Aviva Stein
Opening remarks
Want to start by also thanking Washington Kurdish Institute and Giulia,our moderator, my fellow panelists and also listeners.
I also, I’m not Kurdish myself, so I speak only on behalf of myself and the work that I’ve done with the Kurdish movement. but of course these are not my historical experiences. I do think it is so important and I’m so glad that Ozlem and Ava both gave such a historical background and a strong foundation for understanding where we are now in the struggle and in the movement,especially in Rojava which is what I will focus on in Syria and Kurdistan. This democratic radical feminist model that has been developed for generations. When you look at the historical context in Syria as well, Kurdish people have faced severe oppression under the Assad regime, both under Bashar al Assad and Hafeez al Assad over the course of many, many years. The Rojava region was and still is the bread basket of Syria. But this was exploited. And the Kurdish people were oppressed in such a way that they were not even able to reap the benefits of the fact that they were the ones creating the wealth for the country, everything was taken from them. And they had to rebuy all of the finished products after being manufactured in other parts of Syria. So from a very, very early age, also Kurdish was banned in schools. The culture was severely oppressed and a very strong policy of Arabization was enforced. So you had this eraser on multiple levels of cultural and economic, and also gender. Of course, because when you remove these avenues of opportunity and prosperity, you also reinforce these cultural norms of the inability to express oneself, the inability to share a struggle, and it creates divisiveness and even more oppression that becomes manifested within a culture.
Thus you see much stronger elements of patriarchy emerging as well, that also limit what women are able to do in society and allowed to do in society. But now of course in Rojava, we see something very, very different. We see that they have built these systems that allow for a much more equal society, and they are based on these ideologies that were developed in Turkey, in Rojava and Bakur over the course of many decades and generations. s Ozlem said these ideologies were developed by eventually what became the PKK under Ocalan, and his contemporary Sakine Cansiz. And Because of the colonialist structure and the way that Kurdistan was originally broken down, families were separated along borders. So the borders between the different parts of Kurdistan have historically always been very porous. So with the flow of people, you also had a very strong flow of ideas. These ideas and these systems and parallel societies were brought into Rojava as wel. And really created a shadow system underneath the oppressive state that allowed people to create shadow societies and shadow civil societies that created avenues for women to share their histories, share their skills, share their stories and make sure that their culture was not lost, that their language was not lost. Eventually of course, this led to what we see now.
I would like to focus on the implementation of the system now in Rojava which is known as democratic confederalism. The ideology and the system is based on four main elements, which are gender equality, self-defense, multiculturalism, and social ecology. There is an understanding that these elements cannot exist on their own fully. It is an intersectional approach. When it comes to gender equality, specifically, you have many different elements that have been incorporated into governance and administrative structures that ensure that the traditions and patriarchal cultures cannot remove them again. So every government council, and this is a bottom-up system, so you have local village councils, you have communes, you have further up government councils. And then at the top, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria [AANES]. Every council and body is headed by two democratically elected co-chairs one man, and one woman. There are 40% quotas in each representative body that are reserved for women and not just Kurdish women, because of course,Rojava is a very multicultural environment. So these are reserved also for Arab women, for Yazidi women , for Turkmen, Assyrian/ Syriac women. So these are systems that have been put into place to ensure that women will always have a voice and will always be able to participate and make their needs and their wants to known, and that they no longer have to do it in this hushed way of passing down memories, but that they are able to really voice their opinions very, very vocally.
