The Empowered Woman İs Our Pride.

I will try to explain the importance of aiming for freedom and locking onto it to overcome the meaninglessness of life. Especially for women, it is necessary to aim for an ambitious life beyond the present situation and to lock onto freedom in order to overcome the meaningless life they are in. If you have courage, power, and knowledge, you will create new utopias of freedom and new ways of life. You will develop your emotional and analytical intelligence. You will use emotional intelligence and analytical intelligence together, using them in a way that supports and enriches each other. Women should protect their soul, body, and consciousness with goddess sensitivity. Just as religion believes and acts with faith, women can act like goddesses for their freedom. Yes, yes, like a religion. Just as religion is a belief, women can believe in and work for their freedom like a religion.

It is clear that the status to which the woman is condemned is completely anti-Jiyan (meaning “life” in Kurdish) and anti-Jin (meaning “woman” in Kurdish) in character. It is still incomprehensible to me how a man can live with a woman under the current conditions, let alone make the concept of honor revolve around the woman while turning its meaning upside down. I have considered fighting against this to be the true meaning of honor. I believe that this fight is already creating the desired woman, and therefore life, in yourselves and in the institutional expressions of society. In the world in general, and in Middle Eastern societies in particular, the most meaningful social struggle must be based on this foundation. I am proudly carrying out this struggle with high performance. But what is important is your successful individual and institutional emergence from under this struggle’s weight. I do not want to repeat what I have already said about this struggle. There is no limit to my friendship and comradeship with women. The theoretical depth and practicality found in these things will be the true measure of acceptable masculinity. This perspective is also, in my opinion, the fundamental principle of aesthetics and productivity. Beauty can only be achieved when the depth of this perspective is grasped and lived. Living the homeland, nation, and freedom must be based on this fundamental principle.

I consider attempts at shaping women to be immoral. It is necessary for women to become “Xweda” (meaning “God” in Kurdish, literally “to give oneself”). “God” is giving birth to oneself. A free woman rises like the sun. The words JIN and JIYAN are very meaningful. Women should be powerful, free, and decisive. Women are valuable beings. The words JIN-JIYAN are very valuable for this reason. Do not regard everything I say as taboo. Raise women who make their own decisions. There should be free living spaces and buildings for women. There should be places where you make decisions about your life. This requires economic support. Make the search for free women the basis of your work. I repeat, there is no life without women. Be hopeful and work hard. Do it with belief. It is important that women’s work be the foundation. You are leading in the Middle East for women. You can only be a leader in this way.

We will organize women’s freedom. We will educate women. This also has very practical implications. We are going to raise magnificent women in free women’s homes. I do not say shelters, I say freedom homes. The women in these homes will learn everything, society, education, art, production; then they will become free people. Let hundreds of our young girls come and develop. Educate women instead of oppressing them, so that they can become equal and free persons with men. You take a poor girl, give her to a 70-year-old man, take a dowry, and then kill her. And you call that tradition. This is the worst thing. This is a culture of the big man over an ignorant woman. I hated this culture of wifehood and machoism. This also makes a person a fraud. It makes a person a fraudster.

Campaigns, these are practical things. They pale in comparison to the webs woven around women. Women need to strengthen their ideological and theoretical levels to overcome these webs. For this, they should come together and form groups and organizations. They can establish countless associations in Diyarbakir and other places, countless like plant names. They can also form associations related to nature and the environment. They can develop and deepen their organization through these structures. Every person should have a group, an organization. In my opinion, an unorganized person is nothing. My slogan for this year is “Have the courage to think, or rather, have the courage to think democratically and freely!

Socrates and his disciple Plato are said to have said, “People produce in two ways. The first is to continue their generation, which is physical production. This is simple. The important thing is philosophical and intellectual production.” First they create philosophy in this way, and then the magnificent civilization of Athens emerges. I am not saying anything for the people, of course, they will continue their generations. But those who have ambitions cannot do this. I told the PKK leadership that they should produce philosophy and ideas. I am saying this for the intellectuals and leaders. You will do the philosophical and intellectual production and you will be honorable. The Women’s Political Academy should be a general academy. Women will learn and do everything there, from sports to clothing to economics. This complex should also have a park.

