Women Struggle Will Demolish Your Palaces!
8th of March, International Working Women`s Day is one of the values created by the international proletariat, especially working women. New Yorker working women started resistance in 1857 with the demand to increase salaries, but probably they did not realize they were writing history. The fire, which burned the bodies of 129 workers, mostly women, has been enlarged in the hands of women for generations by adding new values to it. Today, this fire turns into a blaze in the hands of women, that gives fear to exploiters, women murderers, torturers, invaders.
Although it is New Yorker women`s resistance who created 8th of March, we as women never gave up on resistance and rebellion despite the defeat we had encountered with the advent of private property. We never stayed silent as our bodies, identities, and labor have been exploited, oppressed with unprecedented methods: being burned as `witches`, not being perceived as human. Accordingly, rebellion and resistance have become our core for thousand years.
Our voice rebounded on the drum of a little girl who sparked the `Bread Riots` in France in September 1789. We became the melody of the sound of women raising against capitalism in Manhattan and Lyon, putting a stone on the barricades. We are the dishwasher women who raided shops with hands wrinkled by water, to force shops to sell food products for the price these women determined. We are the footsteps of fifty women who organized Feshane Strike which is the first independent women`s strike in Ottoman history marching to Babiali in 1876. We are the flames of Matchgirls who went on strike against their boss forcing them to sign a paper on which it says `satisfied for working conditions` to conceal the non-humanistic working conditions in 1888. We are the blood of women and children, bleeding because of fire shots of soldiers as they marched towards the Winter Palace in 1905. Finally, 110 years ago, in 1910, we are the voice of Clara Zetkin who proposed 8th of March to be International Working Women`s day in 2nd International Socialist Women`s Conference. After this day, we have become the voice, demands, scream, revolt, rage and resistance of women who take the streets on every 8th of March.
Of course, we did not stop at that point… Adding gender consciousness to our class consciousness, we took part in every struggle against the patriarchal, exploitative system! No matter how hard they tried to put a black cover on us and make us invisible, we were there anyways. We embraced our courage and increased the women`s resistance and solidarity in Novamed, Flormar, TEKEL. In Gezi Uprising, we shielded our chest to pressurized water and pepper gas. We stopped daily life with strikes in Switzerland, Iceland, America, Argentina, Chile, Poland… By saying “Ni Una Menos”, millions of women all over the world walked together against women’s crimes. We went up to the stage and called for thousands to resist against poverty. We became Rojava, fighting against one of the wildest gangs of the World, becoming their fearful dream. We defended our land and our revolution against the Turkish state’s invasions. We became the notes of the Las Tesis dance that screams “You are My Perpetrator” in Chile which spread all over the world. We were among the ones who burned the Constitutional Court and a vehicle of La Prensa which published the photographs of the tortured body of Escamilla, to revenge her murder in Mexico. We were the ones who did not return home from the street against the AKP-MHP government, which took the 2016 coup attempt as a blessing and passed the martial law order. We were among those who resisted with laughter against all the attacks of fascism. In short, we reject the life they propose which tells us to stay at home, not leave home when pregnant but give birth to 3-5 children, not laugh outside and be `sensible`, work long hours with low salary in precarious jobs etc.
In 1857, 8th of March was the declaration of war by New Yorker women against capitalist exploitation, oppression, and slavery. Today we are still employed with low wages, we do not receive equal pay for equal work anywhere in the World. Today, we are facing long working hours and poor working conditions. Today, we are exposed to harassment, sexism and mobbing at our working places. Today, our right to work in secure jobs is seized. Today too, we are exposed to all forms of violence in every part of our lives from `private space` to `public space`. Today too, our right to alimony and Istanbul convention which were achieved by women`s struggle is attempted to be abolished. Today too, we are being murdered by the men closest to us. Today too, our right to first tongue education is being banned. Today too, they make our bodies their battlefield. Today too, men who killed LGBTI+ people are being set free by good conduct abatement, encouraging new transphobic murders. However, today too, we do not stay silent and follow New Yorker textile workers, demanding our rights, struggling and fighting…
Shaking patriarchy is not enough! Let`s destroy it!
Women in our country and in the world, unify their voices in the streets against all forms of oppression, murder, exploitation, make life unbearable for the sovereigns, damage patriarchal exploitation system! But not enough!
Since the system exposes us to two-threefold exploitation; let`s just destroy it! All we need for this is to combine our anger we have accumulated with our courage and become the main strength of the struggle as we are main strength of life. We can do this! We must do this!
Just like Meral Yakar, Barbara, Ayfer Celep, Sefagül, Nurşen, Gülizar, Fatma and Derya, Münire, Hatayi, Esrin and Gamzegül, Nesibe, Taybet, Anaya; Güzel Şahin; as thousands of women did! Just like Arin Mirxan, Aynur and Ceren, Dilan, Dilek, Yeliz, Şirin, Sakine and Berna … As thousands of women did… As their successors, we will embrace them with eternal love and keep their fight alive. Each of them will remain alive in our memory, we will learn to fight like them, and we will manage to fight for them.
Asking, demanding is not enough! We will work harder than anyone else, we will resist more than anyone else. We will be warriors in every field, fighters in every field, and experts in every field! When we are a material force in life and fight, we will take our first steps towards the liberation of society! We will demolish all the obstacles one by one, always looking forward, without bending our heads, we will break down their order and fight for the revolution!
Last year, with the Communist Women’s Union, which was declared to be established in the 1st Congress of our Party, we started to take the steps in a stronger, more courageous, more militant way. Let us be reborn on 8th of March this year!
It is the time to mobilize for this dignified task and to take a step forward to fulfill this mission. It is the time to expand in the fronts, in all the platforms of fight, resistance, struggle and in all parts of life; it is the time to attack all parts of the patriarchal system…
Long Live our Party TKP-ML!
Long Live the Communist Vanguard of Women KKB!
Solidarity is the weapon of women!
TKP-ML Communist Union of Women
March 2020