Liberating Life

The author has been known mostly for the national liberation struggle he has waged against the Turkish state and as the architect of the peace process between the PKK and the Turkish state. However there is more than what meets the eye. He has in parallel waged a more fierce struggle with the Kurdish community for change and transition both theoretically and in practice. One of those areas of fierce struggle is the women's freedom. The practice Öcalan observed in real socialist countries and his own theoretical efforts and practice since the 1970's has led him to the conclusion that the enslavement of women was the start of all other forms of enslavement. This, he concludes, is not due to woman being biologically different to man, but because she was the founder and leader of the Neolithic matriarchal system. Subsequently, women and in parallel the society have been enchained in three ways; ideological slavery, use of force and seizure of economy. Öcalan shows that from the present form of relationship between man and woman stem all forms of relationship that foster inequality, slavery, despotism, fascism and militarism. He points out that although male dominance is well institutionalised, men too are enslaved. If true meaning to terms such as equality, freedom, democracy and socialism want to be construed then there is a need to analyse and shatter the ancient web of relations that has been woven around women. The elimination of women from the ranks and the subjects of science makes it necessary to look for a radical alternative. Thus he underlines that the key to the resolution of our social problems will be a movement for woman's freedom, equality and democracy; a movement based on the science of woman, called jineolojî in Kurdish.