Eight years have passed since our comrades Sakine Cansiz (Sara), Fidan Dogan (Rojbin) and Leyla Saylemez (Ronahi) were murdered in cold blood by an agent of the Turkish secret service on January 9, 2013. Back then, as well as today, there is no doubt that the order for the bloody deed was given in the palace of Turkey’s dictator Erdogan. The assassin acted under the direct instructions of the top leaders of the Turkish government and its intelligence apparatus. Neither the French judiciary nor any of the responsible European institutions made serious and credible efforts to investigate this dirty crime. With the death of the murderer in French prison in 2016, just weeks before the trial was to begin, the case was put on hold and the people who were truly behind it, remain unpunished to this day. Considering the behavior of the French and European authorities, it must be assumed that European intelligence services were involved in the Paris massacre. In fact, the triple murder of the three revolutionaries is much more than a political liquidation, it is an attack and a perfidiously orchestrated conspiracy against the line of women’s liberation ideology and the entire freedom movement. The Paris massacre must be understood as the response of the system of male domination and its most brutal and oppressive manifestation, the system of Capitalist Modernity, against the leading role and self-organization of women in the revolutionary struggle. In this way, the victims themselves were also chosen by the murderers consciously and with precise calculation. The message of the deed could hardly have been clearer.
Sakine Cansiz, with her revolutionary practice and uncompromising commitment, symbolizes the line of the free woman in the struggle of the freedom movement and with her life has become an example and inspiration for millions of young women worldwide. With her uncompromising zeal and her deep understanding of the political philosophy, the way of life and the paradigm of the leadership of the freedom movement, Abdullah Ocalan, she paved the way for the women’s revolution from her first steps in the freedom struggle until her last breath. Furthermore, her presence, even beyond death, can still be seen and felt in all its strength in every moment of the struggle, no matter in which place we look. With her insistence on the possibility of a free and equal coexistence of women and men, free from any form of dependence and domination, she insisted on the feasibility of the revolution itself. For the question of whether or not a true perspective of liberation will appear on the horizon of our struggle can only be answered if we succeed in overcoming the destroyed, unhealthy and degrading relationships between women and men and in cleansing the relationship between the sexes of the dirt and filth of millennia of slavery. The liberated society for which we are fighting cannot wait for a post revolutionary setting, but must find living expression today in the here and now, in the relationships amongst those struggling with each other. If freedom, democracy and socialism are to be more than a beautiful utopia and rhetorical fighting terms, then ways and means must be found to thoroughly recreate the personalities of women and men, deformed by patriarchy, in a common struggle and to lay the foundation for a free life with courage, honesty and willingness to make sacrifices. The success as well as the failure of our struggle are directly dependent on the answer and solution to this question. The answer in turn, can be provided only in a practical way. Inspired and driven by the analyses and visions of Abdullah Öcalan, Sakine Cansiz has always been the most resolute representative of this line, resolutely opposing any form of subordination and slavery. In the dungeons of Turkish colonial fascism, she stood upright and courageously in front of the regime’s henchmen and executioners and spat her contempt for their filthy system in their faces. Rejecting the imposed surrender and choosing with clear consciousness the stony path of resistance, she became a living representative of the apoist line of resistance, during a time when they tried to suffocate the still young movement in the prisons. As the vanguard of the women’s freedom movement of Kurdistan and one of the strongest representatives of the free will of Kurdish women, she became the target of the murderous plots of the Turkish colonialists.
Fidan Dogan in her function as a diplomatic representative of the liberation struggle, became for many the face of the women’s revolution and the freedom movement. On the line of people’s diplomacy, her innermost concern was to bring the paradigm of Democratic Modernity and the philosophy of Abdullah Ocalan to other people and to create understanding for the revolution of Kurdistan. With her relentless efforts, she became a bridge of understanding to overcome the rifts between the people opened by the imperialists. Imperialism fears nothing more than for the fire of the Kurdistan revolution to spread to other parts of the world, and so the isolation of the freedom movement from the rest of progressive humanity is their top priority. With the internationally organized total isolation against Abdullah Ocalan and an incomparable worldwide criminalization and defamation policy, the revolution of Kurdistan shall be deprived of its voice and made invisible. Fidan Dogan fought with all her strength and all her efforts to break the total isolation in the one-person prison on Imrali and to make sure that the voice of freedom will be heard beyond all prison walls. Last but not least, she was murdered because she dared to speak out publicly as a woman and denounce the crimes of the imperialist system and Turkish fascism.
Leyla Saylemez, as a courageous activist of the revolutionary youth movement, represents the aspiration for freedom and the dynamic of the young Kurdish woman. As a child of the diaspora, raised in the heart of the capitalist beast, she recognized the ugly face of this system at an early age and, as a determined and radical response to assimilation and alienation, turned to the free mountains of Kurdistan. As a guerrilla in the mountains of Kurdistan or as a fighter for the same cause in the streets of Europe, Leyla Saylemez worked and fought continuously, determinedly and fearlessly against a system that tries to captivate the youth with deceit, lies and demagogy. She did not let herself be blinded by the false glamor of the European metropolis and a completely meaningless and empty life. Her declared aim had always been to wrest the youth from the ban of the false and liberal promise of “freedom” advertised in Europe and to win them for the revolutionary struggle. Every system of oppression uses the future generation to put its plans into action. With educational institutions, state propaganda on the level of brainwashing and direct violence, the youth shall be made docile and usable for the machinery of exploitation and oppression. When Abdullah Ocalan says that a youth striving for freedom cannot be stopped by anything or anyone, he is describing a fact that even the states are only too well aware of. Leyla Saylemez was murdered because she dared to unleash the revolutionary potential of young women and channeled it into the struggle against this system.
Sakine Cansiz, Fidan Dogan and Leyla Saylemez were not simply murdered, they became victims of a bloodthirsty and genocidal world system. A system that day after day enslaves and exploits nature and humanity, humiliates billions of people and deprives them of their dignity, and whose destructive mentality takes the lives of countless women every day. Every single day that the rule of this system has not yet been broken is a day on which thousands of murders, looting and rape are an integral part of its so-called “normality”. The massacre of Paris is symbolic of all the uncounted crimes of this system and represents in its perfidy the quintessence of the patriarchal mentality of capitalist modernity. Not to leave this crime unpunished, to bring the guilty to justice and to avenge our women comrades is our responsibility and duty. The answer to the bloody deeds of this system can only be given through a global, determined and organized struggle. As young internationalists in the revolution of Rojava and Northeast Syria, we see it as our duty to strengthen the autonomous organization of the young woman in all areas of life and struggle, and with the relentless spread of this struggle, to make all attacks, assassinations and liquidation attempts come to nothing. To remember the fallen women comrades means for us to lead their struggle to victory. To take care of the legacy of the women’s liberation struggle, to defend and advance this struggle and its achievements, we consider as our historical responsibility.
On the occasion of the anniversary of the Paris Massacre, we as young women in the Internationalist Commune hereby present our own social media presence on Twitter and Instagram. We consider it an important step forward to give more visibility to the perspectives and thoughts of young revolutionary women, and we see it as a beginning to live up to our responsibility towards the fallen. Internationalizing the struggle of Sara, Rojbin and Ronahi and making it the struggle of young women worldwide is the best answer we can give to the conspiracy, massacre and politics of extermination.
Comrades Sara, Rojbin and Ronahi are immortal and live in our struggle!