“If we women unite against all the divide-and-rule policies of the male-dominated system, build our organization locally, regionally and universally, and develop our self-defense, no power can defeat us,” says the KJK message to RAWA.
The Kurdistan Women’s Community (Komalên Jinên Kurdistan, KJK) sent a message to the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) on the occasion of March 8, International Working Women’s Day, saying the following:
“First of all, we salute you on March 8, International Working Women’s Day, and with that, all women around the world who struggle against male domination, colonialism, religious fundamentalism, nationalism and capitalism. We respectfully commemorate all revolutionary women, who have lost their lives for this cause, and we renew our promise that we will keep their memories alive in our struggle and realize their dreams.Although we struggle against different colonial and patriarchal forces in different countries, we are aware that we are fighting against different versions of the same system. For this reason, we see your struggle as our own struggle and we carry out your struggle in our own struggle.
Today, amid a 3rd World War, we see more clearly that the capitalist system feeds on crisis and exploitation. The patriarchal capitalist system has mobilized all its capacities to violence in order to maintain its domination. New wars are waged every day, people are displaced, their lands, and resources are confiscated. Death, poverty, migration and torture are inflicted on communities. Women and peoples are unable to breathe under this system.
Although nation-states, which are part of the capitalist system, are in a struggle with each other for world domination, they lead their real war against women, peoples and nature. It is as though an undeclared war is being waged against women all over the world. These feminicidal attacks constitute attacks against the whole of society, its values and nature. That the whole world is being turned into a war zone today is a direct result of patriarchy. Seeing that the 21st century will be the century of women, the hegemonic male state-system, despite all its contradictions, has launched a united physical-psychological-economic and most importantly ideological attack against women. Women who do not obey, who have acquired consciousness, who have stood up and organized, are their greatest nightmare. For this reason, assassinations against pioneering women have intensified in recent years and tens of thousands of them have been thrown into prisons. Every development that represents the women’s revolution is under the total attack of the system. Today, the Rojava revolutionary territories, where a women’s system is being built, is under the uninterrupted attack of the fascist Turkish state in front of the eyes of the world.
The hegemonic male state system does not realize that these efforts are futile because no attack can stop the reality that the 21st century will be the century of the women’s revolution. We see this both in our struggle and in your struggle. No oppression and persecution deters us from our struggle. On the contrary, it strengthens our determination to struggle.
That the women’s struggle is not only a struggle for women’s rights was seen in the uprisings in Iran when all the oppressed united under the slogan JIN JIYAN AZADĪ. All the peoples of Iran, men, women and children, declared in the face of their executioners that true freedom passes through women’s freedom. If we women unite against all the divide-and-rule policies of the male-dominated system, build our organization locally, regionally and universally, and develop our self-defense, no power can defeat us. As your sisters, we say: we have nothing to lose, but we have free lives and a whole world to gain.”