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This episode of the Takhayyul Nativess and Emergent Issues Podcast hosts Nazan Üstündağ; Özlem Göner and Sardar Saadi, talking about four Kurdish regions and the rising violence in them.
Presenter: Dr. Sertaç Sehlikoğlu
Guests: Nazan Üstündağ; Özlem Göner; Sardar Saadi
Producer: Sertaç Sehlikoğlu
Transcript
Welcome, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to our Takhayyul Nativeness and Emergent Issues podcast series organised by the members of the ERC project named Takhayyul at the UCL Institute for Global Prosperity, the IGP. I am Sertaç Sehlikoğlu, the primary investigator of this five year project. The need for this podcast series emerged due to a number of reasons. Firstly, the members of this team, as many of you may already be familiar are often native scholars who have expertise about the very geographies they have grown up in. The project is carried in 11 different countries in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and South Asia, often referred to as the Global South. That being said, those very contexts are more vulnerable to global changes in crisis, as we have seen in a number of events in the last couple of months. Thus, the members of this team has suggested to create a platform where we can address the emergent issues as they happen with other scholars, intellectuals and activists. Today, we are hosting Nazan Üstündağ, Özlem Göner and Sardar Saadi. Nazan Üstündağ is a sociologist specialised on social policy, gendered subjectivities and state violence in Kurdistan. Üstündağ is a fellow of Gerda Henkel Stiftung Patrimonies Program. Formerly, she held a joint fellowship from Academy at Risk and IIE-Scholar Rescue Fund and was affiliated with the Forum for Transregional Studies in Berlin (2018-2020). She is also one of the CITE scholars in our very own Takhayyul project. Dr. Özlem Göner is Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, (at College of Staten Island and Middle Eastern Studies,) at City University of New York Graduate Center. She is a member of the Emergency Committee for Rojava and the author of Turkish National Identity and Its Outsiders: Memories of State Violence in Dersim. Dr. Sardar Saadi is an anthropologist and an SSHRC postdoctoral fellow at Wageningen University. Aside from being the the co-director of the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Rojava, he is also the host and producer of the podcast series The Kurdish Edition. So without further ado, I'd like to turn to Nazan Üstündağ.
My dear Sertaç, thank you so much. Sertaç is a lovely, a beautiful friend of mine. We have been together for such a long time, and I'm proud to be in your podcast, dear Sertaç. I'm proud to be of course, together with Özlem and Sardar, all of them are great scholars, wonderful activists, and really, really leading figures in Kurdish activist academia. The title of this podcast is War in the Middle East. But the war that we are actually referring to is mainly the war that is fought in the four poor parts of Kurdistan. As many of our listeners probably already know, Kurdistan is separated into four different regions and all these regions are ruled by different nation-states and colonised of course, occupied by four nation states; Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. And currently, there is a war going on in all these four regions. Turkey leading the war in three regions, that is Syria in, North Eastern Syria, but we call the Rojava than in Bakur, where the PKK freedom fighters are located. And in Bakur, where the war against Kurds is fought through mass imprisonment, mass arrests, and delegalisation of institutions. In Iran, on the other hand, as you know, there is an ongoing revolution under the leadership, I mean, I don't want to say under the leadership because actually there are many, many different groups who are equally participating in this extremely interesting and maybe one of the most important events of the 21st century. But the Kurdish slogan is leading, let's say, paving the way, showing the way, showing the route for the protesters, the revolutionaries. Jin Jiyan Azadi, meaning, women life and freedom. My question is why is there an ongoing war against Kurds in four countries at the same time? What is wrong with the Kurds? Why are they still around? Despite all these occupying colonising powers, what is the problem. I will argue that, as I said, in Iran and as well as in Turkey, and in north eastern Syria, and in Bashir in Iraq, under the leadership of Kurdish freedom movement, Kurds have accomplished to see freedom dreams, which I borrow from Robin Kelly, who is a well known black scholar, who has actually written about the different ways in which blacks have pursued their dreams, their freedom dreams, through art, I mean, not only through art, also through political activism. In the Kurdish case, politics has become not so much art, maybe