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Since the 14th February the women’s revolution in free Afrin is defending itself bravely against the tanks, planes, fascist paramilitaries and islamist terror gangs of the Turkish AKP regime. At the 28th December the ordinary people in Iran spontaneously started rising to the streets. They demand social improvements, the ending of the dictatorship and the end of the misogynist laws of this islamic republic. Today in Europe as well as many other places worldwide the people are gathering against the worldwide patriarchy, because even at our place, even nowadays it makes a noticeable difference, whether a human was born as “boy” or but as “girl”.

The ongoing invasion attempt by the Turkish army as well as their allied jihadists on the canton of Afrin is also and especially an attack on the region’s women. Being part of the northern Syrian federation, the self-governing Afrin is centered in a revolution, which understands women’s liberation as the inseparable part of social liberation. Without feminism there’s no socialism. Feminism of northern Syria is varied. The self-governance’s bodys for instance are quoted and provided with parity double chairmanship, in the military the women are organized autonomously in YPJ, in the larger villages there are women’s shelters, women’s collectives and with Jinwar even a whole village exists for women seeking refuge. Besides in the reality of many women’s lifes also the liberation from ISIS meant a feminist revolution.

The opposite between the feminism of northern Syria on the one hand and Afrin’s invaders on the other hand, could hardly be bigger. The hatred against women and especially against those women, who stand in the way of the male jihadist domination attempts, drives the aggressors into barbaric acts of violence against women. A dominant woman in their crude ideology is one of the biggest horrors. If a jihadist is killed by a woman, he believes, he will not go to heaven, so he will miss the highest goal in life. It would therefore be more dishonorable to succumb to a woman in battle, as it is honorable to die in the jihad, that is to make the greatest possible sacrifice. The contempt of jihadists for women seems limitless.

These fascist misogynists must be assured of the enmity of every person who sees himself or herself as a feminist. Our deep solidarity with the women of Afrin is a given today on the global day of women’s struggle!

Thus, the attack on free Afrin also makes clear to us the social environment of this women’s revolution. In many states and dominions in the region today, society is being terrorized by political Islam. But not only in Kurdistan the resistance is stirring. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, women of all immense consequences for life and limb are publicly shedding their headscarves. They just want to live without being harassed by the laws of the criminal ruler Khamene’i and his henchmen. The battles in Kurdistan and Iran, however different the social situation may seem, are only examples of struggles that are waged everywhere, by people of all genders, but above all of women. This is also the case in Germany, where people are fighting against a policy that humiliates and criminalizes women for their abortions. The criticism of patriarchy aimed at eliminating this misery also means always examining our own position in this social relationship, because it is also in us, albeit with very different effects than in Iran or Afrin.

There is still a great deal to do in the world, no matter in society, with what kind of gender or non-gender a person identifys. Instead of tackling all that is still to be done, we are currently experiencing a social rollback in many parts of the world. The more determined we must be, and the world’s people, whose sometimes life-threatening anti-patriarchal struggles we do not want to adorn, must fight against this rollback and long for the free, democratic, gender-free, truly human society. Here at the university, in our city, in Germany, in Europe, in Afrin, in Iran and all over the world.