Five hundred women expected at Frankfurt Conference

Over 500 women from around the world have already registered to the International Women Conference in Frankfurt that will open on Saturday.

Dozens of women have been preparing the hall and seminar rooms since early Friday morning to make sure nothing is left short.

The Rojava revolution no doubt carries the character of a women’s revolution. To talk about the achievements and challenges ahead, women from different parts of the world, who have been gathering and organizing around this new communitarian paradigm, will meet in the German city.

In the call to women and friends, the conference organisers write: “We want to bring together and combine our knowledge, power to change and our experiences in the conference “Revolution in the Making”. We think that as much as an in-depth analysis of state-class civilizations’ ways and methods used in the colonization of women there is a need for the revival of the resistance memory of women”.

Organisers added: “We find it extremely important that we share experiences; so that we can be prepared for patriarchal system’s new attacks. We will thus be able to create paths, methods and perspectives that can match the conditions, qualities and needs of our age. So that we can organize ourselves and create our alliances from the local to the universal. Against the constant attacks of the patriarchal system we will be able to weave a durable network of resistance. Thus, we will have the opportunity to become an active subject of the most gripping struggle of our age.

Now is women’s time, now is the time to weave this future together and is time to make the 21st century the century of women’s and people’s freedom!”

Here the program of the conference:

Session I Crisis of Patriarchy and it’s Systemic War on Women

Moderation: Debbie Bookchin, Journalist and Author, Institute for Social Ecology

 

1.The climax of patriarchy: Capitalism’s misogyny
Miriam Miranda, OFRANEH, Honduras

 

Never before in history women have been exposed to such a deep and stratified exploitation as in capitalism. Together with the nation-state capitalism constitutes the most institutionalized expression of patriarchy. Moreover when becoming a system capitalism started by destroying societies based on mother-women culture, which can be seen as its antipode. If so, how shall we define the connection between the patriarchal system and capitalism? Why and how has the male dominant system reached its highest level in capitalist age? And can a women’s liberation struggle that has no anticapitalist character succeed?

 

2. The Breakdown of 21st Century: Women’s Take on Challenges and Opportunities
   Claudia Korol, Paňuelos en Rebeldia, Argentine

The capitalist world system has entered the 21st century with a structural crisis. According to its character it is trying to emerge from its systemic crisis by concentrating the attacks on its contraries. In particular we need to talk about a systematical war against women. But crises always also contain the opportunities for strong risings. Which risks and opportunities does the patriarchal systemic crisis imply for women’s liberation? How can we estimate the current crisis from female perspective?

 

3. Sexism and its Connection with the Holy Trinity of Capitalism
   Nazan Üstündag, Professor of Sociology, Boğaziçi University, İstanbul

In capitalist modernity power is reproducing itself based on ideological pillars: Sexism, nationalism, religionism and scientism. While these pillars can’t be separated sexism is the basis of all forms of power. What is the relationship between sexism and the other three main ideological pillars of capitalist modernity? And how to handle nationalism, religionism and scientism in the struggle against sexism?

 

Session II Workshops

1. The rise of fascist regimes and their impact on women
   2. Feminicide, sexual violence and self-defense
   3. Ecology
   4. Matriarchal communities and social identities
   5. War, displacement and politics of migratisation
   6. Colonialism, capitalist modernity and impacts on women
   7. Feminisation of poverty and communalist economy
   8. Women and alternative media
   9. Putting our theory to practice

DAY 2

Session III Women’s Struggle for Freedom: From Fis to Kobane and from Manbij to Raqqa

Moderation: Rahila Gupta, Author and Activist, Member of Southall Black Sisters

 

1.Philosophy behind the Rupture from the Patriarchal System
Haskar Kirmizigul, Jineoloji-Comittee Europe

The road taken from Fis to Raqqa – how have we come to conclude that women’s liberation is more precious than the liberation of a country. How fundamental is the liberation of women and killing the dominant male to the foundations of the patriarchal system? How does Democratic Nation and sociology of freedom with its original content enable us to weave our own future? What role does Jineology play?

 

2. The Making of Women’s Confederal System: the Philosophy in Practice
   Avin Sawaid (Kongreya Star) and Khawla Alissa Alhammoud (Spokeswoman of Raqqa Women’s Council) Rojava/Northern Syria

Turning our gains into a continuous and sustainable system is crucial. But for that we need to replace the most important pillars of the patriarchal order. The importance of organizing, networking, education, communal ecological economy, the non-state structures (including the system of co-chairs) and how to keep them that way.

 

3. Why Women’s Self-Defense and Not Protection: The Myth, Hypocrisy and the Truth
   Speaker to be defined

Both the monopoly over the use of violence by the nation-states and other state forms of the past and the excessive and unrestricted use of violence by the revolutionary movements of the past and their inadequate analysis have formed our understanding of self-defense. Did we never defend ourselves or should we protected by others and if so by who? And in that case who using violence against us? How should we define and articulate our own understanding of self-defense? What are the precautions to be taken so that it does not evolve into the unwanted – patriarchal form of violence?