You must develop your organizational form in every area according to your essence. You are now more competent than ever to develop your unique organization and activism from prisons to metropolises, from mountains to special and entire areas of work. Otherwise, it is not possible to make a way out for the woman that the Middle East has dropped. Certainly, a great freedom revolution is essential for a meaningful life. Therefore, the Middle East revolution must be developed as a women’s freedom revolution. Indeed, I believe that your locations are unique as they are the areas that have given birth to the cult of the goddess. I was talking about the oak tree campaign. I asked people to make everything an oak forest. Make the mountains, stones, and everything green. The revolution of the 21st century is ecological. That’s why I’m close to Bookchin. Marx and Lenin were based on industrial capitalism, but we are based on an ecological-democratic social system. Gender inequality will be dismantled. These three things will renew society. Here’s my suggestion: read theory, practice it. Nobody can say not to planting oaks. I have always tried to explain this in relevant analyses. As I mentioned, the current stage is at best halfway there. Let us not forget that what is important is not the end of the road (perhaps there is no such end), but to walk or run with enthusiasm, collective love, and beauty along the way.

Do not be afraid of the truth, for it strengthens a person. As you demonstrate your ability to live with the truth, you can reach the meaning of your own existence and make yourself true. Lies do not set you free, and stooping to what is fake does not set you free. However, the truth, which offers horizon with clarity and clears consciousness, is always liberating.

It is important to understand how those who do not improve themselves ruin themselves. By saying “I remained superficial, I could not go deep,” you make it easy for yourself, you lose and cause losses.

You will be far from the reality that revolution is a difficult task and freedom is hard-won, and in doing so you will lose. At the militant level, the following must now be realized: all of your relationships must be conscious, serving freedom, and even elevating yourself in a way. This must also be embodied in emotions and love.

If anyone among you is confident in themselves, they must be meticulous in organizing women’s liberation. Especially young girls, unconscious women, and enslaved women must be developed. Freedom must be introduced to them. This is the duty of free women fighters, not of men or male leaders. You must defend your own personality and freedom rights by yourself. Even your loved ones and those closest to you will not protect you. They have no standards and they have not yet reached a correct understanding of freedom and commitment.

Be aware that you are on a more dangerous cross than I am. Those who think they are free can never be anything. If you realize that you are on the cross, even if it is the size of a pinhead, you will appreciate the value of freedom. Wanting something from the state, father, husband is an expression of helplessness. If you want freedom so much, you must educate yourself. Do as much work as you can with your strength. Of course, lift as much as your strength allows, do everything, but you must know your standards and your limits well. Discuss your own fate and situation.

When asked what method is necessary: if a woman’s goal is as clear as the sun, she will find her method. If her passion for freedom is strong, every way and method will be found. One should not be too talkative about freedom. If there are male-dominated thoughts in your head, you become a devil. I get angry when people complain about others blocking their way. I hate those who say, “Clear the way for me.” By saying this, you are asking for help from a man. What is the difference between you and a woman who takes refuge in her husband? Do not ask others for help. First, climb Mount Qaf, develop your brain and your heart. Your greatest companion is the passion for freedom. Train your brain and heart. Children cry. Do not cry like a child. Keep yourself alive and develop yourself with reason.

The living conditions and form you are in are the greatest blow to the boundless slavery and ugliness of women. It is also a source of real pride for me. What is important is how you fill the essence of this way of life, as individuals and as institutions. I think you present the conditions and the structures in which male intervention is minimized at a high level, that is the secret. You are also giving the most successful response to men under that conditions and structures. Many talk about the need and love for women, but they know very well that they do not have the courage, awareness, and beauty of true love for women. Their primitive instincts of need and love do not go beyond that. But love cannot be achieved with that alone. It only gets killed. All the books of the gods are full of stories of love being killed, since Adam. However, you must continue to teach and represent freedom, or the magic formula JIN-JIYAN-AZADI. I will continue to contribute with my work and strength as much as I respect and am committed to our noble martyrs and your reality of being jin-jiyan (woman-life).

You can examine and evaluate ‘Mem û Zîn’, ‘Derwêşê Evdî’ and many other epics on this basis.[1] The common point of all of them is that they represent defeats and the defeat of the personality. If you want to be a good fighter and a concise socialist, you can start here. Examine them all and ask yourself the question, “Can we be Mem û Zîn who do not lose?” Concentrate correctly and develop clear answers. There is no coercion, the choice is yours.

Love should be based on understanding, but what is understanding? This leads us to philosophy. To learn how to do philosophy, how to learn it, you must read a lot of sociology and know the history of everything. You must read sociology and philosophy from a historical perspective, and you must know everything from a historical perspective. To understand today, you must know history very well. Love based on companionship and understanding is meaningful. If women can achieve this, then they can be loved as women, as goddesses, as elements of love, and as human beings.

