Did the Women of the YPJ Simply Fall from the Sky?

“These Remarkable Women Are Fighting ISIS. It’s Time You Know Who They Are”
This was the title of an article published in the October issue of the women's magazine Marie Claire: “There's a group of 7,500 soldiers who have been fighting an incalculably dangerous war for two years. They fight despite daily threats of injury and death. They fight with weapons that are bigger and heavier than they are against a relentless enemy. And yet they continue to fight. They are the YPJ (pronounced Yuh-Pah-Juh) or the Women's Protection Unit, an all-women, all-volunteer Kurdish military faction in Syria that formed in 2012 to defend the Kurdish population against the deadly attacks lead by Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, the al-Nusra Front (an al-Qaeda affiliate), and ISIS.“ Or so it was frequently reported in the world press about the “YPJ: The Kurdish feminists fighting the Islamic State“(The Week). There is hardly an internationally known daily newspaper, a magazine or broadcaster that has not sent their reporters in recent months to Kurdistan to document these 'Amazons of the 21st century'. And so on the cover page of Der Spiegel there was a picture of a PKK woman fighter with a bazooka, while a YPJ fighter was depicted on the cover of Newsweek with a firm grip on her Kalashnikov.

The phenomenon of armed Kurdish women fighting against the terrorists of the Islamic State (IS), has been uncovered by the world press and the public realm due to the IS-attack on the Southern Kurdish/Northern Iraqi, predominantly Yazidi, town of Sinjar at the beginning of August 2014. Suddenly, Kurdistan became a Mecca for journalists. From everywhere, reporters and camera crews made pilgrimages to the Maxmur refugee camp (which was being shelled by the IS), to the guerrilla fighters of the PKK in the Qandil Mountains, to Sinjar and across the border into Rojava (northern Syria), where in September, the battle for Kobanê had begun.

The international coverage of the fighting against the Islamic State by the YPJ women and YJA-Star (Women's Army of PKK guerrillas) can be looked at and interpreted from many different perspectives. One might, for example, examine how the fighters are portrayed visually, which of their characteristics come to the foreground, with what words they are described, etc. However, this is not the concern of this article. Rather, what is written here is that which was mostly omitted from the press coverage concerning the YPJ.

The IS-feminicide is systematic

But first of all a few points should be noted: All over the world, especially with regards to the ongoing battle for Kobanê, a great sense of solidarity has been forged with the YPG and YPJ women fighters. In dozens of countries - from Afghanistan to South Africa - people chose November 1st for a World-Kobanê-Day protest against the attacks of the IS and declared their solidarity with the resistance of the YPG & YPJ. In reality, the word solidarity is not strong enough to properly describe this support for the resistance of Kobanê. This was no longer mere support, but a show of solidarity with the resistance and identification with the fighters who fight in Kobanê - not only with weapons against the IS-barbarians, but at the same time defending universal values.

The struggle for defending these universal values also has a universal character. IS is not attacking only Kurds and not only Kurds are fighting against IS. IS with its black flag in its black world tries to absorb all other colours. For this campaign this terror organisation has chosen a place which has been a homeland of diversity for centuries. Therefore, IS is the enemy of all people in Syria (and Iraq), of all different ethnic and religious groups, which fight either within the YPG/YPJ units or have established their own protection units. And that’s also the reason why people from all around the world come to Rojava and join the resistance against IS. Today the local centre of the resistance is Kobanê, but the resistance itself has a universal, not a local character.

The bond of sisterhood that has been created between the YPJ-fighters and the women of the world has a similar universal pattern. Because the offensive of the so-called Islamic State terrorist group is a war against women. This is shown by the fact that in the places they have occupied, the very first thing they have done is to impose misogynist fatwas. Because of this hundreds of Yazidi women were abducted in Shingal and sold in markets as sex slaves! Because of this countless Kurdish women were raped and beheaded by IS-terrorists.

