally in course of a revolution. However, that didn’t happen. In these revolutions, women could not establish the free life they envisioned because they fell short of creating their own ideologies, organizations and systems. They re-entered the existing system. A women’s revolution was necessary within the revolution – made possible with the development of a women’s system and women’s democratic confederalism on the basis of a radical, aesthetic, sophisticated, cultural and social struggle. Their existing ideological and intellectual conduct, organizations, and experience of struggle proved to be limited.
In this sense, the character of the revolutions of the 21st century has to carry a deeper radical and aesthetic dimension. Humanity needs women’s revolutions. Our leader Abdullah Ocalan set out to develop women’s revolutions with the science of women, Jineolojî. In this sense, the women’s revolution must be experienced in a multifaceted way for the revolutions that are developing in the world to be meaningful revolution. The women’s revolution means the most radical and deep-rooted realization of socialism, and the practice of democracy and freedoms socially. The women’s revolution is the creation of an alternative new free life against the state and power.

The uprising, led by women in Rojhilat and Iran, continues to resonate around the world with the slogan of Jin Jiyan Azadi. What can you say about the origins of this slogan?
After the murder of the Kurdish woman Jîna Amini by the Iranian state, uprisings began from her hometown Saqez, Rojhilat Kurdistan, with the slogan of Jin Jiyan Azadi that spread to all Iran. In the personage of Jina Amini, we commemorate all those murdered and executed in Iran fighting for freedom, and express our condolences to their families and our people. We congratulate and greet all freedom lovers who pioneered and participated in the Uprisings.
The magic formula of Jin Jiyan Azadi developed by our leader Abdullah Öcalan has been recognized and universalized by women and peoples all over the world. The aptitude of our leadership’s line of women liberation has been proven once again. Our leader Abdullah Öcalan has been held in Imrali for 24 years in a system of severe isolation and torture. Our leader Ocalan made an extraordinary breakthrough in these grim conditions. His way of dealing with women’s comradeship, friendship and women’s freedom struggle is an example for all humanity. He created the cores to development the model for a new, free and egalitarian life principally in his own person. He developed genuine camaraderie and sincerity with women in a serious manner. He has always worked for the development of an egalitarian and libertarian understanding for women within the PKK and for the systematization of this in practice – and this destroyed the taboos imposed on women. Therefore, women are able to reveal their energy, mind and potential. The resistance and freedom stance of women, especially the Rojava revolution, has been presented as an hope and an example to the world. In this context, as women, we owe a lot to our leader Ocalan. Because for us, he is a leader that opens and shows the ways of equality and freedom.
There has been no news from leader Abdullah Öcalan for 22 months. One of the main reasons for the international conspiracy carried out against him that led to his abduction in 1999 was our leader’s position and struggle for women’s freedom. The capitalist system, hostile to women’s liberation, developed a conspiracy against our leader, who placed women’s liberation at the centre of struggle. Demolishing the walls of the Imrali system, the most brutal system in human history, is the most fundamental comradeship duty of us women. The freedom of our leader is the freedom of women. We can tear down the walls of Imrali with our work, actions and the development of our women’s system.

What is the target and purpose of the attacks against women’s leadership in Kurdistan?
The target and purpose of the attacks against women’s leadership, women’s work and women in all of Kurdistan is clear. The women’s liberation struggle is seriously feared. This is the basis of the attacks. The fact that the fascist AKP-MHP government in Northern Kurdistan put all active and pioneering women such as Leyla Güven and Şebnem Korur Fincancı in their dungeons, and treating sick prisoners in the most inhumane way, especially Aysel Tuğluk, is a part of its fascist policies. The attacks and intense special war practices especially developed against young women in Bashur and Rojava, aims to disintegrate the organization of our peoples, and with that the hope for freedom, and the growing potential of resistance and freedom.
The assassination of Nagihan Akarsel, a member of the Jineolojî Committee, in Southern Kurdistan on October 4, bares resemblance to this. Jineolojî is the science of women’s revolution and of human revolutions. The aim is to prevent the development and spread of it. On this basis, the aim is to prevent the depth of perspective emerging from the studies for a new and free life. In response to this, in 2023 we will adopt an approach that centres Jineolojî on the agenda much more. We will plan towards studies that will increase the awareness and concentration of all women based on Jineolojî.
The main purpose of the attack against women in Rojava is to dissolve the democratic self-government system in North-East Syria and to invade Rojava, Kurdistan. This is the reason the young women’s academy was attacked, murdering Jiyan Tolhildan, Zeynep Saruxan, Çiçek Haruni and Evin Goyi was murdered in Paris. We have lost many dear friends. We bow respectfully before their memory. As Kurdish women, we affirm once again that we will continue our resistance in every field.

While we were commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Paris assassination in which Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan and Leyla Şaylemez, who were among the leading cadres of your movement, were murdered, a new massacre took place in the same place, among which a representative of the Kurdistan women’s movement was murdered. How do you evaluate this?
The Turkish state massacred our friends Evin Goyi, Mir Perwer and Abdurrahman Kızıl in Paris on 23 December. France is also responsible for this massacre. Our friend Evin Goyi was murdered on purpose, with meticulous planning. The second Paris massacre was carried out on this basis.
Evin Goyi was an old, conscious, altruistic, friendly pioneer and militant of our women’s movement. In life, she always had a very mature and hard-working stance, connected to society and her friends. She was a friend of ours who made a qualitative leap in militancy with the education of our leader. She was one of the most conscious leading female cadres of the Botan region. The Turkish state thinks such massacres will grant them gains. However, on the contrary, such massacres cause greater rage and reaction among women. As women, our commitment to the struggle for freedom and values and to create a free life only grows. Our women’s liberation line and struggle can never be stopped by such massacres.

So how do you welcome the year 2023? What is your prediction in terms of women’s struggle?
In this respect, developments in Kurdistan, the Middle East and the world show that 2023, will be a critical year for women, Kurds and all sections who long for liberation. In this sense, primarily, women should raise awareness powerfully, construct a mentality revolution, and create a way of life and system that can sustain their own life outside of the state and powers. They should develop new formations with women’s mind and influence in the fields of self-defence, economy, politics, education, law, civil society, press and culture, and develop the existing ones even more.
The year 2023 will be challenging as well as a year in which opportunities for liberation will develop. As women, our stance of struggle and resistance are decisive in this sense. The development of the philosophy of free life will be possible with the achievements of the women’s freedom struggle and the development of the women’s system.

Finally, we would like to ask about your feelings for the new year.
As the Kurdish women’s freedom movement, 2022 has been a year in which we resisted relentlessly for freedom. The year 2023 will be a year in which we accelerate our resistance and our efforts to build a free life. We will continue our work to realise the women’s revolution and World Women’s Democratic Confederalism in Kurdistan, the Middle East and the world. If we work for freedom and resist, women and all exploited sections of society will win. On this basis, I wish a well new year to our leader, guerrillas, families of martyrs, mothers and veteran friends with love and respect. Likewise, I congratulate the women of the world in 2023 with the spirit of resistance and freedom. We will be the winners in the new year. Freedom will win.