now art is also emerging as a sphere, where this freedom dreams are dreamt but politics has been the specific area where Kurdish people have dreamed freedom dreams, against occupation against colonisation, against patriarchy, against capitalism, and in north eastern Syria, that has resulted in the revolution, which we call the Rojava revolution, where basically an autonomous region was declared, a horizontal way of governance was declared, a constitution that promotes women's rights, that promotes human rights was declared complete, and the aim of a non-state free society is struggled to be realised. In Turkey as well, Kurds have been especially between 2013 and 2015, when the peace process between Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and the Turkish state was being negotiated, let's say, because it wasn't really a peace process, as we know it, but it was a declaration of both sides, that they are intending to move towards peace. But it's could only continue for two years. And after two years, Turkish state and President Erdogan has decided has unilaterally destroyed the peace process. During this time between 2013 and 2015, for the first time, Kurds have in Turkey, become prominent and legitimate actors. Why do I say for the first time? Maybe the struggle was going on for 40 years, but for the first time during the peace process, Kurds were able to become legitimate and legal actors who would not only lead Kurdish people towards freedom, but also read candidates to bring Turkish people to freedom. And they were able to articulate in the political space their different dreams. And these dreams had several dimensions. These are new ways of arranging governance as a horizontals as that conveyable process. Second was a different way of imagining and arranging gender relations, where women could pursue their autonomy and could maybe after 5000 years of patriarchal rule, experiment with new ways of being new ways of becoming a new ethical and aesthetic values. And also of course, people's relation to the nature have changed and Kurdish people, Kurdish Freedom Movement has declared itself to be an ecological movement. Well, as a result of these, I have actually written a book on this, and it's going to come hopefully, in the fall of next year. What happened is that the Kurdish Freedom Movement, especially the women of the Kurdish freedom, movement, very able to articulate a new sense of truth, a new ontology, a new sense of being, a new sense of truth and a new sense of freedom. So a new ontology, a new epistemology, and a new form of politics. If you're familiar with Black Theory, Sylvia Winter, who is a pioneer in Caribbean Studies and Black Caribbean Studies, actually, she talks about the fact that we as the members of the colonial world should actually try to decolonize or being, our truth and our freedom from Western liberal capitalism. And that's exactly what the Kurds have done through establishing different institutions to establishing different discourses and so on. But this is a basically not reciprocated or responded well by the states that have been occupying Kurdistan for such a long time. Therefore, we have right now, at the same minute, simultaneously, four wars going on, as I have just explained in the region, which is going to either change the geography, change the relations, change the nation states and so on, either towards more freedom or towards more authoritarianism. That's why many of us academics and activists see this war as a war of survival as a war that is going to determine basically, whether we will be or we won't be. And finally, to the world, maybe I can say that's what happened in the last decades with the Kurdish movements, pursuit of their freedom dreams, is that they have also created a different kind of alliance with the world and which is now becoming also a model for relating to other movements around the world. I mean, before when people got oppressed or when people were finding themselves in war, when they were violating, people would call for empathy. I mean, think about the impossible conditions we are living in, and Kurds have done so too. But now as they have accomplished to create their own autonomous organisations in Syria, in Turkey, in Iran. They are not asking for empathy, but they are asking for solidarity and they are asking for multiplication of such freedom dreams all around the world. So they are not looking for attention, they are not looking for pity, they are not looking for an identification with their victimisation, but what they are calling the world and other movements and other people is can't take part in our dreams, share your freedom dreams with us. And let's produce a world that has no states but rooted cultures that has women's freedom, ecological life, basically a free life based on the principle of the freedom movement. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Now we are turning to Özlem Göner.