This feminicide as practiced by the barbarians of the IS is not arbitrary - it is systematic and is based on ideology. In this context, the IS stands for the most unrestrained, extreme and grossest form of patriarchy, sexism and feudalism. It represents an ideological worldview in which women are in no way to be considered as human beings with rights and freedoms - they can only justify their existence by being sex slaves. Women as objects who are merely intended to satisfy the sexual needs of men. This is their only reason for existing. The political, social, economic and cultural 'order' of the IS has as its foundation exploitation, oppression, enslavement, power and domination. If we want to understand the struggle of the Kurdish women against the IS (and in this context, the attacks against the IS and its attempts at capturing Rojava), then we must keep in mind the ideological contradictions. For in Kobanê there is a collision of two ideologies, two worldviews, two visions of the future that clash with each other. The one has the freedom of women as the centre-point, the other their enslavement. One has the patriarchal paradigm; the other adheres to women's liberation ideology.

YPJ: Fallen from the sky?

When you look at the media coverage of the YPG-fighters, you could easily come to the conclusion that this army of young women had just “fallen from the sky”. As if the women in Rojava, in response to attacks by the IS, just decided spontaneously to organise armed defence units - and this idea had been taken up by thousands of young women within a very short time. A - shall we say - very convenient explanation!

Uncomfortable it may be to many - but here Abdullah Ocalan and the Kurdish freedom movement come into play. Abdullah Ocalan, isn’t he the PKK leader with the Stalin moustache? This terrorist leader on whose behalf the Kurdish people regularly demonstrate? That is - especially in the West - the common perception. The picture serves the purpose of criminalising the Kurdish freedom movement - and at the same time is the result of it. If you want to stigmatise a liberation movement as comprising homicidal, uncivilized, backward terrorists, you start with their leader, who represents the whole movement - thus personified, at the same time this symbolises the liberation movement itself.

So at this point the question is: Who is Abdullah Ocalan?

Abdullah Ocalan, is since 1999 - as a result of an illegal NATO intelligence operation - incarcerated on the Turkish prison island of Imrali and is the leader of the Kurdish freedom movement. Together with colleagues, he founded in the 1970s, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) as the first all-Kurdish Socialist Liberation Organization. On his initiative, a process of dialogue with the Turkish state was begun in 2013, and this now has evolved into official peace negotiations.

Abdullah Ocalan, at the same time, is also a thinker and possibly one of the most important of our time. The central plank of his philosophical works, (which includes dozens of books that comprise his prison writings), is entitled Democratic Society Manifesto. Ocalan has always linked together from the beginning both national liberation and social freedom - as manifested in his theories. Social liberation in turn is reflected in the liberation of women and - in this context - rejecting sexism, patriarchy, power and authority structures. For this reason, the women within the PKK in 1987 started to organise their own structures autonomously. The Union of Patriotic Women of Kurdistan (YJWK) made in 1993 the decision to build a women's army within the guerrilla movement and the founding of the YAJK (Union of Free Women of Kurdistan) took place. The woman's guerrilla army, with its own structures, with a commander, headquarters, training academies, etc., continues today as YJA STAR (Free Women's STAR Units) in the mountains of Kurdistan.

The revolution is female

The qualitative and qualitative development of the Kurdish women's liberation struggle right through to the KJK (Association of Women in Kurdistan - founded this year) demonstrates a con-federal system and is the political, social, military and ideological pillar on which a continuous deepening of the women's liberation ideology is based. The women's liberation ideology with its 5 principles (patriotism, free will and free thinking, organized awareness, fight, aesthetics and beauty) was proclaimed on 8th March 1998 and was the result of Abdullah Ocalan's profound analysis regarding male and female and how gender conflict would be dealt with within the PKK.

