Iran intensifies violent crackdown on women

Omid Barin

DW

April 29, 2024

After a recent order from Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, "morality police" are increasing patrols, and women who refuse to wear headscarves are reporting more violent harassment and arrests.




Young women have been defying the Iranian regime's crackdown

Iranian authorities are stepping up street patrols in a renewed push towards suppressing women who refuse to follow strict Islamic dress codes.

Under a new campaign called "nour" or "light," endorsed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iranian "morality police" are out in force on so-called guidance patrols looking for women who refuse to wear the hijab, or headscarf.

One 25-year-old woman, who spoke to DW anonymously, said she was accosted on the streets of Tehran while on her way to university on April 20.

She said she was surrounded by dozens of police officers who demanded that she cover her hair, and when she resisted, they quickly resorted to violence, pulling out some of her hair and verbally harassing her as they dragged her into the van.

"At that moment, I didn't fully understand what was happening; I just knew they were beating me. Later, I saw that several parts of my body were bruised," she said.

As she was being beaten and harassed by police, the woman said she thought of the "Women, Life Freedom" movement, which started in September 2022 when 22-year-old Jina Mahsa Amini died after being taken into custody by the morality police in Tehran for allegedly improperly wearing a hijab.

Iranian women defy laws limiting their freedom  03:22

Amini's death was followed by the highest level of public unrest Iran had seen in decades, with thousands of people taking to the streets of Iranian cities in support of women's rights. Authorities used force to suppress the protests. A UN fact-finding mission estimates that 551 protesters were killed.

"I remembered Jina Mahsa Amini and other women who sacrificed their lives during the women's uprising for life and freedom, and I told myself I had to be strong," the woman said.

"I shouted loudly that my dress code is my own business. As soon as I said this, their insults and violence began," she said. The female officers called her a prostitute and told her that as long as she lived in Iran, she "must respect the laws of the country derived from Islamic commands."

The woman said she was taken into police custody, where at least five other women were also detained for not wearing a headscarf. She was released after several hours but was forced to sign a letter committing to following Islamic dress codes, and may also face further legal action.

A renewed crackdown on women in Iran

In recent weeks, there have been many similar reports on excessive violence against women circulating on Iranian social media. Many women have shared their experiences of police violence, arrest and fines.

Iran's legislative bodies, the Islamic Consultative Assembly and the Guardian Council, which sign off on laws, have recently been negotiating bills aimed at legalizing a crackdown on women who oppose the "compulsory hijab."

The resurgence of violence against women began after Khamenei's speech on Eid al-Fitr, April 10, the holiday that ends the month of Ramadan.

Emphasizing the necessity of compulsory hijab, he ordered actions against "religious norm-breakers."

Following this speech, the morality police increased street patrols. The calls for a crackdown also coincided with the large-scale Iranian missile and drone strike on Israel, and a surge of international concern over a widening of the conflict in the Middle East.

Mahtab Mahboub, an Iranian women's rights activist residing in Germany, told DW that the timing of the increased crackdown on women's rights, along with the heightened tensions with Israel, is not a coincidence.

"The issue of security lies at the core of the Islamic Republic's policies — external security through attacking the 'enemy,' and internal security through controlling the bodies of women and all sexual and gender minorities," she said.

She added that women and protesters "are seen as potential agents of rebellion who can challenge the compulsory value system" of the Islamic Republic.

People around the world, like these protesters in Berlin, supported Iran's Women, Life, Freedom movement

Image: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo/picture alliance

Osman Mozayan, a lawyer in Tehran, told DW that in recent days, many unlawful detentions have taken place.

"In some cases, women's bank accounts have been blocked, or their cars have been confiscated. Some students have been prevented from entering universities. Even some have been deprived of work. Their civil and civic lives are disrupted," he said.

"These individuals are mostly referred to the courts, and regardless of the verdict — conviction or acquittal — these punishments and restrictions imposed are irreparable," he added.

Iranians demand change

Many believe that the nationwide Women, Life, Freedom protests represent the most severe internal challenge since the Islamic Republic was formed in 1979.

However, the regime has never been willing to concede to the demands of the protesters, especially the removal of mandatory hijab obligations.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, who is currently in Tehran's Evin Prison, described the recent surge in violence against women and youth as a sign of "desperation" from the Islamic Republic.

Mohammadi said the new policy stems from the regime's "untreatable pain of illegitimacy."

'I will be living proof of the violent oppression in Iran'  03:45

A group of mothers who lost their children during the Women, Life, Freedom protests issued a statement recently condemning the "brutal and continuous repression by this misogynist regime."

"Women have no intention of returning to the past and do not allow themselves to be considered second-class citizens, letting the patriarchal government and society decide for them," the statement said.

Rojina, a journalist in Tehran who spoke to DW using a pseudonym, said despite the recent uptick in violence, she has not seen any change on the streets.

"Every day, many women can be seen in public with optional clothing. They have accepted that freedom requires a cost, and they are determined not to revert to life before the Women, Life, Freedom movement."

Feminist activist Mahboub is in contact with many women in Iran. She said the Women, Life, Freedom movement has "restored the lost self-confidence to women and reminded the entire society that the freedom of women and the most marginalized groups is the measure of society's freedom."

"Some women who still leave home without a hijab are courageously reclaiming their lost dignity. They insist that no one has the right to decide for our bodies," she said.

How Gen Z is using social media in Iran’s Women, Life, Freedom movement

A woman cuts her hair during a protest against the death of Iranian Mahsa Amini, in Istanbul, Turkey. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)

THE CONVERSATION

Published: December 19, 2022 

Iran’s attorney general recently indicated that the country’s morality police had been disbanded after protests calling for the country’s hijab mandate to be lifted. However, the government has not confirmed the attorney general’s remarks and local media have reported that he was “misinterpreted.”

The uncertainty over Iran’s morality police comes after several weeks of protests that started after the death of 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa (Zhina) Amini. Amini died in the custody of the morality police on Sept. 16 after being arrested for allegedly breaching Iran’s mandatory hijab law.

In the first three months of the protests, demonstrations have taken place in almost all of Iran’s 31 provinces. People in 160 cities and 143 universities have taken part in demonstrations against the mandatory hijab laws. Many Iranians living abroad have also taken part in protests.

These protests are part of a long history of women’s rights movements in Iran. But what makes this movement different is how young women are tapping into social media to elevate their own agency and challenge the country’s patriarchal laws.

Women’s rights movements in Iran

Iran has witnessed multiple protests since the 1979 revolution. But the Women, Life, Freedom movement has launched a new generation of young women to the forefront of the movement.

The first wave of women’s rights movements started more than a hundred years ago with the constitutional revolution in Iran. Many clerics and religious figures were opposed to such a change at the time. Although the constitutional revolution aimed to establish legal and social reforms in Iran, conservative elements “frequently made political use of "Islam” to erect obstacles to women’s demands for equity.“

After the Islamic revolution in 1979, many women’s rights, such as the family protection law, secured before the revolution were suspended.

Since April 1983, the mandatory hijab law has been enforced on all women in the public sphere in Iran. The third wave of women’s rights movements started after the 1979 revolution and various campaigns such as "one million signatures” have demanded gender equality in Iran.

Women, Life, Freedom

The latest feminist movement in Iran has changed the equation. Those taking part in the Women, Life, Freedom movement have used social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to amplify their message.

Campaigns like the #GirlsofRevolutionStreet and #WhiteWednesdays are a few examples of hashtags that have been used to mobilize young women on and offline against compulsory hijab laws.

In an authoritarian context where women’s bodies are being policed, social media has empowered young women to express themselves online. They learn they can be influencers and agents of a movement under the slogan Women, Life, Freedom and challenge conservative religious and patriarchal values that have been enforced onto their daily lives through education, media and policing.

Social media became “an antidote to state violence and its suppression of facts.” Protesters are using social media to connect with one another, vocalize their demands, highlight their bravery and civil disobedience tactics and show the government’s brutality.