Thank you so much for having us here. And thank you very much Nazan for laying the grounds for us. And this is, indeed a very important moment. And it's a very ironic moment for Kurds. And for as Nazan suggested for the global people, peoplehoods who care about peace, and women's freedom and direct pluralist democracy. It's a very ironic moment. Why? Well, on one hand, we see the slogan of Jin Jiyan Azadi, Women, Life, Freedom that originated in the Kurdish movement, the Kurdish Freedom Movement, in the PKK, and the freedom movement associated with that, on the one hand, we have witnessed the popularisation of this. And on the other hand, in everywhere, starting with the revolution in Iran, spread from Kurdish regions of Iran to broader Iran to the globe. And we have witnessed the moment where a feminist, progressives and even liberals, from different angles, people picked on the slogan, and for different reasons, for different ideological motivations. It has been popularised. On the other hand, simultaneously, we have further criminalization of the Kurdish movement at the hands of many of these states that Nazan just listed. Not just the dance of the states, but we know, for example, one of the major coloniser forces in this geopolitical game, Turkey, which has the second largest army of the NATO has also been historically supported by NATO, NATO Alliance, NATO countries. And, you know, not just criminalization at the hands of Turkey, not just violence at the hands of Turkey, but complicity of Europe, United States, NATO, in this war against the Kurds have intensified at the same exact moment, as there is a chance and option for the world to recognise the Kurdish movement and all the freedom dreams that Nazan has beautifully expressed here. So, instead of you know seeing the potential of the Kurdish movement, seeing the progressive, the liberationary potential of this movement and what it can be done, how it can be replicated in different spheres, how these connections can be made, obviously these are being done, but we've seen a bigger force, a backlash against this by Turkey. For example, a very ironic moment was weeks after the killing of Jina, and in the midst of the protests in Rojava and Iran, Turkey killed Nagehan Akarsel in Northern Iraq, in transborder transgression, to kill one of the figures who have created the slogan of Jin Jiyan Azadi. So, and criminalization we've see at the same time, as you know, a Swedish parliamentarian in the European Union Parliament says Women, Life, Freedom does an act of cutting her hair and standing in solidarity with the women in the region, simultaneously, Sweden, because of this NATO Alliance, and Turkey's backlash against their membership in the NATO have started the new re-criminalization of people who have been active in the Kurdish movement, who have been sympathisers of the Kurdish movement, and started already to send people, Kurdish people back to Turkey, based on Turkey's lists so that they could be imprisoned and charged with charges of terrorism in Turkey. So we've seen you know, this moment that could go in either direction. It's ironic, but it's not surprising, because as Nazan was saying, the Kurdish Freedom Movement promises a different way of engaging a different way of living, a different way of ruling, that is anti-colonial, that is anti-capitalist, that's anti-patriarchal. And that started to align with form these relations of solidarity. And so it is not surprising because it is the anti-thesis of NATO, it is the anti-thesis of these nation states that are going in a fascistic authoritarian direction, in many parts of the world. So they're struggling, they're trying hard to survive. They're trying hard to not only survive, but to further liberate, because revolution, freedom is not something that's done. For example, no one in the Kurdish movement would claim ever that it's done and they're free. There's always more and more revolutionising, a constant revolutionising so while they're doing this struggle of survival and revolutionising their societies themselves and societies around them, we have seen a backlash by the power holders, the system holders against this because it is basically too dangerous. It is, you know, in a way, its anti-systemic potentials are too dangerous for system, for power holders like NATO and European countries, and of course, obviously, the colonisers states of Turkey, Iran and beyond. So at this moment, I think it's very critical, something that Nazan mentioned in her talk, the peace negotiations and the abandonment of peace negotiations, because this is also a moment where people try to adopt parts of the promises of Kurdish movement, while simultaneously re-criminalising these radical, promising revolutionary freedom dreams. So it is that we recognise Kurds we recognise the oppression of Kurds, and we would like that to stop but with the caveat of, for example, separating different branches of the movement, for example, separating and asking for forces in the movement from in the broader area of Kurdistan to separate themselves from those who were criminalised. First, this is the PKK and the Kurdish Freedom Movement that's been aligned with this. So at this particular moment, I think it's very important for all of us who care about peace and women's freedom and radical pluralist democracy in the region to rethink some of the discourses through which we have related to the Kurdish movement. For example, there has been recent writings by liberal academics who are ready to recognise the Turkish state violence, but are also careful to distance themselves from especially the PKK but those who are suspiciously linked to this movement. So I think then the question is, what is PKK? How can we rethink of this? Why is it making into this monster, if its ideology has given rise to Jin, Jiyan, Azadi, to Women, Life, Freedom, if it's ideology has given rise to the freedom dreams that now is on mentioned. So I think part of it is despite, all of us saying colonisation of Kurdistan, colonisation of Kurdistan by, for example, Turkey in this case that I think there are a lot of academics, liberal academics that are very hesitant to rethink this particular relationship between Turkey and Bakur, which is the northwest of Kurdistan. What