This approach was based on the determination that true revolution must be female, i.e. that the success of a freedom movement can always and only be measured on the level of its liberation and organisation of women. It would be no exaggeration to say that, the Kurdish women's liberation movement - from a military, ideological and organizational point of view - can be called the world's most powerful women's movement at the present time. This progress of this internally organised and growing strength has made gender quotas unnecessary within the Kurdish freedom movement - so now all positions are filled proportionally and the principle of co-presidency is being implemented.

The revolution in Rojava as a female revolution is only understandable in this context. Today, a former female guerrilla fighter together with an Arab chieftain are in charge of the Cizire Canton as co-chairpersons - as the result of the women's liberation struggle. Today, the YPJ with its completely independent internal structure and thousands of young women as members, exists, because 20 years ago in the mountains of Kurdistan, PKK fighters have built the world's first woman guerrilla army (in spite of all internal and external difficulties and obstacles) under the flag of YAJK. Only in this context is it understandable, that it was possible for the people of Rojava to build up their own autonomous structures in all walks of life and struggles within the shortest possible time.

Removing the taboo over the armed woman

We come now to a conclusion about the gift to the women of the world by the Kobanê resistance YPJ-fighters and the revolution in Rojava: the taboo nature of having females fighting with weapons parallel with the delegitimising of the right to self-defence of society against the state and the assertion of the state monopoly of violence had strengthened the ruling systems. The (especially in Western societies) taboo on fighting women cracked deeply with the resistance of Kobanê. The welcoming of the resistance of YPJ fighters by Afghan women in burkas as well as by German female academics is quite contrary to the image “Women are for peace and should therefore not carry arms” right now. In this sense, the women of the YPJ have revitalized the universal right of women to self-defence - in whatever form - in our minds and consciousness.

For the Kurdish freedom movement, self-defence is not only about arms. For the Kurdish movement self-defence is a principle of primary importance and not limited to the armed struggle, although it determines the principles of the armed guerrilla struggle and the strategy of legitimate (active or passive) self-defence. Moreover self-defence is seen as a way of life. It’s about defending yourself, your values, your aims and dreams against all kind of attacks – also potential ones. It’s about creating the room for these values to grow. At the end it’s about protecting life. This might look as a contradiction but in fact this is the dialectics of life in Kurdistan and in all other parts of the world where people resist for freedom.

The validity of the Kurdish freedom movement's principle of self-defence has been described by Abdullah Ocalan as the Rose Theory: “The right of defence of every social group is holy. It is not only an inalienable right to repel attacks on the existence of a group or with the associated values of a defence force, but also reason of existence itself. (...) If we keep in mind that even a rose as a plant defends itself with its thorns, I want to name this Democratic authority paradigm ‘Rose Theory’.” And: “If it is even necessary to get thorns for the protection of its wonderful roses like a rosebush, then perhaps the power of the meaning lies in knowing how to struggle for the defence of endless beautiful free human life.”

So for Abdullah Ocalan, who derives the Rose Theory and the principle of self-defence from nature, where every organism acts according to this universal principle, self-defence is about finding the way to struggle for a free life.

Defence is also about creating
 
In this regard self-defence gains special importance for women. Because in this context self-defence also means to be a subject, to fight back, to say no and to act. It’s an action. Even if it’s passive self-defence. For women self-defence is something extremely indispensable. It’s a tool and life style at the same time. It is instrument and objective. This right, which every being on this planet owns, is denied via power relations. If we look at gender relations the way the woman’s right to defend herself not only against different kinds of attacks (psychological and physical attacks, sexual abuse, economical exploitation, exclusion from politics etc.) but also to create the life she wants in a free way, is being rejected becomes clear.
In this context – and to come to an end – women’s self-defence in Rojava and elsewhere is not only about protecting yourself with a weapon against armed attacks. In a deeper sense: It’s also not only about defence. It’s about creating. Creating life. A new life. An alternative live. And all the women who today defend their country, their people, themselves, their dreams and their project of a new future are at the same time subjects of this creation process. They are not roses or angels or Amazons .
They are women. Struggling women.