I cannot help but express my feeling and thought: no ugliness can be more despicable and disgusting than combining and merging with a slave woman or a domineering man. Likewise, no unity and integrity can be more valuable, beautiful, and correct than living with a free woman and a masculinity that has overcome domination.

Men should not belittle their masculinity based on your submission, and you should not keep yourself in a position of a needy and sycophantic person. This is also a matter of honor. Human dignity comes from one’s own strength, not from begging and pleading with others.

THERE IS A FREE LIFE TO BE WON

The way to revolution is through rebellion against habits, and revolution manifests itself in replacing them with one’s own livable standards. Just resisting is not enough. We must also know what to replace it with. Otherwise, we are no different from an adventurer. We may also have our own mistakes and deficiencies. I am still intensively dealing with the reality of women. The easiest way would have been not to do this. I would have found a few women for myself and arranged things accordingly. But if you notice, I resist that. In order to reveal the reality of women’s freedom and to make it more general for overall liberation, I am making myself more advanced, resistant, and general than any man can dare to be. Being a general man is not an easy task as more men want to remain private than women, while women want to be more general. Being general is in the interest of women, but men always want to be special or attract private property.

We have also made great efforts to present all comrades and all girls nicely, to bring them to a point where they can live beautifully, love and be loved. Most of them are not aware of this, and cannot even give it meaning.

To become free women, women should delve deeper into the ideology of women’s liberation. They should be able to exist as an ideological force. There is still a long way to go to compete with men, so women should not rely too much on men. Women should protect their own independence. There should be no fear of women’s freedom. I have had great companionship with women, and I have a strong friendship with women. Your longings are my reason for living; I am with you. Do not enter into cheap and worthless relationships that give meaningless pain. All your relationships must have great and meaningful love values and be free of pain. Do not be dogmatic, but never be without principles.

You are simplifying the struggle for freedom. But the weapons given to you are valuable, they are for you to find your identity. Be extremely well organized so that they do not crush you. Have standards of beauty. Look for standards of bravery and equality in men. You will not love and accept men who try to use you and only care about his leadership power. With approaches they have developed under the guise of leadership, they have left girls at a lower level than society. These are serious problems, and in your struggle you must find the solution.

I see in all of you the absence of important progress, either because your consciousness of freedom is either backward and twisted or not very developed.  Regardless of what you say, your demands for freedom are ordinary, superficial, devoid of scientific and historical dimensions. You have not been able to establish a strong connection with the acceptable limits of life, just as you cannot make a strong connection with war. Therefore, you are stuck, unable to value life greatly, and your struggle cannot yield results. A constant force of focus and understanding requires constant organizing. Organizing also develops constant action. You will think day and night. You will create a storm. The  units you create will be storm units, units of the land of fire.

A free life is not just a matter to deal with for either an individual or one gender. First of all, free life is a serious problem for both women and men. For example, if you are in the mountains, it is to take a deep breath of love for the country and to be connected with your weapon, the weapon of organization and ideology. The system wants to swallow and destroy this free life. What needs to be done is to approach the struggle for life in a deep and concerned way, to be well prepared, to educate oneself, and to prepare everyone as a combat unit.

People who set high goals will certainly find ways and methods to achieve them. If you are weak in this, know that your focus on the goal is less, which means that you are only verbally committed to it. It is all very clear. If you want to give someone a serious task, you will look at the importance of one’s goal, the connection to the goal, and whether methods are developed or not.

So a person must have a goal, a method, and an effort. These must be combined, or else you cannot become an effective militant. The method includes tools such as style, tempo, and address. If you do not get these things in place, you will go against your goal. Therefore, you must make an effort and be energetic. I am saying all of this to shed some light on the path ahead. Ultimately, you will have to develop your own search and effort.

We did not come to these days easily, nor can we ever allow a narrow and limited approach. Perhaps in history, we will be the freedom fighters who mowed and dug with fingernails and needles. Overcome any emotions and thoughts you have that are worn out, lost, or not yet formed. When the right path is taken and there is a connection to the goal, even the victory of a single person is possible. This has been proven by the truth of leadership.

While we are making great efforts to develop the level of victory in war and freedom in life and to reveal the role of the women’s movement in both fighting and free life, in order to make it an explosive force, we attach great importance above all to constantly developing our ability to analyze and understand. We believe that successful development will be linked to this. If the freedom tendency does not refer to its fundamental roots, there will be no escape from stagnation in the general process, and there will be a narrowing in all practices, which is what you are experiencing a little bit. Basically, it is the people’s desire for freedom that is decisive. When the idea and the will for freedom are developed, there will not be many serious inadequacies, frequent mistakes, or difficulties in implementation.