is this relationship? Some of them are ready to recognise state violence, but they're not ready to recognise this as an anti-colonial struggle that has emerged out of not only this particular violence in the 80s, not only this particular violence in the 90s, where Turkey, you know, violated human rights because these academics are readyly recognising some of these episodes of violence, but what we need to be recognised is the foundational and systematic violence of colonialism that has perpetuated towards the region against the Kurds, and that has colonised knowledge production about the Kurds. And that has separated this in a way Mahmood Mamdani, for example, talks in the example of 911, this notion of bad Muslims and good Muslims, good Muslims are those who are right, cooperating with the colonialist, imperialist regimes, they are okay. They don't threaten us. Similarly, we see this even among the more liberal progressive academics, discourses such as, you know, good Kurds, for example, HDP is good, and, you know, maybe Rojava, if they can distance themselves from the PKK, it's okay. But what is wrong with the PKK? And so this is a very important discussion, because if we have a state that has colonised the region, massacred and conducted genocidal projects killed tens of thousands of people, for example, in my hometown of Dersim alone, then do the people have the right to self-defence? Do the people have the right to self determination and that self determination, by the way doesn't need to be in the form of a separate nation state and we know the movement has changed its trajectory and is no longer demanding, but that self determination is about whatever struggle whatever resistance the movement demands, and whatever project of living and governing oneself that they demand for themselves, to be recognised by those who are serious about peace in the region. I think I believe that despite the popularisation of Kurdish resistance, despite us being here today, discussing this in this podcast series, that there is a lot of foundational work that needs to be done in terms of a recognising the systematic and foundational violence of non-existence that was pushed onto the Kurds. And also there is major tremendous work that we need to do to get out of the state discourse of violence, anti violence to get out of the state discourse of terrorism to recognise resistance movements, struggles by the people on the ground who have been fighting an anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchal struggle for resistance for being. So, for us to break free of state and liberal discourses of two sides of the coin violence, you know, and to develop new vocabulary as Nazan suggested here. The Kurdish movement has developed new vocabulary as an alternative to the systems that have oppressed them. But I think this is the moment for those who care about peace in the region, to develop alternative vocabulary to the Turkish state and to the coloniser states and to NATO powers to push for this alternative vocabulary and their accepting, relating with the movement on its own terms. So I believe that this will be very important to stop the criminalization of the Kurdish movement to stop criminalization of those who are outside of Kurdish movement, but are constantly being, you know, being terrorised and being interrogated about their relationship with the Kurdish freedom movement, but importantly, right once again, to stop these discourses of war and terror, and to replace them with colonial reality, and foundational systematic violence against the Kurds and alternatives to this. And the important alternative is pushing for peace negotiations, but not on the terms of the Turkish state because this often comes up in liberal academia. and discourse is about well then, for example, the PKK should drop arms if it's serious about peace, but I'm gonna suggest one thing because this is a case that I looked in depth for example, in the case of Dersim in 1938. Prior to 1938 genocide, the Turkish state collected all weapons from the hands of people, it left people defenceless, but then it continued to massacre tens of thousands of people and forcefully displaced them. This was much before as we know the formation of the PKK. So when we recognise this foundational colonial violence, then we realise that the denial of self-defence from the people only puts them under more danger. So if we are serious about peace negotiations, peace in the region, that we really need to reconsider our discourses that may be unknowingly situated in the colonial Turkish discourse of of terror and more without us recognising it.
Thank you very much, Sardar.
Thank you very much Sertaç, and to your whole team for inviting me, for organising this. Thank you Nazan and Özlem. I don't have a lot to add. They basically said, what has to be said. And it has been said in so many occasions, many places, many articles, and many things have been written. But it is very important to continue this discussion. If I start with the title of this podcast, this specific one episode. I think the Middle East has been in war for far too long. And we know this, the catastrophe that all of these wars, dictatorship regimes, authoritarian governments, depression that they have brought on the people. I have said in other places that if what is happening in the Middle East was taking place in the West, in Europe, North America, we would have made fundamental changes in the way we conceptualise our socio political life. Many concepts that we are using and talking about, like the concept of sovereignty, the concept of the sovereign power, the relationship between state and society, all of them, I think, need some real changes because the international relations the regime of this country's governments, nation states operating, it does not respond to the suffering of the people. Like in Syria, we know hundreds of thousands of people have been killed. Millions have been displaced, cities have been destroyed. Other parts, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Kurdistan, in all four parts, Iraq, this and this has been going on for four decades. And the only thing that is not a parameter in the way that policy, global policymaking and the way that the regime of international