Baraye by Iranian musician Shervin Hajipour has become one of the anthems of the protest movement in Iran.

Social media has provided a new generation of young Iranians the ability to detach themselves from the patriarchal rules of the government. Generation Z, who have grown up in the social media era, are able to educate themselves on gender equality and engage with global feminist movements online.

This includes learning about the values, beliefs and challenges that women are facing all over the world and the ways these challenges can be highlighted and addressed using online platforms.

The #MeToo movement raised awareness worldwide about the sexual abuse and violence many women continue to face. In Iran, #MeToo was more focused on ending the taboo on talking about sexual assault and violence, and increasing awareness about the issue. The movement started in the country after female journalists shared their experiences of being harassed while on the job. Many other women soon went online to expose the harassment and abuse they had experienced.

Social media has made it easier for Iranians to tap into global feminist movements and enabled feminist activists to tell their own stories. Generation Z, as the progressive leaders of the Women, Life, Freedom movement, are making their demands clear both online and offline and challenging the barriers toward achieving women’s liberty in Iran.

Author

Farinaz Basmechi
Doctoral Student, Feminist and Gender Studies, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

International Women's Conference to kick off in Berlin at the weekend

Songül Karabulut, Preparatory Committee Member of the 2nd International Women's Conference, said that they would not just deal with a system analysis, but also discuss ways and means to get rid of the current predicament.

MUHAMMED KAYA
BERLIN
Friday, 4 Nov 2022

The ‘Women Are Shaping the Future Network’ will hold the 2nd International Women's Conference under the motto "Our Revolution: Liberating Life" at Berlin Technical University on November 5-6. Almost 800 women from 41 countries are expected to attend the conference.

Preparatory Committee Member Songül Karabulut spoke to ANF about the conference and pointed out that the women's revolution would pave the way for a more free, fair, ecological, and democratic life against the capitalist modernity system.

How are the preparations going on?

Our preparations are already completed. We are starting the registration process as of Friday (Nov. 4). The establishment of language cabins at the university will also be completed today because there will be simultaneous translation in 8 languages. Technical equipment will be installed. From 06:00 on Saturday, we will be present at the university. We'll start the conference at 09:00.

Why was the motto “Our Revolution: Liberating Life” chosen?

We are manifesting our philosophical approach. Women's liberation or women's revolution is to liberate life in general. When we were thinking about it, there were no mass protests or women-led uprising in Iran. The iconic motto 'Jin, Jiyan, Azadi' (Woman, Life, Freedom) of the protests in Iran has made the motto of our conference visible to the world once again. We think that the women's revolution will pave the way for a more free, fair, ecological and democratic life against the capitalist modernity system. We argue that the women's revolution will offer solutions to all the problems of capitalist modernity. We have consciously chosen this motto because women's liberation will naturally lead to liberation of life against the existing system of exploitation.

As you know, as the Kurdish Women's Movement, we declared the 21st century as the century of women in line with our leader's vision. Apart from theoretical-philosophical insights, the recent developments also confirm that our motto is relevant and in line with the Zeitgeist.

Compared to 2018, when the first conference was held, how do you evaluate the current situation?

In 2018, there were very serious women-led uprisings around the world. They were mainly about greater women's rights. For example, in Latin America, millions of women took to the streets against anti-abortion. Violence against women was a serious topic. In the Middle East, the Rojava Women's Revolution, led by the Kurdish Women's Movement, and women's self-defence exerted a serious influence across the world. Later, the global epidemic emerged, and women's struggles were also negatively affected by it. The Third World War has recently reached the borders of Europe. Following the Russia-Ukraine war, the contradictions are getting deeper and deeper. Governments are cracking down on citizens. That is, the pressures of capitalist modernity and nation-states towards the people are much more intense.

Afghanistan is very important to us. Afghanistan was handed over to the Taliban by the United States. The first thing they did was to oppress women again, to push them out of all areas of life, to suppress them. Afghan women continue to resist despite all the pressures. Afghan women announced that they were inspired by the Kurdish Women's Movement.

Now, there is a similar situation in Iran. Under the leadership of women, the motto 'Jin, Jiyan, Azadi' has emerged very clearly again. The struggle of women is gradually turning into a social struggle. Now, various segments of society, religious and ethnic groups, sexual differences are all chanting this slogan to express that they see their own freedom within the freedom of women. In this sense, the women's revolution has become more evident in 2022 than in 2018. Therefore, we will not just deal with system analysis during the conference, we will also discuss ways to get rid of the current predicament. We will pose questions like how we can fulfil our responsibility better and how we can generate the needed organization and struggle tools. We will discuss how to reach a common mentality and a common point of view. The conference aims to provide a response to the current situation.

How can those who cannot attend the conference follow it?

TV channels Jin TV and Stêrk TV will broadcast our conference live. Apart from that, we will also broadcast it live via the Internet. We want everyone to follow this conference. We live in the age of the Internet; distances don't matter anymore.

International Women's Conference in Berlin: “It is time to take responsibility for the future"

The ‘Women Are Shaping the Future Network’ holds the 2nd International Women's Conference under the motto "Our Revolution: Liberating Life" at Berlin Technical University on November 5-6.

ANF
BERLIN
Saturday, 5 Nov 2022

The 2nd International World Conference on Women began in Berlin today. Around 700 women and other oppressed genders from all over the world have travelled to Berlin to participate in this powerful and revolutionary coming together.

In terms of content, the conference started with a deep examination of the Third World War as well as the resistance against it. Specifically, it was about the struggle against the highly armed capitalist patriarchy. Meghan Bodette of the Kurdish Peace Institute moderated and posed the following questions to the first session: What can the revolutionary liberation struggle of women and other oppressed genders do in this age of pandemics, wars, violent land grabs and ecological crises? The oppressive capitalist patriarchy continues its war against women and all other oppressed genders, developing ever new methods and strategies to break women's resistance and trying to hide all the contradictions of the system. How are women and other oppressed genders around the world currently resisting this capitalist patriarchy and what does it take for this movement to gain strength?

In the first part of the panel discussion, Nilüfer Koç, member of the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK), and Mariam Rawi from the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) spoke about state violence against society as well as women and the means of oppression - dominant masculinity.

"Now is the right time to shape the future"

Koç stressed that now is exactly the right time to talk about how we as women should shape the future. “After all, what is happening around us right now is nothing less than World War III - even the US, NATO, etc. agree on this. But as women, we should not make the mistake of thinking of war only in military terms. There is a war that is not named as such: since the beginning of patriarchy, feminicide has been a war and an inherent part of capitalism. Military wars are only masks to disguise the relations and origins of the problems. That is why it is so necessary to find alternatives in this century. We as women need our own ideology - that of women's liberation,” said Koç and called for engagement with women's movements that are actively fighting for peace. She said that equal principles are needed to work together and create a global connection between women.

Koç went on to discuss the current crises, the hegemonic claims of the states and the resulting wars and competition. She mentioned collaboration at this point to destroy alternatives, such as in the fight against the Kurdish freedom movement and the attacks on Kurdistan. “At this moment, the oppressed have the chance to contradict and resist. In Iran, this is currently visible again. Behind the slogan "Jin, Jiyan, Azadî" (Woman, Life, Freedom) is a decades-long struggle that shows: if we are organised, we can win battles. In Kurdistan, we show that this is possible. It is time that we as sisters take responsibility for the future. Woman, Life, Freedom! That's how we will win."

"Women are proving that they are writing the history of the revolution”

Mariam Rawi then spoke of Afghanistan as a place where the most brutal religious fascists are currently ruling. She impressively described the tragedy that is taking place under this Islamist fundamentalist mentality. This is a force directed against women. Atrocities and women's suffering are the order of the day under this regime. Women are not recognised as human beings, but are reduced to child-bearing machines, she said.

