Call for the Establishment of Women Defend Rojava (WDR) Platforms and Local Committees Outside Rojava
We send our warmest greetings from Rojava to all of you who have been a part of the resistance and mobilisations to stop Turkey‘s occupation war against Rojava / North and East Syria.
Millions of women and people in all parts of Kurdistan and all over the world have shown their solidarity with our struggle and condemned the Turkish invasion, the ethnic genocide and systematic attacks against women. But still all these crimes are continuing and the occupation forces are targeting one by one different regions of Rojava. Especially the ancient Christian and Kurdish communities of this region are subjected to ethnic genocide. All of this happens with the knowledge and the support of international powers and institutions. To stop this dirty war and the dirty deals over the people, the land and resources of Rojava we have to organise a strong, continuing international resistance that can challenge the unjust and inhuman system.
During the last days in different countries and towns Women Defend Rojava Committees have been established to strengthen and connect with the women’s resistance worldwide. So far women in Catalonia, different regions of the Spanish state, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and North America came together and built up in total 20 regional committees. This is a very important and precious step.
Aim of the Campaign Women Defend Rojava:
The campaign Women Defend Rojava was initiated in August 2019 by Kongra Star, the umbrella organisation of the Kurdish Women‘s Movement in Rojava. Its aim has been to raise and emphasize women‘s voices and unite women‘s resistances against the threats of Turkey‘s occupation war and its attack on the women’s revolution in Rojava. It has been our aim to create public awareness that the war against Rojava and its system of democratic confederal self-administration based on women’s liberation and ecology is a war against all women and peoples who are seeking for a life in freedom and dignity.
We are living in a time in which the patriarchal system, the global powers and their regional agencies are threatening the lives and the future of millions of people all over the world with feminicides, fascist dictatorships, land robbing, capitalist exploitation, ecologic devastation, occupation and displacement. Against all of these threats the rejections and resistances of women are growing in every part of the world. All the diverse struggles against fascism, exploitation and patriarchy are parts of a joint struggle to overcome the rule and the lies of the oppressors and to defend our future in Rojava and in any part of the world.
Defending Rojava means to defend women’s freedom, free will and dignity; to defend our existence, culture, language and identity against colonialism; to defend a free, peaceful and collective life; to organise our self-defense as women; to ensure free education, health and justice for everyone; to develop women’s consciousness on the basis of Jineolojî; to defend communal and ecological forms of life and economy; and to preserve nature and all its resources.
These are the universal values that we defend in Rojava and that are constituents of women’s struggles on all continents. In order to achieve and protect them a well organized long-term struggle is necessary. But at the same time in certain moments of history we have to be able to bundle all our forces and energy and to develop actions and policies on different levels. Only in this way we will be able to defend our existence and to fight back against the concentrated attacks that are aiming to eliminate us and our values.
This war is an expression of the deep crises of the patriarchal capitalist system. Women and women’s liberation perspective are specifically targeted by the Turkish state and its jihadists. By the means of this imperialist 3rd World War the corrupt system aims to maintain itself by establishing a “new world order”. Therefore it is intensifying its attacks against the gains of women and peoples’ democracy struggles everywhere. But while being confronted with the threats of genocide and feminicide there are also possibilities to break through the cycle of destruction and oppression. The ruling system, its international institutions and mechanisms have lost its legitimacy. More and more people have become aware of the need for fundamental democratic changes. By amplifying and connecting our struggles for freedom and justice we have also to take the opportunity to build up communal and confederal democratic alternatives. We can overcome the fundamental crisis of the oppressing system by building up and defending new social systems of people’s democracy based on women’s liberation, ecology and justice.
We call to build up Women Defend Rojava Committees in all regions of Kurdistan, the Middle East and other parts of the world. Hereby we can share knowledge and experiences of women’s struggles and movements to start for new steps and initiatives. We strive to reach every woman in society and women from all parts of our societies. Every woman, everyone, can do something for defending Rojava. Every effort to stop the war, feminicides and occupation is valuable!
We are preparing for another step of our common struggle on November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of all Forms of Violence against Women. Along with the three Mirabal sisters, we are calling to remember the martyrs of the Rojava Resistance, symbolized in the personalities of the vanguards of the women’s revolution: Hevrin Khalef, the YPJ fighter Amara Renas and Eqide Usman. We will tell their immortal lives and personalities by way of continuing their efforts and struggles.
Defending Rojava means to Defend and Spread the Women’s Revolution – worldwide!
In unity, we will resist, defend and overcome!
Women who want to join the campaign and want to build up new committees in their towns and regions can contact us via e-mail: [email protected]
Women Defend Rojava Campaign Committee
Rojava, 11 November 2019