relations has been established is the suffering of the people, the oppressed, the marginalised, excluded all of those who are who have been basically removed from the history, all of those others. A regime of normality has been pushed in, in the whole region and it is not responding. I want to come back to Iran and the revolution of Jina, Jin Jiyan Azadi revolution that started with the brutal killing of the Kurdish girl, a Kurdish woman, Jina Amini, also known by her other name, Mahsa Amini. So as you all know, in September, Jina was killed. and after that, her funeral spark of a new movement that I myself, like many other people call it revolution started in Iran and Rojhilata, the Kurdish part of Iran, Rojhilata meaning East or Eastern Kurdistan. But it doesn't mean part of a specific country. Like it's part of the imagined decolonial Kurdistan. So after that, we see how protests spread all over Iran and Rojhilata and many parts of European countries to diaspora. And as Özlem mentioned, many people also took the slogan. We see European parliamentarians saying Jin Jiyan Azadi in the meetings cutting their hair and revolution started. And this is a revolution of what I call the revolution of alterity in Iran, because Jina Amini was not just the embodiment of a Kurdish woman, but also an embodiment of many, like forcefully created others in Iran. So with being a woman, we know that in Iran LGBT community, queer community is extremely criminalised. Being Kurdish, we know different ethnic minorities in Iran have been excluded, oppressed and criminalised. Their cultural and linguistic rights have been denied since the revolution, the Iranian Revolution of 1979, but also before during the Shah's regime. One can say throughout the 20th century with the establishment of the Iranian nation state. She was also a young woman and similar to youth in in the whole Middle East region, the young people have been increasingly excluded and sidelined by this powerful people, powerful men in all of those countries. It's not something specific to Iran. At the same time, she was coming from periphery and this is very important point when we talk about Iran, because Iran is a very much centralised country, socially, economically, politically, everything goes back to Tehran. And it's very ironic that Jina was in Tehran for a visit, probably to see a doctor and also probably just to visit a city, like the central city that everyone basically in Iran goes there. She was a member of the peripherial part of the Iran that includes ethnic minorities, like Kurds, Turkmen's, Arabs, and ??????. And also she was, I can also say that that she was a Sunni, probably she was not a practising religious person. And this is also very important because secularism is something widespread in the Iranian society. But in terms of the religious identity, she was a Sunni, and with Sunni people, we can also name Zorastrians in Iran, Baha'is.. All religious minorities that (????)... is also part of that. Kurdish Yarasans, they could be also part of that. So Jina was truly an example of all of those other identities that have been historically oppressed, marginalised, excluded. This was kind of a revolution of this alternative against the normativity that not only in Iran in the whole region has been imposed on the people. When you see that the slogan Jin,Jiyan, Azadi coming from the Kurdish movement as both Nazan and Özlem talked about, Jin, Jiyan, Azadi, of course, in translations, and in all of these political manipulations, the meaning, the history, the politics behind it, many times is getting lost. But when you look at the politics behind it, the way that Abdullah Öcalan and the Kurdish movement drafted this paradigm of democratic confederalism. There you go, we have new concepts, new political philosophical, way of how to reorganise the Middle Eastern society based on grassroots mobilisation. So basically, if I define democratic confederalism, this main paradigm of Abdullah Öcalan, who drafted in a series of prison writings between 2002 to 2007, probably Nazal could talk more about that, basic definition would be this cultural, religious, different groups in the Middle East can rule themselves based on principles of radical democracy, coexistence between all of these groups, minorities, that we named them, based on respecting women's lives and freedoms and the rights. This is a very important issue in the Middle East region, based on ecological living, based on cooperative economy. And we do see the realisation of this paradigm in Rojava, which is heavily under attack, under embargo by especially by the Turkish Government, but before by sectarian groups that were funded by all these governments in the region, by Assad, by Iranian militias, and also by Kurdish nationalist groups, by Barzani. So while Kurds are divided into these four countries, it is very, very important what Öcalan says that; yes, Kurdish nationalism tries to bring all of these parts of Kurdistan together to create this new nation state, this new country for Kurdistan is an imagined place, but on the other side, Öcalan sees Kurdish population and all of these four countries as a revolutionary engine, the revolutionary force to change these four countries and with that, changing the whole Middle East. So going back to what I started this, the war in the Middle East and this situation needing new concepts, new way of talking about what our people, what we native scholars, people who are coming from the region, we do have concepts we do have theories, political paradigms, solutions that are coming from the deepest oppressed, deepest parts of the society, from prisons of Turkey, from prisoners of Kurdistan. And we see in the example of Jina Amini, that people can come together. In Iran, like a multi ethnic, a very diverse country, with different religion groups, they all came together with the slogan of Jin, Jiyan, Azadi. And for the first time in the history of Iran, I can see that, as somebody who has been involved in the last 20-30 years, with the politics of Iran and Rojhalate, for the first time, we see this really incredible, unprecedented revolutionary movement that even though right now under, like, severe attacks, two people have been executed, many people have been listed for execution in the following days, this revolutionary movement is going to change. And this is the promise that we all need to support to be in solidarity with. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Sardar. Actually, if I may, I'd like to ask a question by abusing my power as a chair, which is one of the luxuries. Lots of things were racing in my head, but each one of the three speakers, you have addressed creating new vocabularies, which is very important for my entire team. Beyond Takhayyul team, we keep meeting with other scholars who are like native scholars, who are trying to kind of be part of their own decolonizing movement. And I think Kurdish movement has a specific place in this entire understanding of decolonizing movement. So anyway, like everybody was was giving reference to creating new vocabularies and new vocabulary is obviously needed for new imaginaries. But it seems to me that the challenge here in this in this particular case, is quite multilayers. And I don't know if I can kind of articulate this with all its multiplicity, but when I think immediately the Kurdish movement is creating new vocabularies to both transform certain archaic norms, as you have mentioned, including the gender norms as an example that was given, but also to push back the narratives used by the Turkish state, the narratives that are used to legitimise violence and somehow steal the realities of violence away from the victims, and also away from the bystanders, so I wonder maybe each one of you would like to kind of make, like clarify examples, or reflect on this. This kind of, like creating new vocabularies is important, you need to gain intelligibility by your own community, but you're also fighting against these kinds of narratives. And we are living in this period of post truth, obviously.
My favourite topic. And again, in my book, I talk about this a lot is this new vocabulary that is emerging in Kurdistan to define and to talk about truth. Well, we have to understand. I mean, I will make several points. One of them is that Kurdish Freedom mMovement, I mean, what makes Kurdish Freedom Movement very specific, I think, is that it has learned a lot from analysis of patriarchy, more than maybe analysis of colonialism, it has learned from analysis of patriarchy. And one of the things which we say when we talk about patriarchy is of course, patriarchy defines reality for us, right. I mean, women's reality is defined in patriarchy, as women are always seen as lacking something in terms of a lack. So, how are going to women redefine themselves autonomously, and feminism has, of course, developed a whole literature, a whole bunch of vocabulary, a paradigm, to answer that. And Kurdish Freedom Movement does a very similar thing, following actually learning from the world, learning from the feminist movement all around the world. And the pioneers doing this are again, women from the movement. For example, "bedenleşme", a word that they often use. What is "bedenleşme"? "Beden" means body and "bedenleşme", I don't know somebody would probably translate it much better than I, but I will for now say that "bedenleşme" is becoming a body, or developing a body. Why is this like such an important word? And what does it mean to say "bedenleşme"? It is because Kurdish Freedom Movement set things, I mean, there are a lot of different things, but by reflecting on patriarchy, by thinking about the various way in which women have been rendered flesh. And here I'm, again referring to African American women's literature, you know, African American women have developed this vocabulary of flesh to describe the material truth of our bodies, to which we mostly relate during times of violence. In other words, violence, disembodies us, renders us to flesh. And that's one thing that makes us extremely vulnerable. But on the other hand, it also not only makes us extremely vulnerable, but it also enables us to gain a different form of knowledge about our own materiality. Okay, what are you going to do with this knowledge? What do you do with this knowledge? Well, with this knowledge, you create new institutions, and that is "bedenleşme". That is, you are going to create new forms of life, new institutions, new relations, to defend yourself against the ways in which you have been rendered flesh. And this is called "bedenleşme". It's a word I love, there is no equal word. Or "Xwebun", again, my friends would probably pronounce it much better than I do, "Xwebun" means being yourself. And being yourself in this instance, means that as women, we have been defined, by our oppressors, and how can we rename ourselves? We have been named by patriarchy, we have been produced by patriarchy, how can we rename ourselves? How can we learn the different ways in which our bodies can move actually, what is the potential of our bodies, what is the potential of our intelligence, and so forcing those limits, through different strategies and tactics that are also embedded in the practice of the movement, and named in the practice of the movement. Like platform, like "sonsuz boşanma", etc. You become "Xwebun", you name yourself, rename yourself, you discover your potentialities, and you learn what your body can do. As you said, this is a multi-layered process, because it's about your own experience, right? How to articulate your own experience autonomously. On the other hand, Kurdish Freedom Movement always had the ambition to become universal, which means, and this is the particular definition I would use giving, of course, reference to Ferreria, another black scholar, she says universalism is difference without separability. So Kurdish women and Kurdish Freedom Movement, produced this vocabulary of difference, to explain their own experience, but then always related to the world and to the world. So they, they always try to explain it, try to, you know, write a lot about it, talk a lot about this vocabulary. So it's not like a close, I mean, sometimes it feels like it's closed, but if you dig deeper, you see that women are reproducing and publishing journals, publishing diaries, in order to communicate these experiences to the outside world as well. So in that sense, as you say, it is multi layered. Yeah. I love these examples. I hope they made sense to you, too.