However, Rawi also stressed that the Taliban were not alone, but linked to the institutions of capitalist states, such as the CIA. She gave a brief outline of the history of this cooperation. For example, she said, "women's rights" were used to legitimise the intervention after 2001, but even if today there is talk of its failure, in fact everything went according to the imperialist plan. Today, the country is on the verge of collapse, yet Western governments maintain relations with the Taliban: strategic interests are far more important than the fate of Afghan women and men, she noted.

But, she continued, people have also learned: values can only be fought for by the oppressed themselves - and then they will no longer be taken away. She went into detail about the work of RAWA: for more than 40 years they have been raising awareness of injustices and clandestinely organising women. For their work, the organisation was recently awarded the Sakine Cansiz Prize. "We were very happy about that."

Rawi concluded by saying, "We hope that the network of solidarity will become stronger and stronger. We swear by the blood of the struggling women to continue their journey. Women are proving that they are writing the history of the revolution."

Ecocide: overcoming domination, dispossession, oppression

The second part of the morning was dedicated to the destruction of nature and was entitled "Ecocide: overcoming domination, dispossession, oppression: the subordination and colonisation of nature and the ruthless appropriation and exploitation of resources". Here, Lolita Chavez from Feministas Abya Yala from Guatemala and Ariel Salleh, a sociologist and ecofeminist from Australia spoke.

From Abya Yala to Kurdistan

Chavez started her speech by lighting a fire and spoke words of gratitude for the earth, the cosmos: "This is our fire, our feminist fire, from Abya Yala to Kurdistan." She positioned herself against the war in Kurdistan and the use of chemical weapons, saying they were defenders of life.

She told of the occupation of indigenous territories, the exploitation and violence of criminal networks and terrorising structures. She stressed that these were also financed by Europe and its institutions: "We are here, telling you in your eyes: you are part of it." She spoke of the war that the extractivist companies were waging against them because they were holding their worlds against them, alternatives that were possible in their territories.

"Stop transnational corporations where they are born"

Chavez also denounced feminicide and called for justice. As feminists from Abya Yala, she said, they would work together, weaving autonomy and self-determination, but also sharing their wisdom. "We are not ashamed when they say we are witches. We stand by our spirituality. We are against ideologism because in our territories we decide."

Chavez ended her speech with two appeals. One, she said, was that there was now no time to delay the important project any longer: "Let's form these feminist networks and weave feminism from below!" Secondly, she called for, "Stop transnational corporations where they are born! Extractivist corporations are the wrong answer to global warming. And we will stop them!"

Overcoming dualist thinking

Ariel Salleh began her presentation by addressing the Rojava revolution, describing it as ecofeminist. She stressed that feminism and ecology denote a common struggle and are intertwined. She called for a struggle to be waged against the perpetuation of constructed dualisms and associated dissociative linkages. “The created dualistic thinking, for example between human beings and nature and linked to that of man and woman, not only limits our possibilities, but also leads to negative consequences, e.g. by portraying one side as inferior or opening the doors to colonialism. Humanity, reason, production are diametrically opposed to nature, chaos, reproduction and dominate them. This hierarchy is institutionalised in patriarchy. A lot of energy is needed to maintain male domination, which means alienation from life itself. Ecofeminists know about this connection with violence against women, and Abdullah Öcalan is also aware of this,” she said, and concluded by talking about successful ecofeminist struggles and emphasising her solidarity.

"Making Invisible Work Visible”

Concluding the first session, the third part focused on "Making Invisible Work Visible: The survival of the system is based on women's bad and unpaid work." This addressed the question: how can we base our class struggle on the principle of women's liberation to fight the foundations of capitalist exploitation? Women in class struggles have developed a view that the class hierarchy and the state are built on the exploitation of women's bodies and services. Under current capitalist conditions, women's labour is even more exploited and made even more invisible.

Abolish the system, not the human being

Genevieve Vaughan, an Italian American peace activist, feminist and philanthropist, made it clear in her lecture that the capitalist economy of the last centuries must be fundamentally abolished. “In order to push for a radical change of the economic system, we would have to understand unpaid labour as the standard of the system and paid labour as its deviation. Only then would we be able to see how women's bodies are exploited in capitalist patriarchy. Humans are the only species that cannot sustain themselves, but only stay alive by caring for each other. The maternal gift, she said, is invisible in the capitalist economy. This gift includes the creation of life and care, she noted.

Misogyny has historically kept women out of science and this has laid the groundwork for always developing models that would have voids in their analysis. We have to realise that we don't want the system to survive, we want our human species to survive. And our species consists of humans, who are neither Homo Economicus, i.e. profit-oriented, nor Homo Sapiens, i.e. knowledgeable, because we do not know who we are. The human being is a homo Donando, a giving human being.

Real security does not come from capitalist patriarchy

"Azadi means freedom in many languages" - with these words Kavita Krishnan, feminist activist of the All India Progressive Women's Association, began her contribution. She made it clear that in patriarchy the word security is used as a code for control and exploitation of women. To illustrate this situation in the system, Krishnan gave various examples from India and China to illustrate this shift in terms as a strategy to oppress women. In one example, she discussed the situation of young women who are recruited to work in factories of multinational companies. The managers promise the families that their daughters will work in safety, while their wages are only paid after three years. Even their mobile phones are partly taken away from them. Krishnan asked what kind of security is actually at stake. The security that should be at stake, she said, is one that should give protection from employers. The employer, however, becomes an ally of the family by de facto restricting women's freedom and preventing them from forming relationships with men outside their caste, from organising themselves, etc.

Krishnan stressed how important it is for feminist solidarity to be critical of supposedly anti-imperialist regimes. We must not close our eyes just because regimes claim to be anti-US. The same regimes, she said, understand LGBT struggles and feminism as Western values to be fought against.

The first session ended with an engaging Q&A session and many powerful expressions. There were repeated slogans and applause from the audience.

Women's Conference in Berlin: The desired life will not come through miracles but a revolution

The second day of the international women's conference in Berlin is dedicated to the political prisoners who are imprisoned because of their struggle for freedom and who cannot participate in the exciting debates.

ANF
BERLIN
Sunday, 6 Nov 2022, 18:51

At the Technical University in Berlin, the international women's conference "Our Revolution: Liberating Life" of the network "Women Weaving Future" continued on the second day. The first day of the conference concluded with a concert by the Kurdish musician Yalda Abbasi.

The second day of the conference was dedicated to political prisoners. "We want to remember all political prisoners. There are many women who cannot be with us today because they are imprisoned for their struggle for freedom. The price they pay is their own freedom," the welcome address said.

KJAR: The women will not leave the streets

At the beginning of the programme, a video of the Community of Free Women of Eastern Kurdistan (KJAR) was shown in which a KJAR representative expressed her conviction that the revolution in Rojhilat (Eastern Kurdistan) and Iran would be successful: "A dictatorial regime has been in power for 43 years, that is enough. The women in Iran and Rojhilat had to live like slaves in society." The fascist regime could only be overthrown by women's hands, she said. The KJAR representative pointed out that women had been deprived of their freedom and systematically disenfranchised, among other things, by being forced to wear headscarves. “There are hundreds of women who have been raped, imprisoned or attacked with acid, but they hold their heads high. The women went to the barricades and would not leave the streets. Especially the Kurdish population continue the uprising so that the Kurdish woman, Jina Mahsa Amini, who was murdered by the Iranian morality police, is not forgotten. The slogan "Jin, Jiyan, Azadî" (Woman, Life, Freedom) is based on the legacy of decades of resistance in Kurdistan and destroys the ideology of the Iranian state. Men have also joined the protest and stood up together with women to fight against the state in which they see no hope,” said the KJAR representative who greeted the participants of the conference on behalf of the women of Rojhilat and wished them all success.

"From the balconies to the barricades"

The first session on the second day of the conference was moderated by Rahila Gupta, a freelance journalist and Southall Black Sisters activist from the UK. Rahila began by explaining that she had looked at Abdullah Öcalan's reading list, which included many feminist writers such as Judith Butler.

