….one where women and men are equal, a society without pressure, without inequality, where all differences between people are eliminated”
“…if we are really trying to create a new society, we have to develop women. If women are enslaved, then so are men.”
“How could we have lived like this for so long? How could we have accepted this for so long?”
All quotes from here. (Hat-tip amananta.)
I don’t profess to know a great deal about the Kurdish struggles. I understand that Saddam Hussain attempted to annhialate the Kurdish people in Iraq with toxic gasses and I know a little about Kurdish traditions, customs and culture from Kurdish women and children I’ve met in my line of work but that’s about it. I’m not pretending to set myself up as a spokesperson for the Kurdish nation or anything quite so bourgeoise considering my Western privilege. In fact, the point of this post has very little to do with the Kurdish nation per se although the racism they face – just like racism everywhere – is abhorrent.
I looked at the picture at the top of that report. Women with guns. I’ve always thought of guns as mainly a man thing because I’ve always thought of being able to kill another person as something men readily accept – whether in the line of ‘duty’ or to protect their ‘property’, (which amounts to much the same thing, really) – but that women generally shy away from unless backed into a corner.
Then I read the report.
The people who said the words I’ve quoted above are simply Freedom Fighters but even their Kurdish Regional Government is attempting to distance itself from their egalitarian stance because they’re no longer fighting for just Kurdish freedom but they are now “fighting to generate dramatic social change“.
They’re fighting to defeat patriarchy.
They believe that “global crises and injustice are a result of millennia of male-dominated rule“. I believe that too but am I prepared to become an outlaw, take to the hills and be part of an armed struggle to “get rid of society’s ingrained enslavement“? The Home Counties is a very different place to the Turkish mountains but the essence of the struggle is the same. I don’t carry a gun and the actions I take don’t kill people but the things I do and say as a radical feminist would seem to firmly place me in the ‘outlaw’ category and our goals seem very similar.
I could/would never claim political solidarity with the PKK although I somehow feel it. They’re driven by the same passion that drives radical feminism. The passion to witness human beings – female and male – living their lives free from patriarchal oppression; the willingness to be deemed completely a non-person, totally expendable, as a result.
Globally, radical feminism has many guises. Some of them don’t even use the word “feminism”.
“…they say that it was because they are driven by passion that they have survived this long.”
Shock horror…
May 5, 2009 · 10 Comments
…we have 28 confirmed cases of swine ‘flu in this country now.
Of course I realise that this is potentially dodgy for the very young, the elderly, people with respiratory problems, etc. Globally, the situation is becoming so worrisome that the World Health Organisation might raise its pandemic level from five to six – its highest alert.
28 cases…
Yet, statistcally, 100 women and girls were subjected to sexual violence in this country today alone. And there’ll be another 100 tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that… Last week 700 women and girls were subjected to sexual violence in this country and this time next week the tally will be 1400 since April 28th. And that’s just on our tiny little isle. Globally, the situation is terrifying.
But, hey, who’s panicking?
That’s right; no-one. It’s just business as usual.
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