Thank you very much. I would love to hear if anybody wants to add any notes. I would love to hear from Özlem and Sardar, before we move on if you want to further highlight other relevant examples. I want to say that this is like an exemplary, something to look up to for anybodywho has their heart in decolonizing movement, the Kurdish movement. And I say this wholeheartedly really. Like we are just running a small project and we can see how difficult it is to kind of create a transformative effect to find the right word that would be intelligible by the people you want to kind of gain support from and those you want to criticise as well.
I mean, I'm just going to add a little and I agree with Nazan. I agree the Kurdish movements and Kurdish Freedom Movement, Kurdish Women's Freedom Movement have been you know very much had this in depth engagement with anti patriarchal feminists, you know women's in different parts of the world obviously not they all don't use feminism so but different branches of a women's freedom movement in different parts of the world. I agree that this has been more central to the Kurdish movement and the vocabulary around this has been vocabulary and practices and organisations, institutions, as Nazan said, have been more central to the Kurdish freedom movement, then an anti-colonial vocabulary. But why I just want to say just one word about why I emphasise that, why I emphasise the anti-colonial aspect of it, because I think there's been a lot of talks, debates, discussions around decolonizing academia, decolonizing knowledge production, you know, looking at the knowledge production from below. This new, very important vocabulary that we should pay attention to hear from learn from is very important. But at the same time, you know, in we live in a world where the movement is constantly being criminalised, where these projects are constantly being interrupted, violently suppressed, people involved have been killed in prison, and continue to be in prison. So if this is the reality, then for me, deconstructing the colonial language that people have used to engage with the Kurdish movement, and one example my own example, I'm going to give you very interesting to me like when I was invited to a conference, just a little workshop on Kurds in Kurdistan at Yale University. And there were a lot of graduate students there. And they found me to be very radical, like what I tried to do is to explain the colonial reality. I used the word colonialism. Now the reason I'm just going to say some of these old words, old vocabulary, people resist this old vocabulary, for example, these are the same graduate students for whom, biopolitics, the concepts that the Kurdish movement, produce are interesting, they're hip, but they can't engage when I say Turkish state has colonised Kurds, Turkish state has colonised Bakur. When I use the word Bakur, which is you know, northern Kurdistan, that's under the colonial borders of Turkey. When I say Turkish colonial prisons, it's too radical for them. So then I think some of the old vocabulary is still needs to be learned needs to be retold. And some of the vocabulary that people use are really embedded are shaped by these colonial discourses are shaped by geopolitical ways of engaging with movements. And this is our imaginaries. So while we're opening up to this new vocabulary, I think there's still a lot to do in terms of decriminalising the movement decriminalising the vocabulary that's necessary to understand, as I said, the systematic and foundational reality of colonial violence against the Kurds.
Thank you very much Özlem.