"How can the fragmentation of class, nationalism, religion caused by patriarchal mentality be overcome and how can we become independent of the thought structures of the male-dominated system?" the moderator asked, explaining that women's struggles would risk being reincorporated into the system unless a real alternative paradigm was developed - one based on intellectual and theoretical critique and capable of truly overcoming the limitations of the system.

The title of the session was "The life we dream of will not come through miracles, but through revolution" and was a quote from Abdullah Öcalan. The question of the session was "How do we get the women from the balconies to the barricades?" Part of the success of the Kurdish movement, she said, was based on the fact that activists went door to door to talk to everyone about what society should look like. The civil war in Syria created the right conditions for a "revolution within the revolution" in Rojava and it is important to reflect that the second wave of feminism was a significant foundation for Öcalan's work.

Women's revolution in Sudan

The first speaker was Shahida Abdulmunim from the Gender Centre for Research and Training in Sudan. The revolution in her country is also being made by women, said Shahida, explaining that for 80 years, since the beginning of the dictatorship in Sudan, women have been in the forefront of the resistance. In 1990-1999, almost only women were on the streets, fighting against the Bashir regime and celebrating great successes. During the 2018 uprising too, she said, women were prepared and led the struggles. They fought against toxic masculinity and patriarchy, the speaker explained. Abdulmunim noted that she herself was on the streets and was one of the participants in the revolution; 70 per cent of the people on the streets were women. These women came from 50 different groups and had to unite.

The patriarchal resistance and the state tried to weaken this movement, among other things, by appointing a woman to represent the movement. Three women became part of the government congress, but they were not representatives of the movement. Many laws were changed to the disadvantage of women. Shahida compared these laws to those of Iran. She said that 5000 women were in prison in Sudan for political reasons. “The regime even finances itself from the fines that women have to pay. The aim of the regime is to exclude half of the people in Sudan from political life. In my opinion, the hijab is not only a scarf, but prohibits women from participating and living in society.”

Shahida concluded: "What we wear, what we want, where we go, whether we wear a hijab or not, is not a religious issue, it is a political issue. We have to fight the regimes in our countries. We are fighting against neoliberalism and patriarchy, and we want to liberate our countries, to liberate ourselves!"

The Kurdish movement is one of the strongest democratic movements in Europe

The second speaker was Kurdish sociologist and author Dr Dilar Dirik, who began her speech by commemorating the journalist and Jineolojî researcher Nagihan Akarsel, who was murdered in Sulaymaniyah, Southern Kurdistan by the Turkish secret service MIT.

Dirik said that one has to talk about fragmentation on the global level. At the last conference, she said, there was talk about women's organising increasing, but at the same time there was also an increase in racist, fascist movements. “The Trumps, Erdoğans, Bolsonaros are the result of fascist movements, they represent the naked face of capitalist patriarchy. Liberalism is being imposed on the emerging women's struggles and "pinkwashing" is taking place in the face of NATO violence. Even their own movements are being appropriated by neoliberalism and made a product of capitalism. The capitalist system itself uses the image of women in struggle and tries to take over feminist movements.” Dirik asked, "What kind of resistance is allowed and which is criminalised? The Kurdish movement is a good example of this.”

“How, for example, did Daesh, the so-called "Islamic State", grow stronger and develop? This is an important question for the women's movement, so that something like this does not happen again.” With regards to the World Cup in Qatar, the speaker asked why no one was talking about the fact that the Islamist Al-Nusra Front was being co-financed by Qatar. Qatar, she said, is also at the forefront of supporting the Taliban.

Dilar Dirik went on to say that it is necessary to get out of the discourse that Turkey is a rogue state and should be excluded from NATO. “Rather, Turkey is an integral part of NATO. Knowledge production should not be left to the states. The German Foreign Minister, who adorns herself with the slogan "Jin Jiyan Azadî", actively supports those forces that attack women. The propaganda of the Western states is so powerful that many people do not even know how many crimes NATO commits, which wars it finances and which are waged in its name. Of course, it is always easier to criticise countries that are not in NATO and to declare them the enemy.”

Dirik explained that the Kurdish movement is also one of the strongest democratic movements in Europe. Despite massive criminalisation, it is able to organise protests across Europe in a very short time, she added. “It is not possible to understand the fragmentation of the protests if fascist movements are only analysed locally. Women's movements worldwide should not only deal with the cultural problems of their own nations. Rather, it is necessary to ask how the government of one's own country is involved in the creation, financing and building of Islamist, fascist organisations worldwide.”

The conference, she said, is a good example that women can organise without the state - freely and autonomously. In conclusion, Dirik demanded that the movement must radicalise itself and overcome liberalism. Likewise, it must fight to ensure that its own slogans are not stolen by the system.

Feminism as the rebellion of the oldest colony

The second part of the session was titled "Feminism - the rebellion of the oldest colony and what lies behind it". Rahila Gupta posed the question: "What has been the role and contribution of feminism to the struggle of women in the past and present? What are the causes of the obstacles that feminism faces? How can feminism adopt an anti-system stance?"

The situation of women in Yemen

Dr Anjila al-Maamari from the Centre for Strategic Studies in Support of Women and Children from Yemen explained that Yemen is located in the south of the Arabian Peninsula, on the border with Saudi Arabia, which makes Yemen a geostrategically important place. Anjila thanked all the women for coming together at the conference and explained how difficult it was to get in and out of Yemen. The women's revolution will always continue, she said. “Yemen has been at war for eight years, so the human rights situation is very difficult. 20 million people are threatened by the war. There are four million refugees, most of them children and women. The issue of sexism is very entrenched and it is difficult to be a woman in Yemen. Every fifth woman has psychological problems. Women have been fighting a long social battle to be able to participate in political and social life. It is clear that there are a lot of restrictions for them.”

“Half of Yemen's population of 25 million people are women, but there is only one woman in parliament. There are 30 male representatives in the ministries and only one female. The UN is not doing enough, although women are very involved. Women are also underrepresented at peace conferences like the one in Geneva. There is no political will in the system to bring women into the political arena. Among other things, women are not allowed to go out on the streets without male accompaniment. There were also no women present at the discussions on a political solution in Stockholm. However, women must be present when laws are developed to assist women. The current government was formed in April 2021. There is not a single woman in the government. It is completely male. To make this invisible, only a few women have been appointed to committees. In contrast to the 1962 revolution, in which most of the activists were men, women were in the front row in the 2011 revolution, which was a big change.”

Argentina: Ni Una Menos

Next to speak was author and activist Marta Dillon from the "Ni Una Menos" movement in Argentina. At the beginning of her talk, loud chants rang out in the hall to show solidarity with the movement: "Ni una menos - vivas nos queremos!". Marta Dillon prefaced her talk by saying that she had brought with her the love of various women fighters from Abya Yala who defend their land every day against neoliberal-capitalist extractivism while facing the terrorist violence of the state. In doing so, Marta made visible that from Abya Yala to Kurdistan, there is struggle everywhere and all revolutionary women's struggles against capitalist patriarchy are interconnected worldwide.

Ni Una Menos was formed in 2015 to take to the streets as an intersectional feminist movement against feminicide and to make visible patriarchal violence linked to capitalism and colonialism. Only in this way, said Marta Dillon, can patriarchal violence and its most definitive form, feminicide, be properly addressed. The "Ni Una Menos" movement places itself in the tradition of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and all the struggling women during the dictatorship in Argentina and thus sees itself as part of a feminist struggle that also opposes state terror, which is partly responsible for the exploitation and oppression of women. The movement is an amalgamation of different groups and identities that take to the streets for the life and memory of women and transpersons who have been victims of feminicide. They make visible that feminicides are never private, but always a political issue that affects everyone in society. After this movement grew bigger and bigger in Argentina, but also in many other countries that joined this impulse, a political strike was called by Ni Una Menos in 2016. The strike serves as a tool to make visible the exploitation of women and their work, bodies and care. The strike made clear that women are robbed of their life-time by capitalist patriarchy. Marta Dillon said that women were reclaiming this lifetime through autonomous feminist organising with each other. The international women's conference, she said, is an example of this. The strike was a means of further tightening the net between the struggles, which the Kurdish women's movement had invited at the conference. In conclusion, Marta Dillon summarised her demands in a trend-setting way: We need a feminism that distinguishes itself from conservative and liberal feminism. Only with an intersectional understanding of capitalist patriarchy can women liberate themselves. The patriarchal state owes women and colonised people the life in freedom to which they are entitled.