Session IV: Different localities, universal struggles: Experiences of women’s movements

Moderation: Gwendoline Coipeault, Femmes Solidaires

 

1.From bandit queens to pink gangs: Postcolonial resistance of Asian women against gender-based violence and rape
Madhu Bushan, Vimochana, India

India is one of the countries where the clash between mother-women culture and sexism can be most intensively seen. On the one hand mother goddess culture, on the other hand widow burning, killing of female fetus, gang rape. How is it possible that in a country where women have been sanctified only a short time ago misogyny could reach such a high level? What role did colonialism play? And how do women in India resist in theory and praxis against different forms of sexism and exploitation?

 

2. The Ungrievability of Black Lives and Why White Supremacy is Sexist
   Jade Daniels, BlackLivesMatter, Los Angeles

The extrajudicial executions, police violence, systematical inequality and discrimination in the USA against black people are the local expression of a much more universal reality: Those whose lives are devalued by the bio-political order of hegemony, whose lives are ungrievable, who become open targets to killings. They are those who would shake the system at its roots if they would be free. In this sense, could it be a coincidence that parallel to the growth of the BlackLivesMatter movement under the leadership of women a person that stands for sexism and white supremacy became president of the USA?

 

3. The Awakening of the Children of the Goddess: 2nd women’s revolution in the Middle East
   Nazira Goreya, Co-President of the Executive Council of the Al-Jazera Canton and Founder of Syriac Women’s Union, Rojava/Northern Syria

Atargatis in Northern Syria, Ishtar in Mesopotamia, Anahita in Iran, Star in Kurdistan: In the Middle East, which has been a place of deeply rooted mother goddess culture, women are weaving a second women’s revolution. But the Middle East is also the place where patriarchy got institutionalized and today a vehement battle between male domination and women’s liberation is waged there. Could the women’s liberation struggle in the Middle East carry a universal quality because of the historicalness of the space? What a meaning does revolution within a revolution have here?

4. Gabriela’s successors: Women’s alliance in theory and practice
   Mary Joan Guan, GABRIELA, Philippines

A efficient women’s liberation struggle against the patriarchal system needs acting in unison and networking. But how can we unite despite our differences? Which principles and understanding are needed for a common struggle? What are the difficulties and achievements of alliances? How to develop a common organizing model while protecting autonomy in practice?

 

5. We won’t become one woman less
   Rita Segato, Professor of Anthropology and Bioethics – UNESCO University of Brasilia

In Latin America the killings of women have already reached the extend of a feminicide. Women have been fighting for years to make the killings visible at state level and to ensure that those responsible are held accountable. Recognising the complicity of the state they concluded that feminicide can only be stopped with a strong organisation. Movements such as, for example, Ni Una Menos started in Argentina and spread across Latin America. How can feminicide be stopped? What kind of organisation do we need?

 

6. Rebirth of the revolutionary culture: women’s organization in Afghanistan
   Selay Ghaffar, Solidarity Party of Afghanistan

Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey – the late 70s and early 80s were years in which the great revolutionary potential of the Middle Eastern societies, and especially of women, became visible. The hegemonic powers responded by promoting military coups, Islamist groups and political killings. Under the mask of democratization or as of 2001 the “fight against terror” they were actively involved in the promotion of bloody “civil wars”. They were thus particularly pursuing a special war against the revolutionary potential of women. The enslavement of women is the destruction of revolutionary culture. But Afghan women are fighting under difficult conditions against their enslavement by reviving their revolutionary culture.

Session V: Revolution in the Making: Weaving our future together

Moderation: Meral Cicek, REPAK, South Kurdistan

The upheavals of our times not only result in much pain, violence and the removal of millions of people from their land but also give us a chance to weave our own way of live. What are the parameters of what we are proposing? We know so much more than we ever did of our past, present and future. How possible is it to network within each of these parameters? The understanding of solidarity must change but how can we achieve the unity of efforts, of struggles, of doings, of creating, and of weaving them together.

• Black Women’s Freedom Movement – Black women have faced fierce racist repression, its manifestation in archaic enslavement colonization and the aggression that comes with it in different forms. But for as long, they have been struggling for their freedom and continue to be an inspiration for struggling women around the world. What is the road ahead and how can we forge ties?

Siana Bangura, Black Feminist Platform, UK

 

• The beautiful colors depict how the women in India are daring, struggling, and resisting the attacks of the neo-liberal policies of capitalism and the overall attacks of patriarchy. How do we make room for solidarity of different kinds?

Radha D‘Souza, Reader in Law at the University of Westminster, UK

 

• The women from Arabia have incurred the double layer of loss of freedom due to very harsh Arabic hegemonic patriarchy who has lost its regional and world power to capitalist hegemony. How can we transcend the borders drawn between the women of the region and act in unison?

Shereen Abou Al Naga, Professor of English Literature at Cairo University, Egypt

 

• Beneath the rubble of religionism, feudalism, nationalism and recent wars women from Kurdistan – the enslaved of all the enslaved – rise rejecting all forms of patriarchy. How can women act/react together when it comes to common goals?

Kibriye Evren, Delegate of TJA, Northern Kurdistan/Turkey

 

• Zapatistas – The women of the rain forests tell us the same song in a different tune; continuing the struggle and resistance of the women in the rain forests and beyond. So far apart yet so close in vision.

Sylvia Marcos, Academian – Indigenous Movements in the Americas, Mexico

 

More info can be found here: http://revolutioninthemaking.blogsport.eu/category/home/

---

---