We Will Destroy This System With Our Rebellion Together With The Wreckage It Created!
Jin Jiyan Azadi!
After a year in which exploitation, oppression, and violence increased, yet resistance emerged and the struggle, especially on the women’s front, increased its acceleration, we welcome 8 March 2023 with heavy devastation and with the will and determination to heal our wounds together, to stand up again and to step into a free future.
It is certain that we are going through an important period in the history of the struggle of 8 March, which was written with the blood of working women and crowned by communist women by declaring it a day of struggle and solidarity for all labouring women. For the last ten years there has been a wave of women’s revolts, proving how powerful women are when they are together. One of the recent driving forces of this wave was the uprising that started after the murder of the Kurdish woman Mahsa Jina Amini by the police of the Iranian murderous state. Women all over the world, chanting “Jin Jiyan Azadi” in their own languages, took the hands of -Kurdish, Azeri, Persian, of various nationalities-Iranian women and became part of the women’s resistance in Iran, making them an important component of the global women’s revolt. Women’s solidarity and struggle are growing, radicalising, and evolving into an international women’s resistance and struggle.
The Fascist Turkish State Collapsed on the Head of the People in the Earthquake!
On 6 February, the earthquakes centred in Maraş and the aftermath of the earthquakes once again revealed the anti-people face of the Turkish state. Far from rescuing those trapped under the rubble in the earthquake zones, we were confronted with a public hostility that wagged its finger and threatened the earthquake victims who asked “Where is the state?” Then, while thousands of people were freezing on the streets because their tent needs were not met, we learned that the Red Crescent, a public institution, was selling tents to volunteer organisations. While the misogynist AKP-MHP government was threatening and swearing and declaring a state of emergency, our people were trying to heal their wounds with solidarity.
It is clear that fascism is the real perpetrator of the earthquake turning into a massacre, and in order to hide its guilt, it carries out campaigns under the name of “Disaster of the Century”, makes use of social media restrictions, tries to prevent and confiscate aid, and talks about a “fateful plan” as they do after almost every massacre. The aim is to hide the extent of the massacre and cover up the crimes.
In the region devastated by the earthquake, it is women who feel the weight of this wreckage the most. Because we know that in all disasters social inequality deepens, patriarchy creates more space for itself, and every unusual situation creates new dangers for women. For example, even in tents, gender roles continue their “normal course”; activities such as the care and protection of children, the elderly, the disabled or the wounded, the cleaning of the living space or food are still carried out by women. Under conditions where water, hygiene materials, toilet and bathroom needs cannot be provided, these “daily chores” become insurmountable for women, and women are even forced to choose to return to damaged houses despite all the dangers. Moreover, the normalisation of all kinds of violence, racism and death in the earthquake region carries the risk of creating dangers not only in the region but also for women and LGBTI+ persons in general. Moreover, violence continues and women may be forced to stay with the man they are about to divorce, divorced or subjected to violence, etc. because they “have no other choice”.
This State is the Enemy of the People with its Ruling and Opposition Parties and with a Thousand Faces!
To see that the Turkish state is an enemy of the people with thousands of faces, it is enough to look at the earthquake, in which we lost tens of thousands of people and directly affected millions of people. In these thousands of faces of the state, we see those who burned the people in Cizre, Sur with chemicals and wrote on the walls “Love is lived in the basement”, those who exposed the body of Ekin Wan after murdering her, those who kept the body of Taybet Mother waiting on the street for days. We see the PÖH and JÖH who enthusiastically publish videos of the torture of guerrilla funerals and burn their own funerals, those who attacked mine workers struggling to take the bodies of their friends out of the ground after the griz explosion, the judicial system that releases those who rape children while arresting those who expose it and rewarding the murderers of women and LGBTI+. We see the perpetrators of Ceylan, Uğur, Roboskî, hundreds of thousands of people murdered, and those who organise fascist attacks against refugees and immigrants, Alevis, and LGBTI+ people. We see the racist mafia thugs, Musa Orhan, the murderer of İpek Er, the sects, foundations, and congregations that legitimise child abuse… We see those who respond to the slogan “Government Resign” rising from under the rubble with swearing and insults, torture and arrest, those who say “I will not act on the word of the goygoylers”. We see them all, we see all of you! And we will hold you all to account!