They’re also special women’s organizations under the umbrella of Congress Star, which is the sister to TEV-DEM the umbrella of civil society in Rojava. Congress star is the Congress of the women’s movement first established in 2004. It ‘Yakitia star’ then. While it was originally an underground movement that was designed to combat the dominance of the Ba’athist regime, it has since emerged operating on the basis of confederalism. It has various organizations, committees, and unions that participate to develop a free and democratic Syria beginning with Rojava. These congresses, organizations, and unions, are all women’s organizations. They represent the needs and they are only for women. So they also address issues like domestic violence. They provide ‘Mala Jin’ women’s houses, where women can go if they feel unsafe. They are also the over chain umbrella ‘Jin Var’ the women’s village, which is a village that has been created of I think 30 houses, only for women. This village access is a commune where women can live in safety and harmony. They grow their own produce, which also is a means of resisting the traditional form of oppression, of disconnecting women from the earth. So they’re able to grow their own produce and, and sustain themselves in this way. This really aims to combine the elements of democracy, ecology, and women’s liberation. This comes back to the focus on sustainability that is also core to the intersectional approach of democratic confederalism. Of course this is not to say that there aren’t challenges and there are the patriarchy and the traditional gender norms in culture in the region are very, very strong and they do have a long history.
However, education is also a core element of the changes that have been happening throughout the revolution in Rojava. Academies have been created that allow for both men and women to attend in order to understand the elements of democratic federalism and the benefits that they bring to both men and women. Because when you look at feminism, when you look at intersectionality and when you look at patriarchy and toxic masculinity, and these are things that affect men and women. Men are also very negatively impacted by the effects of patriarchy and toxic masculinity. They’re not able to express emotion. They’re not able to many times in oppressed societies feel as though they are able to provide for their families. They’re not able to fulfill the role of being a man, but these toxic systems that have been inherently integrated into the culture, they’re not part of this new system in many ways.
So these academies serve to educate the entire society on how breaking down the patriarchy is beneficial to everyone in the same way that breaking down capitalism and class systems is beneficial to everyone. It allows economic independence, it allows political participation, and it allows an equal sharing of life in general and participation in society. I know we don’t have a lot more time, so I don’t want to go too long. But I also wanted to touch on the way that women, Kurdish women are perceived by western media, especially, living in the Netherlands and being from the US. You see so many of these images of women holding guns, and especially in Rojava with the advent of the revolution and the role that Kurdish women and Kurds in general have played in the fight against Islamic States, Da’esh. They have been built up on this pedestal by Western media, but in a way that they are focused on, as beautiful fighters with flashy headlines. Always focused on the conflict and Kurdish women and women in general, they’re still being reduced to objects. We are still either sexualized or infantilized. We are not given agency. And this is something that the Rojava revolution is really about, is restoring agency to women in a way that women have reclaimed. Reclaiming the means of actually living their lives in the way that they desire and not being reduced to an objectified thing. And this is something that I see Western media really struggling with to fully understand the role of Kurdish women in the YPG and the YPJ. The YPJ is the Women’s Protection Units. It is the women’s wing of the military, and it is not only Kurdish women.There are Arab women that fight as well. Also women from other ethnic groups, because multiculturalism and inclusivity is also a key element of democratic and federalism and building a society that can exist and coexist in peace and tolerance.
One other element that I would like to touch on as well, as far as Western media goes is also controversial, but I find a very important contentious issue of the YPJ in particular accepting girls under the age of 18. This is something that is reamed in media, it’s recruiting children in the military, ‘child soldiers’ and ‘It’s child labor.’ This fails to understand the complexity of the situation. This inflexible Western perspective, it fails to understand that youth ecruitment isn’t necessarily youth recruitment. It is giving women an opportunity to leave a family, perhaps that wants to marry them at an early age. Many, many women are still trapped in these patriarchal and cultural vices. As Ava said, FGM is still a very, very common problem in this part of the world. So I would like to just emphasize that also women are not directly joining the military. They are being given education. They are learning skills, they are working in other aspects as well. There’s a lot of administrative services. There are the “Mala Jin” and other organizations under Congress Star. So these opportunities provide women with avenues towards success, towards learning skills, towards economic independence, towards understanding a greater role in society. And as they’re given these opportunities and these freedoms, they’re also more free to participate in political life, as well as social life. That is so unbelievably important in creating a free society that truly understands the contributions of women and the talent and possibilities that women bring to the table. So I’d like to finish with that and thank you very much.