Sociology of Freedom and Jineolojî

The first speaker in the third part of the session entitled "Sociology of Freedom and Jineolojî" was Elif Kaya from the Jineolojî Centre Europe. She explained the role that Jineolojî will play in transforming the values, experiences and knowledge that emerge from the women's revolution and enter social culture. "An intellectual search based on an alternative paradigm can make the values of the women's resistance the basis of the revolution," Elif said, also remembering Nagihan Arkasel, who worked at the Jineolojî Centre in Sulaymaniyah until her assassination. Elif greeted the women from Abya Yala and the political prisoners and introduced the question: "What is the difference between Jineoloji and other feminisms? What paradigm guides us?"

“Scientific approaches cannot answer this question. The basis is the sociology of freedom. The revolution focuses on the change of the social. Every revolution is connected with freedom. After revolutions, more conservative paths could also emerge, as for example in Iran at the time. This revolution did not have freedom as its basis and therefore also led to the murder of Jina Amini. Sociology was founded in the 18th century to understand society after industrialisation, but it took a positivist direction. These sciences are not suitable for understanding the social. Metaphysical aspects have been left out. The sociology of freedom offers a way out and opens up a holistic horizon. Multiplurality is the basis for this. A connection between sociology and history is being re-established.”

Elif explained that in 2017, scientific work began in Rojava to explain the ideological basis of the revolution. “This is how the Jineolojî works, for example through the publication of books. Positivist science hides women's knowledge, while Jineoloji places this knowledge at the centre and establishes the role of women and their visibility. Jineoloji rejects patriarchal knowledge production. The slogan "Jin Jiyan Azadî" establishes the connection between knowledge and women's lives. Knowing who we are and where we want to go means developing practice. Science must develop solutions to existing problems. Jineolojî is a young science that makes it possible to present women's perspectives, but also passion and hope. The concept of Xwebûn ("being oneself") means to stand against one's own alienation with the roots of knowledge.

Liberating people from the grip of patriarchy

The next speaker was feminist activist and philosophy professor Jules Falquet from France, who addressed the question: "What do we mean by liberating people from the grip of patriarchy? What does liberation from gendered forms of power relations and the definition of women and men by overcoming gender mean? What are the building blocks of a philosophy of life that will change and transform social relations?"

Jules recalled Bertha Cacerés, Rosa Luxemburg and all the other murdered revolutionaries, and said of her own life story that she was rather privileged, as a woman-born, white French woman, from a country that was the third largest exporter of arms in the world. “Politically, I try to fight against colonialism, sexism and capitalism. I see myself as a feminist and lesbian in the sense of Monique Vitti and try not to be a "woman" anymore, that is, to escape oppression. I lived in Abya Yala in Ecuador from 1992-94 with ex-guerrillas when the Zapatista movement was rising. I also lived with a Kurdish fighter and participated in the 1st Zapatista Congress, and co-founded a feminist lesbian network. I am an activist, but very interested in scientific methodology.”

The activist said it was interesting that young and enthusiastic women were present as well as experienced militants, including many racialised women. “This is different from the past and says a lot about the knowledge that is being generated. The power of the new demands also lies in this. The struggles under the slogan "Jin Jiyan Azadî" also include looking at the dimension of social reproduction. Women, and especially migrants from southern countries, are in key positions for this.”

Iran's protesters find inspiration in a Kurdish revolutionary slogan

October 27, 2022
SEYMA BAYRAM
DIBA MOHTASHAM


Bahar Demirtaş for NPR

For 41 days, thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets in anger over the death of a young Kurdish woman in police custody, even as authorities continue their violent crackdown against them. The demonstrations — honoring the memory of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, whose Kurdish first name was Jina — have become the largest women's rights movement in Iran's recent history.

One resounding slogan has become the movement's rallying cry: "Jin, jiyan, azadi!" — or "Woman, life, freedom!"

Iran protests spark solidarity rallies in the U.S. and Europe

First chanted by mourners at Amini's burial in her hometown of Saqez, the slogan quickly spread from the country's Kurdish cities to the capital, Tehran. It took on new life in its Farsi translation — "Zan, zendegi, azadi" — and the message continues to reverberate across solidarity protests from Berlin to New York. Even fashion brands like Balenciaga and Gucci have posted the slogan to their Instagram feeds.

People attend an anti-Iranian government demonstration in Berlin on Saturday, following the death of Mahsa Amini, who was also known by her Kurdish name, Jina, while in police custody. The slogan "Woman, life, freedom" is a translation of the revolutionary Kurdish slogan, "Jin, jiyan, azadi."Markus Schreiber/AP

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Ongoing Protests In Iran Echo A Century-Old Revolution

The words "jin, jiyan, azadi" and their various translations have unified Iranians across ethnic and social lines. They have come to signify the demand for women's bodily autonomy and a collective resistance against 43 years of repression by the Iranian regime.

But Kurdish activists say that some Iranians and the media are overlooking key elements of the Kurdish background of both Amini herself and the slogan pulsing through the mass protests sparked by her death.


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"It's meant to be a universal slogan for a universal women's struggle. That was what was always intended with it," says Elif Sarican, a London-based anthropologist and activist in the Kurdish women's movement. "But the root needs to be understood, at the very least in respect towards the people who have sacrificed their lives for it, but also to understand what this is saying. ... These aren't just words."
The slogan was popularized during women's marches in Turkey in 2006

The slogan originated with the Kurdish Freedom Movement, led by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), an armed group carrying out an insurgency against Turkish authorities since the 1980s. The State Department has long designated the PKK as a terrorist organization.

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The slogan was inspired by the writings of Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK's cofounder, who said that "a country can't be free unless the women are free."

Ocalan advocated for what he called "jineoloji," a Kurdish feminist school of thought. That ultimately led to the development of an autonomous women's struggle — the Kurdish women's movement — within the broader Kurdish Freedom Movement, Sarican explains.

MIDDLE EAST
How the Kurdish people's situation factors into protests over woman's death in Iran

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She says the slogan was first popularized during International Women's Day marches across Turkey on March 8, 2006. Turkey, with about 15 million Kurds, is home to the largest population of Kurds in the Middle East. Although they make up an estimated 18% to 20% of the nation's population, they face discrimination and persecution.




Kurdish women demonstrate during International Women's Day celebrations in Diyarbakir, Turkey, on March 10, 2007. Their protest signs read: "Woman, life, freedom," "Long live March 8," "No to the massacres of women" and "No to harassment and rape." More than 1,500 women gathered to mark International Women's Day in the predominantly Kurdish city.Mustafa Ozer/AFP/Getty Images


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Since 2006, Sarican says, "Every year, based on 'jin, jiyan, azadi' as the philosophy of freedom, there's been various different campaigns that have been announced and declared to the world by the Kurdish women's movement on each 8th of March — to say that this is our contribution, this is our call and this is our encouragement for a common struggle of women against colonialism and patriarchal capitalism."

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Five years ago, Kurdish female guerrilla fighters with the YPJ militia chanted the slogan during the Kurdish-led Rojava revolution in northern Syria that began in 2012.
Kurds in Iran face discrimination and many live in poverty

Ignoring the slogan's political history contributes to the long-standing erasure of Kurdish people's identity and struggle, activists say.