I think don't have a lot to add. But I would say that one problem is that unfortunately, among the left, the progressives in the region, Turkey, Iran, among Arab progressives, there is also this exclusion of Kurds or not really giving the credit or considering the Kurds or the Kurdish movement to produce ideas, to produce theories for change, to produce concepts with new vocabulary for change. And even when they are using them, like in the last few weeks, we saw that among some nationalist Iranian politicians among both opposition and even some Kurdish opposition groups, and those who are kind of in anti imperialist Iranian front. They do use Jin, Jiyan, Azadi, they like it very much, but they disregard the history behind it, the politics behind it. So many people in many different sessions, panels, talks, they talk about that this Jin, Jiyan, Azadi slogan, has quite politics quite a system behind it that we shouldn't dismiss in translation. Jin, Jiyan, Azadi is not just women, life, freedom or in Farsi ژن، ژیان، ئازادی. I mean, originally in 2013, in a letter, he said that this is a magic formula for the revolution in the in the whole region, and women are the protagonist of this revolution. And he does and the Kurdish movement has been doing what they can to say that this whole movement, this revolution is not about Kurds, It's not about the Kurdish people. Of course, we are in an anti-colonial struggle, but at the same time, this anti-colonial struggle is for the whole region to transform and to change the fate that has been envisioned for the region, like one example, in the Rojava region of Syria, right now, I'm working with the university there, they all the time, correct me that this region is not an East region of Syria and they emphasise on that. It's very interesting that the Assad regime right now is more sensitive with this newly established University of Al-Sharq in Raqqa, then to the University of Rojava or the University of Kobani, because they see that this movement is spreading to all parts of Syria, and it gets audience among Arab communities, people who were under the rule of the Baas regime, and then under the rule of Daesh and the sectarian groups after the civil war started. And they are afraid of that. They are afraid of Jin, Jiyan, Azadi. Just as Özlem mentioned, Nagehan Akarsel was murdered, assassinated by Turkish agents in Süleymaniye, and a new wave of attacks started against Rojava, just during the time that everyone is talking about the Kurdish movement, is talking about Öcalan's ideas of Jin, Jiyan, Azadi, and Öcalan's paradigm of women, freedom in the region. So, I think one step we could think about is to kind of continue this discussion with the progressive groups, leftist groups in the region, and spread this vocabulary. I think the Kurdish movement, Nazan could talk more about that, has been very successful in doing that in in Turkey. And it has been translated into a political project, the HD, the People's Democracy Party, which is right now under continuing attacks by the regime. But also in Iran with Jina's revolution, we see that this paradigm is moving forward in other parts of the region. And right now, many Iranian Farsi intellectuals, academics, people are coming to ask me for books, for writings of Öcalan and for other examples of how the Kurdish movement is conducting this revolutionary project. So I think it's ongoing, and it needs to be spread this very conversation that we have. And this is the time of building solidarity setting.
Thank you very much. I don't know if you have any questions to each other. But I'm receiving a message from a private channel right now, asking to learn a little bit about the Rojava University and their take on decolonizing movement actually.
Serdar I think maybe you can also tell us a little bit about the decolonizing summer workshop series.
Yeah, we had a very successful summer school, just the past summer Özlem and Nazar were also involved in that. We had eight seminars, public seminars, and closed sessions between our students and graduate students at the University of Bremen in Germany. So the University of Rojava was established in 2016. It's part of the new education campaign of the autonomous administration of North and East Syria. There were four universities in the region, in 2015 University of Afrin was established. That whole area is under Turkish occupation right now. In 2016 the University of Rojava was established. In 2017 University of Kobani and in 2021, University of Al-Sharq in Raqqa was established. So University of Rojava is part of this, as I said, rebuilding the region, reconstructing or restructuring the educational institutions of the region. There has a history of course behind, there is a history behind the University of Rojava as well. We have different academia's in the region, such as Mesopotamia Academia, and many academia's established and run by the women's movement. Our institute, the Institute of Social Sciences, which is a Graduate Institute was established in 2020. We're continuing with two cohorts of students, but many people who are involved in this work are coming from different universities in Europe and North America. Yeah, we had two summer schools. The second one was on decolonization and we hope to have a journal with the first issue specifically talking about decolonization, but also continuing, organising panels and discussion series. Hopefully, next year we'll have a discussion series specifically to read Öcalan's literature.
Thank you. That's really quite exciting I'm sure. I'm saddened to say that we have only one minute. Do you have anything that you felt like should be highlighted a lot more kind of clearly or boldly? Maybe we can spend that last minute with those notes.
I mean, I want to say Jin, Jiyan, Azadi as my last words, because Jin, Jiyan, Azadi it means, as Sardar has explained many times, as women, we have been separated from life by being restricted and dominated by patriarchy. But we are going to once again embrace life through different means. Embrace life on the street and embrace life on the parliament, embrace life in the workplace, embrace life in everywhere, and that's going to be the path to freedom.
I don't think anybody can add anything more.
Wonderful ending. Jin, Jiyan, Azadi.
I'd like to thank you for on behalf of the entire Takhayyul team and see you in the next episode. Thank you.