A man who does not represent the standards of the success of the war and the standards of the organization, less valuable than a beggar, will use the woman and throw her away. What remains with you are the pains you experience. An untransformed man is so dangerous. Do not say, “He is a member of this party, he fights, he is brave, he will take care of me”. An untransformed, unattached man is an enemy of women, very dangerous, and ugly. At the same time, he hides himself very well, uses cunning and deceives.

I address women and say that I believe you will create women’s freedom in the Middle East, based on intelligence, self-defense and beauty, like the sun.

We are closer to true freedom than ever before. I know that freedom is not easy to build. It may come at a price and it may be challenging, but I am also struggling here and trying to provide answers. We will build freedom. The will for freedom of the Kurdish people gives me hope. Freedom is more valuable than bread and water. A revolution that cannot free women is not a revolution. An organization that cannot organize women is not an organization. Those who do not save lives cannot save the land and its people. To me, women’s freedom is more precious than the freedom of the homeland. Everyone wants to be with a woman in different ways. My relationship with women has always been on a high level. I never allowed it to go down. That is important. I will continue to contribute with my work and strength as much as I respect and am committed to our noble martyrs and your reality of being jin-jiyan (woman-life).

You should definitely internalize the comprehensive analyses that have been made. Because style, tempo, and address are even more indispensable in women’s work. A woman who is too idle, who does not have much style or address, who is not emphatic and resilient, is close to a slave woman. You do not have this right. The fact that the woman whose tongue has been cut off the most has a strong address is a sign of freedom. Having a strong style and tempo is also a sign of freedom. In this regard, you should consider it a task, and all the comrades who have shortcomings should evaluate it as the beginning of a strong practice to eliminate them.

On the one hand, we say that freedom is very valuable, and we direct ourselves towards it, but on the other hand, you have a misguided way of life that does not correspond to our standards. It considers it a skill to bind you to the two extremes in the shortest possible way. But we did the opposite and said, “Fly to the sky”. This is also a magnificent thing. Flying is becoming an angel. It is beautiful, but you have no wings. The dream is great, but it is not enough. The other is too low, and I have never found it attractive, and I have always been disappointed by it. This is who we are, now get to know us and decide how far you can go with us accordingly.

I am proud of the empowered woman. However, it has been revealed that some men in our ranks fear the empowered woman and even obstruct her progress. We do not condone this. The empowered woman is our pride. Living with an empowered woman is precious. The empowered woman is life. The weak woman, the dependent woman, is problematic in terms of our moral values and weakens us. A man who imposes this is imposing a life that is problematic in terms of both class and moral values. A man who seeks a slave woman, who seeks only a woman who is dependent on him, is the source of gender inequality in our community and represents a serious deviation from a level of freedom, liberation of the nation and society. Therefore, if you are consistent and aware that being a strong woman is a guarantee of equality and freedom in all areas, you will see it as something worth living for, it will connect you to the struggle and it should be considered a responsibility to express it in a rich way.

I describe myself as a worker of love. I live for you. Your longings are my reason for living, I am with you. THERE IS A FREE WORLD TO BE WON. THERE IS A FREE LIFE TO BE WON.

I am a women’s freedom fighter and very radical about it. I believe that women’s liberation will create a spring-like sun in the Middle East based on intelligence, defense, and beauty. With the belief that one day the strong woman will defeat the oppressive and reactionary man, I wish that you elevate your struggle in accordance with the spirit of the process. I greet, embrace, and wish success to all comrades and friends in all fields and moments wisely, beautifully, and lovingly, and I celebrate your time’s year and years. I hope the new era will also bestow upon you the honor of meeting with it.

We should develop science in ideology. Our values cannot be entrusted to those who do not have great moral or commitment values, as they cause great harm. Nothing should be given to those who do not have great claims and beliefs.

Abdullah Öcalan

[1]     ‘Mem û Zîn’ (Mem and Zin) is a love epic that takes place in the Kurdish city of Cizre in 1450. It was written by Ahmedi Xani in the 17th century. It is the tragic story of two young people in love but unable to be together due to social and class reasons. ‘Derwêşê Evdî’ is the tragic love epic of an Ezidi young man, and a Muslim Kurdish tribal girl. The story is about the Ezidi youth who responded to the call of the young girl who promised to marry him in exchange for protecting her tribe by fighting against occupation.