[Turkey] Long live Women Solidarity, Long live Freedom

The international solidarity of women is encouraging us, giving us strength. This solidarity crossing the borders, prove one more time that, no matter where we are, nothing can keep us away from our freedom.

The war conditions of Turkey bring about many cases in which the women are used as tool for the war. As seen in many wars throughout history, women are forced to migrate from the lands that are looted by war in our geography. We’re clearly witness that how the war and the migration effects women, nowadays. Thousands of people waiting across the border of Turkey to get Europe. Many women faced with the violence of state and torture. While we, the women, are resisting the systematic violence on one hand, on the other hand, we are resisting against the state politics which are trying to turn our bodies into tools of war.

While the state is fed by man violence, we are exposed to both state and male violence as women. We resist this violence in all areas of our lives, and we become free as we resist.

It is not easy to be a “woman”. No matter where we were born… In the east or in the west, in a small town or in a big city, our lives always have been difficult. What we have faced with was very similar with each other. Even if we were very different, even if we speak different languages, even if we didn’t exactly “look like” each other; we had a piece inside every one of us, that was “no different” from each other. The same things were taught to us; that we are fragile or weak, that we were awkward and foolish, that we must be well-behaved and obedient. We were all bounded hand and foot by patriarchy.

We started fight with the things that were “taught”. We started to fight with manhood,  with the ones who are trying to make us believe that no other way is possible. We started to fight for ourselves, for our every one of us. As we hold each other’s hands, we become stronger, braver, more awake, more conscious, more stubborn, freer…

As we fight with patriarchy, every day we become more and more organised. We have seen that  when we come together, nothing can keep us away from our fight.

Anarchist Women of Turkey

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