This is the source of the fear of the Turkish state with all its institutions and cliques. The will of the people to stand up from under the wreckage by healing their wounds together with the revolutionaries and to hold them to account… Whether as a result of nature’s own movement or against the consequences of the direct attacks of the system, they are deathly afraid of the fault lines of the people’s consciousness breaking against the system. And they are right to be afraid! Because they have experienced this rupture many times since their foundation, they have come back from the brink of death many times. For this reason, they take state terror to the earthquake zone before construction equipment, aid trucks, and rescue teams; they attempt to dampen the righteous anger by declaring a state of emergency; they make a supreme effort to ensure that the order of robbery and plunder they have established with racism, rumours of looting and plunder, and an advocacy media that knows no bounds in despicability is not destroyed.
We clearly see that the bourgeois so-called opposition is a part of this system in their stance in the parliamentary approval they apply in every “cross-border” war attempt, in their silent voices in the attacks on LGBTI +, in the draft laws that multiply the exploitation of workers and labourers, in the massacres of nature, in the zoning amnesty votes, in the “headscarf” debates, in the attacks on women, in their attitudes and attacks after the earthquake, in short, in every moment of life. The only power that will eliminate this system with all its wreckage is the unity and struggle of the working class and labouring people.
We Will Not Be Saved! We will liberate the whole world together with ourselves!
The rent system revealed by the earthquake has severe consequences for the masses of the people as a whole, but especially for women and LGBTI+ people. Patriarchy and heterosexism reveal themselves most in such extraordinary situations. After the devastation in the earthquake region, we have a new picture of wreckage in which women and LGBTI+s cannot benefit from aid, have difficulty in meeting their needs, albeit small, by refraining from queuing for aid with men, and are left more vulnerable to gender-based violence, especially sexual violence. This is a picture in which refugee women and LGBTI+s are exposed to discrimination, hatred, and racism more intensely, religious fatwas are published that girls who have lost their families can become “wives” to “foster families”, hygiene materials are seen as “luxury” and even a pad is considered too much for women, and the lives of young women who are expelled from KYK dormitories and left on the streets are endangered.
In short, the system, the AKP-MHP government has nothing to give to women and LGBTI+ people, on the contrary, they have stolen our lives from us. The parties that supposedly stand against this system have nothing to give us but empty promises! They also steal our hopes by aspiring to this rent system! They did not stop the murders of women, they cannot stop them! They did not stop violence, harassment, and rape, they cannot stop it! They have not stopped the abuse of children, they cannot stop it! Only we can and will stop all this! As women and LGBTI+ persons, we reiterate once again that the only way to our salvation is the free future we will create with our own hands. We will not be saved by others, we will liberate ourselves and the whole world!
It is one of our most urgent tasks to transform solidarity into organisation and struggle, and our pain into anger against the system that “victimises” us. Glorious days of struggle await us in which we will organise the liberation of women against the blatant exploitation of women and LGBTI+. In these days of struggle, the consciousness of struggle that we have inherited from our martyrs of 8 March, comrades Ayfer and Münire, Meral, Cahide, Sefagül, Güzel, Zülayha and all our martyrs, whose names we cannot count, is our guide to gain freedom.
From Chile to Afghanistan, from Iran to Colombia, from Egypt to Argentina, from Egypt to Argentina, from India to the Philippines, from Armenia to Rojava, from Poland to the streets of Turkey, women and LGBTI + who do not leave the trenches until the squares are our international liberation consciousness.
From Farplas to ETF Tekstil, from Özsüt to Amazon, from Migros Depo to Nova Plastik, we will carry the experience we have gained from all women’s resistances even further on 8 March. We will further strengthen our self-defence on 8 March with the experience we gained while defending our living spaces in Manisa, Kirazlıyayla, İkizdere, Adıyaman. We will organise our anger that grew with the earthquake with the enthusiasm that will destroy the patriarchal heterosexist state on March 8.
As we heal our wounds and grow solidarity, we will accelerate our steps towards the free future of women and LGBTI+s with 8 March!
Let’s strengthen each other and our struggle and shake the patriarchal heterosexist state from its foundations…
On 8 March 2023, we promise once again: We will overthrow all misogynist governments!
We will turn our pain into rebellion and hold the misogynists to account!
To the Streets on 8 March for All Oppressed, Exploited, Ignored, and Murdered Women!
TKP-ML Communist Union of Women
March 2023