That's also been the case in international coverage of Amini's death, they contend, in which Mahsa — Amini's Iranian state-sanctioned first name — is used. In interviews, Amini's parents have used both her Iranian and Kurdish names.

Like many Kurds in Iran, Amini was not allowed to legally register her Kurdish name, which means "life."

"I felt like she died twice because no one really was mentioning her Kurdish name or her Kurdish background, which is so relevant," says Beri Shalmashi, an Amsterdam-based Iranian Kurdish writer and filmmaker.

A portrait of Mahsa Amini, who was also known by her Kurdish name, Jina, is held during a rally calling for regime change in Iran in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 1.

Cliff Owen/AP

Besides facing ethnic discrimination, Kurds, who make up an estimated 15% of Iran's population, are marginalized as Sunni Muslims in a Shia-majority country. Their language is restricted and they account for nearly half of political prisoners in Iran. The country's Kurdish regions are also among its most impoverished.

The Iranian government has blamed Kurds for the current unrest in Iran, according to news reports, and has attacked predominantly Kurdish cities, like Sanandaj and Oshnavieh. Some Persian nationalists, meanwhile, continue to ignore the lived experiences of Kurds in the country.

Shalmashi believes it's vital to highlight Amini's Kurdish identity, and the Kurdish roots of "jin, jiyan, azadi," as a reminder of the need for greater rights for all people in today's Iran — no matter their ethnicity or gender. Without inclusion and unity, she warns, the current protests risk becoming meaningless.

"Because if you don't make room for people to be in this together," she says, "then what are you going to do if you even succeed?"

WOMEN, LIFE, FREEDOM
EU awards rights prize to Mahsa Amini, Iranian who died in custody

By AFP
October 19, 2023

Mahsa Amini's death in custody triggered mass protests in Iran 

- Copyright AFP Brendan Smialowski
Marc BURLEIGH

The European Union on Thursday awarded its top rights honour, the Sakharov Prize, to Mahsa Amini, the Iranian Kurdish woman who died in Iranian custody a year ago, and the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement her death triggered.

“The brutal murder of 22-year-old Jina Mahsa Amini marked a turning point. It has triggered a women-led movement that is making history,” European Parliament speaker Roberta Metsola said, using Amini’s Kurdish first name as she announced the award.

Metsola said the movement’s three-word slogan was “a rallying cry for all those standing up for equality, for dignity, and for freedom in Iran”.

The EU prize announcement comes two weeks after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to an imprisoned Iranian rights campaigner, Narges Mohammadi.

Amini died age 22 on September 16, 2022, while being held by Iran’s religious police for allegedly breaching the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.

Her family and supporters say she was killed. Iranian authorities claim she died in custody from a previously undisclosed medical condition.

Her death triggered mass protests in Iran.

It also generated a global movement known as “Woman, Life, Freedom”, calling for the end of Iran’s imposition of a headscarf on all women and an end to the Muslim cleric-led government in Tehran.

Iranian security forces have cracked down on the protests domestically, killing hundreds, and have executed dozens for allegedly participating in what officials have called “riots”.

This week, they jailed Amini’s lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, for one year for “propaganda” after he spoke to media about her case.

Many Iranian women continue to defy the government’s clothing edict by taking off their headscarves in public.

– Defying Iran’s clerics –

The “Woman, Life, Freedom” campaign continues in cities around the world, with frequent demonstrations in which Amini’s photo is held aloft.

Mohammadi’s Nobel Peace Prize was in recognition of her fight against the mandatory headscarf in Iran and against the oppression of women in the country.

Together, the two prizes focus attention on Iranian authorities’ punishment of women who defy the headscarf order, seen by both sides as defiance of the Islamic republic’s system of governance itself.

Amini and the “Woman, Freedom, Life” movement were backed by the European Parliament’s three main political groups, making them the frontrunner well before the Sakharov Prize winner was announced.

The two other nominations on the shortlist, backed by smaller groups, were Nicaraguan rights defenders, Vilma Nunez de Escorcia and Bishop Rolando Jose Alvarez Lagos; and three women campaigning for abortion rights, Justyna Wydrzynska from Poland, Morena Herrera from Salvador and Colleen McNicholas from the United States.

Billionaire Elon Musk had been put forward in an initial round by a far-right grouping in the parliament but failed to make the cut for the shortlist.

The Sakharov Prize, which comes with a 50,000-euro ($53,000) endowment, will be handed over in a European Parliament ceremony on December 13.

The Kurdish Feminist Revolution

By Rahila Gupta

March 9, 2023
Source: New Internationalist

The tagline of Iran’s recent prowomen’s movement is translated from a Kurdish slogan which neatly captures the ideology of the region’s feminist politics. Here a mural displays the Kurdish original. HERZI PINKI/CREATIVE COMMONS

Around the world, people are chanting ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ in solidarity with the women’s uprising in Iran – dubbing it the ‘first feminist revolution in the world’. Not so, argues Rahila Gupta, as she examines its precursor: a Kurdish feminist revolution in Rojava.

The killing of Jina Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish Iranian woman who allowed a wisp of hair to escape the confines of her hijab, by the morality police on 16 September 2022, has set the streets of Iran on fire with an intensity that threatens to bring down the Islamic regime.

Feminists around the world have been staging solidarity protests and mass hair-cutting rituals. I too chopped off a lock of my hair at London’s Piccadilly Circus in an event organized by Maryam Namazie, an Iranian activist, from One Law for All campaign.

Media interest has been at an all-time high. Western support for the uprisings in Iran has been described by Jacobin magazine as ‘a kind of “intersectional imperialism” that seeks to justify military and diplomatic escalation with Iran in the name of female emancipation from Islamic “barbarism”’. Iranian activists, though, argue that not enough has been done to isolate the government of Iran.

In the high-pitched enthusiasm for the Iranian uprising, some vital truths are being lost. In an interview in The Observer, Iranian writer Shiva Akhavan Rad, refers to the slogan Zan, Zindagi, Azadi (Woman, Life, Freedom) without mentioning that this was in fact adapted from the original Jin, Jiyan, Azadi: a Kurdish slogan protesting the death of a Kurdish woman, Jina Amini.

This is not an act of sectarian point-scoring, but an acknowledgement of the fact that the Kurds are a historically oppressed minority in Iran and across the border in Syria, Iraq and Turkey, and their struggles must not continue to be invisibilized.

That this cause has been embraced by Iranians strengthens the opposition to the country’s oppressive government. But it is the Kurdish regions of Iran, known as Rojhelat in Kurdish, that have borne the brunt of regime brutality.

This brings me to the second trope: that the protest movement in Iran is ‘the first feminist revolution in the world’. Actually, no. The first feminist revolution in the world is in progress in Rojava, northeast Syria, led by Kurdish women (and men) since 2012. It is here that the slogan, Jin, Jiyan, Azadi was first popularized.

The Rojava women’s revolution has hardly been covered in the mainstream media, perhaps in deference to Turkey, a NATO ally, which sees the movement for Kurdish self-determination as ‘terrorism’ – and is bombing Rojava at the time of writing. In the meantime, a protest movement with the potential to bring down the Islamic regime of Iran gets unprecedented coverage: because Iran is an implacable enemy of the West.

Jin, Jiyan, Azadi

A slogan that was little known before the death of Jina Amini, and was enthusiastically chanted in Kurdish political gatherings, now reverberates in meeting halls and demonstrations across the world. An opportunity to discuss its origins is an opportunity to raise awareness of Rojava and so the universal embrace of this slogan is a positive development.

Yet Kurdish women warn of the danger of slogans becoming empty words. As Dilar Dirik, a Kurdish academic and activist, noted at a conference organized by Kurdish women in Berlin in November 2022: ‘Radical and revolutionary slogans and symbols increasingly become commodified, mass-produced, emptied of their meaning, and sold back in plastic to the same people that gave their lives creating these values.’

