A-Infos (en) Italy, FDCA, Cantiere #33 - The Women's Revolution in Rojava - Mara Mariani (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

January 26, 2025 marked the tenth anniversary of the liberation of 
Kobane, a city that is a symbol of the resistance of Kurdistan in Syria. 
---- The city of Kobane, in the Rojava region, is the beating heart of 
an innovative and revolutionary political experiment that, starting from 
what was developed by the leader of the PKK Abdullah Ocalan, who took up 
the libertarian vision of the American philosopher Murray Bookchin, has 
allowed the creation of a social model within which the liberation of 
women becomes a fundamental and inalienable element to create a society 
truly free from all slavery, a society that bases its roots on the 
principles of feminism, social ecology and libertarian municipalism that 
transcends the state and takes the name of Democratic Confederalism.
Equality between women and men is a fundamental choice in this model, 
which contrasts with the patriarchal social model, the historical 
oppression of men over women, and is based on absolute equality of 
rights and participation in public life.
It is an essential choice that is at the very basis of the Confederalism 
model which moves in the rejection of the logic of power and oppression 
between peoples and individuals because, as stated by Ocalan himself, "a 
society where women are oppressed is not a free society"
And precisely with the support and indications of Ocalan, the women of 
the Kurdish movement have laid the foundations of the women's revolution 
that today thrives in Rojava: in the mountains of Kurdistan they have 
created their own combat units (we cannot fail to remember the 
resistance of the Kurdish guerrillas in the fight against ISIS) their 
own academies, their own party, they have rediscovered their own norms 
and values especially through the development of an all-female 
philosophy such as Jineology.
Jineology or "science and paradigm of women" is a neologism derived from 
the Kurdish word jiin which means woman, and logos, from the Greek word, 
but jin has the same linguistic root as the word jiyan, which means 
life. Therefore, jineology should not be understood only as the science 
of women, but of life, of society as a whole that expresses itself with 
a new accessible language that aims to dismantle the concept of "homo 
economicus" (pillar of Western economic rationality) as the dominant 
actor of social relations.
Through jineology, a rereading of science, knowledge and history is 
carried out, revealing the unnaturalness of patriarchy (with all that 
came from it), which ousted the first ancient evolved societies that 
were matriarchal and that did not implement the social and gender 
divisions that we are all accustomed to today with the government of men 
who, instead, have monopolized all forms of power and oppression, 
especially towards women.
Oppression that, according to jineology, has been imposed in three ways: 
sexually, economically and through ideological transformations such as 
mythology and religion.
The starting point of Jineology is therefore to penetrate deep into 
history and look for the point where women were "made to disappear" to 
give rise to the patriarchal model that is still prevalent today, and, 
at the same time, recover the holistic vision of the world prevalent in 
matriarchal societies to apply it to science so as to allow a 
development of knowledge that is never disconnected from society and 
nature, but that responds to its ethics, its needs and the objective of 
rebuilding the balance between woman-nature-society.
In this perspective, the field of ecology becomes fundamental and 
environmental issues must be considered in their social, economic, 
political and cultural context. Protecting the environment is a question 
of true self-defense of society since the destruction of the environment 
represents a threat to life on earth. In this sense, ecology is 
understood as "social ecology" because ecological problems cannot be 
solved without addressing the problems of society.
Through Jineology, a new social paradigm is then developed that is 
expressed in social models based on inclusiveness and the "double 
apical"; that is, gender equality implies that all top positions are 
held by a man and a woman, starting from the neighborhood assembly.
This has led to a gender revolution in which a first concrete testimony 
was already had in 2014 when an Alevi Kurdish woman for the first time 
in modern times was appointed Prime Minister of the Canton of Afrin, one 
of the three autonomous cantons of Rojava. But that is not enough, in 
fact, in that same period as many as 75% of Kurdish women had become 
politically active and had joined various organizations, breaking the 
chains of the traditional society of those territories.
A true gender revolution that has developed its vision of society 
through the promulgation of new laws and in the practices of concrete 
sharing of power.
Regarding the first point, the new laws have banned polygamy, unilateral 
divorce and marriage at a young age; as regards the management of power, 
the system, already mentioned, of co-presidency with a woman and a man 
in all positions, from the local level to the confederation level, is 
adopted in the institutions.
Furthermore, from the neighborhood to the cantonal level, we find 
institutions for women only because it is considered fundamental to 
create new mutual relationships through the establishment of independent 
female bodies in every sector of society so that they can escape the 
influence of men, seek solutions to their problems and needs and carry 
on the fight against patriarchy with greater awareness and cohesion.
The strong push of women to free themselves from emotional, physical and 
psychological dependence on the male has led to a greater awareness of 
the same able to solve problems and carry out projects.
One of the proposals of the Kurdish feminist movement in Rojava was to 
find a place that was a female laboratory of citizenship and 
self-government, an ecological village made by women for women: thus in 
2018 Jinwar was born, the place of free women, a village that is 
configured as a nucleus of houses built with mud bricks, straw and earth 
plaster in order to create social and ecological connections based on 
the use of local natural resources, because that idea of respect for 
nature that is at the base of the fundamental social ecology is always 
present in the vision of democratic confederalism. The Jinwar 
collective, which welcomes women fleeing from situations of violence, 
but also simply women who want to live an all-female experience, 
proclaims itself anti-authoritarian, self-organized and dedicated to 
food self-sufficiency. The women's academy, led by women with women, is 
also located within the village. The power and revolutionary scope of a 
people who, especially in a context like the Middle East, decide to 
self-organize by practicing social models that question consolidated 
hierarchies (of state, class, gender) is evident, and it is equally 
evident how in this revolution women have had, and still have, a role of 
fundamental importance.

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