Jin, Jiyan, Azadi was first chanted on 8 March 2006 at International Women’s Day demonstrations by Kurdish women in cities across Turkey. Within the Kurdish freedom movement, the words are attributed to Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who has been languishing in solitary confinement in a Turkish prison since 1999. He used them in 1993, not as a slogan, but as a pithy evocation of the goals of the movement.

Jin is the Kurdish word for woman and the root of Jineolojî (or ‘the science of women’) proposed by Öcalan. His revolutionary history began with Marxism-Leninism and the demand for an independent nation-state of Kurdistan in 1978, when he set up the PKK in Turkey. However, Öcalan’s thinking evolved in prison. Influenced partly by Murray Bookchin’s ideas on radical municipalism, Öcalan renounced the state as an inherently patriarchal, violent and anti-democratic institution, in favour of a model of participatory grassroots self-administration which he called ‘democratic confederalism’.

Along with anti-statism, Öcalan came to believe that women are the vanguard of the revolution. Öcalan’s reading list in prison included the feminist works of Judith Butler and Maria Mies which, alongside his lengthy discussions with Kurdish feminist revolutionaries like Sakine Cansiz, are credited with influencing his feminist beliefs.

Without wanting to diminish the contribution to the feminist cause of Öcalan and his Kurdish compatriots, it is important to reflect on whether Öcalan’s evolution would have been possible without the theoretical outpourings and extensive activism of second-wave feminism. It is a pleasing cross-fertilisation of ideas. The internationalist outlook of Kurdish feminists is reflected in their knowledge of a range of Western thinkers, a compliment that is not returned – typical of Western orientalism which rarely grapples with ideas and theories that emerge in the Global South.

For Öcalan, ‘Women’s freedom is more precious than the freedom of the homeland’.

He believes that after the workers’ revolutions and national liberation struggles of the 19th and 20th centuries, the 21st century is that of women’s revolution. The pre-eminence of women, the emphasis on our freedom as a precondition for the freedom of the whole of humanity, is an idea that drives the revolution in Rojava and animates the Kurdish movement for self-determination.

This latter-day Nelson Mandela’s analysis of patriarchy stands equal to that of any feminist, and his position is without precedent among male leaders of liberation struggles.

‘Woman’s biological difference is used as justification for her enslavement,’ he writes. ‘All the work she does is taken for granted and called unworthy “woman’s work”.

‘Her presence in the public sphere is claimed to be prohibited by religion, morally shameful; progressively, she is secluded from all important social activities… Thus, the idea of a “weak sex” becomes a shared belief. In fact, society treats woman not merely as a biologically separate sex but almost as a separate race, nation or class – the most oppressed race, nation or class: no race, class or nation is subjected to such systematic slavery as housewifisation.’

Öcalan found the term feminism limiting: it focussed on women’s oppression by men, thus failing to capture all the contributions made by women to history, society and life.

‘It suggests the meaning that she is merely the oppressed woman of the dominant man. Yet women’s reality is more comprehensive than that and includes other meanings beyond gender with far-reaching economic, social, and political dimensions.’
Not only were the women fighting for Kurdish self-determination in the armed struggle in the mountains, they were also resisting the patriarchal attitudes of their male comrades in the guerrilla movement

In meetings with Kurdish political activists in prison in 2014, he elaborated: ‘Feminism needs to be a more radical movement against the system and to purify itself from the effects of liberalism. Jineolojî will contribute to this.’

He elevated it to the status of a science, a subject worthy of study like any other, such as sociology or pedagogy, an ‘ology’. The only reason, he argued, that this science did not exist was because the production of knowledge has been skewed by male dominance.

Öcalan’s view of feminism as the rebellion of the oldest colony turbocharges Jineolojî as an instrument for decolonizing the curriculum from a gender perspective, not a perspective common in Britain where decolonization is mainly about race.

While Öcalan is to be credited with formulating the original principles of Jineolojî, it is Kurdish women who have continued to develop and add nuance to it, based in part on practical knowledge gained from their activism and the experience of establishing the women’s revolution in Rojava in 2012. Discussions began among the women guerrillas in the mountains of Kurdistan before spreading through the rest of society.

There are Jineolojî committees across the four parts of Kurdistan, Europe and Russia. There have also been several international conferences to develop their theories. Dilar Dirik devoted only a few pages to Jineolojî in her recent book on the Kurdish Women’s Movement because it is a ‘constantly evolving process and defining it too much can be limiting to its evolution’.
Self-determination and armed struggle

As early as the third congress of the PKK in 1986, it was announced that an autonomous women’s organization would be set up. In 1987, the Kurdistan Patriotic Women Union (YJWK) was founded. This group hosted the movement’s first theoretical discussions on patriarchal exploitation, women’s liberation and the social construction of women and their role in the family.

These ideas were contextualised by Öcalan in his book, Woman and the Family Issue in Kurdistan (not available in English).

The founding of the women’s armed wing in 1993, in an attempt at autonomous organization in all areas of political activity, generated new understandings and knowledge.

Not only were the women fighting for Kurdish self-determination in the armed struggle in the mountains, they were also resisting the patriarchal attitudes of their male comrades in the guerrilla movement.

This made them understand the importance of fighting for women’s liberation alongside class and national liberation struggles.

Given the emphasis that Öcalan placed on women’s freedom, this was not a matter to be postponed until after the solution of the Kurdish question. This was a significant lesson taken from previous national liberation struggles against colonial powers, particularly in Asia and Africa, where women were asked to postpone their own struggles until after independence was won. Women began organizing in the cities as well, where they came to understand the patriarchal structures of capitalist modernity.

‘The theory of “Eternal Divorce”, aiming to make the issue of freedom visible for both woman and man, became an important step to enable both genders to become aware of their own reality,’ as the booklet on Jineolojî explains. Öcalan’s theory on ‘Killing the Dominant Male’ – dealing with toxic masculinity – is based on women’s struggles to free themselves from the oppression of men.

The first women’s party (PJKK) was formed in March 1999, soon after Öcalan’s arrest, to address his regret over having not formed one thus far. The party dropped the reference to Kurdistan in the following year and renamed themselves PJA (Free Women’s Party), to signal that all women of all nationalities and backgrounds were welcome to join, an inclusiveness which transcends the narrow nationalisms based on ethnic identity.

The dynamism of the movement is reflected in the number of different organizations that have been set up in the last 20 years, with a number of name changes to reflect nuances of political positions. However, it is a veritable alphabet soup to be decoded only by the most fervent scholars of the movement.

Central to the project of Jineolojî is the attempt to achieve a transformation in the social sciences, which claim to be a systematized production of knowledge of lived reality, an objective, rational, scientific study of human behaviour and social relations. ‘Jineolojî is a science born out of objections to conventional science,’ says the booklet.

It enumerates the areas in which women played a central role but have slipped below the horizon of history, insisting that ‘women are not the sediment of society, but are the core’. Its function is to provide the ideological foundations for a system that is centred on women and engages with nine subject areas: history, ethics and aesthetics, demography, health, education, self-defence, economy, politics, and ecology.

Importantly, Jineolojî is a template for action, a solutions-based approach which posits the establishment of democratic confederalism, with women at the centre, as the only way to fight capitalist and patriarchal oppression.

The People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) are predominantly-Kurdish armed militias which have played a key role in fighting Islamic State in the Syrian civil war. KURDISHSTRUGGLE/FLICKR/CREATIVE COMMONS

Positivism in the dock

Positivism is given a hard time by Jineolojî. Western reliance on evidence-based, objective truths and scientific principles, on what is provable, and which denies the relevance of other forms of learning and traditional wisdoms, is critiqued for its short-sightedness. Jineolojî examines how science, apparently so emotion-free and rational, has become corrupted by power, racism and sexism.

While acknowledging the negative patriarchal values embedded in subjects like mythology, religion and philosophy, Jineolojî believes there are truths contained in them which should not have been cast aside by positivism as it developed in 17th century Europe.

Around the same time, women’s traditional wisdom as healers was seen as a threat to society and women’s behaviour was disciplined by the mass burning of ‘witches’, a history that is now reclaimed and recast by writers like Silvia Federici in Caliban and the Witch as part of the journey from feudalism to capitalism.

Jineolojî questions the great claims made for the Enlightenment, critiquing the principles of positivism by which it was shaped. It questions the fragmentation of social sciences and the value of specialisms like economics, sociology, history and philosophy, when knowledge should be whole and indivisible.

The ‘harsh materialism’ of positivism is seen as more regressive than metaphysics and religion. Yet in Öcalan’s ‘three ruptures’ theory, the role that religion plays in shoring up patriarchy comes in for a thoroughgoing critique. In his pamphlet on women’s revolution, Liberating Life, Öcalan advances his ‘three sexual ruptures’ theory of women’s enslavement and eventual liberation.

The first rupture, or turning point, was the rise of patriarchy when Neolithic times ended and ‘statist civilization’ arose; the second sexual rupture was the intensification of patriarchy through religious ideology.

As Öcalan says: ‘Treating women as inferior now became the sacred command of god’. The third rupture is yet to come, the end of patriarchy or as Öcalan puts it ‘killing the dominant male’, which is about reshaping masculinity so that it no longer defines itself in relation to its power over women.

Claims to exceptionalism

The booklet on Jineolojî hopes to clarify how ‘Jineolojî’s approach differs from the other currents of thought’.

This is where the trouble begins – it lays down a gauntlet to feminists to respond to, with examples of feminist theorizing that cover the same ground as Jineolojî. Many of us, who are allies of the movement, have been exercised by this claim, particularly as there are so many strands of feminism in the West that all the theoretical approaches in Jineolojî have already been articulated by women at some point.

In making its claim to exceptionalism, Jineolojî does appear to homogenize Western feminism as mainly liberal without recognizing the more radical strands.

Dilar Dirik critiques liberal feminism’s individualistic and legalistic approach to change as ‘forms of ideological assimilation that pacify movements rather than transform the system’. This criticism is also articulated by women who subscribe to radical, socialist or Marxist ideologies.
We cannot just make revolution happen by changing the system and then expecting that the system will change the people within it. We see from history that this is not enough

But, as Kurdish feminists rightly point out, this plethora of perspectives has driven a fragmentation of transnational feminism, while Jineolojî has been able to coalesce elements of these various thought systems into a single framework behind which Kurdish women have united. Their anti-state position, for example, has brought many anarchists flocking to the cause.

Others have been attracted to the equal emphasis placed on changing the system and the self, each standing in a symbiotic relationship to the other, and the theory of xwebûn, or being and becoming yourself – unlike classical Marxism which proposed that the individual was shaped by class relations and that once the system changed it would shape human character in a more progressive mould.

The booklet on Revolutionary Education argues: ‘We cannot just make revolution happen by changing the system and then expecting that the system will change the people within it. We see from history that this is not enough.’

The ‘freedom’ part of the Jin, Jiyan, Azadi slogan is also a reference to changing mentality in both men and women. ‘Transforming the man is essential to a free life,’ says Öcalan. Dilar Dirik tells us that the women’s liberation ideology is not a framework reserved for women. It is also taught to male cadres, whose militancy is assessed by their approach to women’s liberation and by their engagement with ‘men’s freedom problem’.

In an email, the Academy of Jineolojî explained that one of their main research topics currently is the analysis of ‘co-life’ (hevjiyana azad) and dominant masculinity. How to build the potential for freedom instead of the potential for slavery in all, including sexual relationships between women and men.

As Havin Guneser, translator of Öcalan’s works into English, points out in her book, The Art of Freedom: ‘What we are seeing is that the relationship between men and women is deemed to be a private domain, but it is, in fact, the first and foremost locus of the colonization process.’

While Western feminists have analyzed toxic masculinity, the work of changing men and their patriarchal mentality is more often seen as a job for men and not the responsibility of women. There are some women’s organizations which have established perpetrator programmes, such as anger management, aimed at men who have been violent towards their partners.

The importance of personal transformation for both men and women while at the same time engaging in a struggle to change the system with its anti-capitalist, anti-state and ecological focus, is a syncretic political tradition the like of which we have not quite seen before. ‘It refuses to choose between a materialism, which takes the object as the absolute, or an idealism, which takes the subject as the absolute.’

The emphasis on ethics and aesthetics as the fundamental basis of the perspective and practices of Jineolojî is also unusual for a liberation struggle. This is seen by its proponents to be the main difference that distinguishes Jineolojî from scientism and from the dominant understandings of social sciences. Beauty is not about appearing attractive to men but is reconceptualized as synonymous with freedom, cultural and ethical values.

This is how Öcalan expresses it: ‘The one who fights becomes free, the one who becomes free becomes beautiful, the one who is beautiful is loved’. Aesthetics should be informed by a commitment to justice, autonomy, truth and liberation.

Zozan Sima, from the Jineolojî Academy in Rojava, expands upon Ocalan’s statement: ‘Women, who democratize politics, women, who risk their lives to protect communities and other women, women who educate themselves and those around them, women who live communally, women who save the ecological equilibrium, women who struggle to raise children in free countries, with their own identities, and many others are all women who become beautiful through struggle.

‘In today’s world full of ugliness, injustice and evil, it is not physical, augmented forms of aesthetics which constitute beauty; only women who defend life through struggle can create beauty. In this sense, is there anything more beautiful than the young women who fight against Daesh fascism?’

But these claims to exceptionalism do not convince Nadje Al-Ali and Isabel Käser, feminist academics.

In their essay, ‘Beyond Feminism? Jineolojî and the Kurdish Women’s Freedom Movement’, they locate Jineolojî within standpoint theory, a perspective that empowers marginalized groups by validating the knowledge produced from their subjective positions.

They also point to transnational feminists who challenge the binary between secularism and spirituality common in Western thought and recount the number of feminists who have critiqued the social sciences and dedicated themselves to unearthing women’s histories.

At one level, this is academic.

If Jineolojî provides the template for the first and only women’s revolution in the world, its claim to exceptionalism is totally justified. Why should it matter whether there is an overlap or not with other strands of feminist thought? It is surely the science of the women’s revolution which is its primary distinction from other feminist theorizing.

Al-Ali and Käser are unnecessarily defensive in the face of their Kurdish interviewees’ critique that global feminism is divided and unable to translate its critical perspectives into political action, in pointing to ‘the long history of feminist mobilization globally, which, despite many setbacks and unresolved inequalities, has been central to challenging structural inequalities and improving women’s everyday lives in many contexts’.

The fragmentation of women’s struggles, the different strands – radical feminism, anarcho-feminism, Marxist-feminism, ecofeminism – has undeniably held us back. The Jineolojî booklet describes Western feminism as ‘hope movements’ without revolutionary potential.

In Liberating Life, Öcalan argues that feminism can never be totally successful in a capitalist system, which thrives on division; that class and race equality in a secular democratic system is part of the struggle for women’s liberation. Many feminists, such as the Combahee River Collective of black feminists, would agree with this analysis, but they are unable to put into practice ideas of race and class equality in a capitalist system.

No wonder that transnational feminism is often derided as a middle-class affair which excludes working-class and minority women.

The response of the Jineolojî committee, Europe, to Al-Ali and Käser’s article was also unnecessarily defensive – surprisingly so, given the value that the Kurdish women’s movement places on criticism and self-criticism.

The committee critiqued the authors’ methodology, felt that interviewees had been quoted out of context and noted the fact that they did not read any of the work available in Kurdish or Turkish – a criticism that could equally be made of this article.

Criticizing the authors for ‘patroniz[ing] and trivializ[ing] our work,’ is an unfair criticism as the piece was attempting to engage seriously with Jineolojî and appraise it from a position of solidarity with Kurdish women.

As Al-Ali and Käser acknowledged, ‘Jineoloji’s transformative potential has not been realized by any other feminist politics’.