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Free­dom is what­ev­er we under­stand it to be. This is to say it does­n’t have an exis­tence of its own. For instance, a tree has an exis­tence inde­pen­dent from our per­cep­tion of it. Yet free­dom is a social phe­nom­e­non that can­not extend beyond our under­stand­ing of it.”
Emrah Günok, Duvar 2018

The tri­al of those who say “Anoth­er world is pos­si­ble” with the LGBTQI+ community

Much as the “Kur­dish prob­lem” serves as a lit­mus test for those who call them­selves demo­c­ra­t­ic, lib­er­al, social­ist, com­mu­nist and anar­chist in Turkey, the approach towards the LGBTQI+ proves a sim­i­lar chal­lenge for those call­ing for a uni­ver­sal human­ism and claim­ing that î Those who announced in the begin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry  that “we don’t need cap­i­tal­ism, we will build anoth­er world where every­one will be free and hap­py”, have dis­ap­peared unfor­tu­nate­ly, because they have turned into the very sys­tems they opposed. Anoth­er fun­da­men­tal rea­son for their down­fall was their unre­solved  prob­lems around the het­ero-nor­ma­tive/­pa­tri­ar­chal con­struct of gen­der in mod­ern times.. (source)

In our time, West­ern soci­ety began its process of eman­ci­pa­tion espe­cial­ly with the gen­er­a­tion of ’68, and fur­ther evolved through wom­en’s and LGBTQI+ move­ments. With this trans­for­ma­tion, indi­vid­u­als’ claims  were legit­imized on mat­ters of iden­ti­ty, gen­der, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion and cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty replac­ing def­i­n­i­tions imposed by author­i­ties. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, this has not been the case in the Mid­dle East. Iden­ti­ty and belong­ing con­tin­ue to be the pri­ma­ry rea­sons feed­ing con­flicts, vio­lence and war. Despite the seri­ous­ness of the sit­u­a­tion when I talk about this to a social­ist, a demo­c­rat or an oppo­nent from Turkey or Kur­dis­tan, the con­ver­sa­tion leads to state­ments such as: “But my friend! Is this real­ly the time for it?”; “Com­rade, of course, we know what you’re say­ing, but the cap­i­tal­ist impe­ri­al­ist sys­tem is on the attack, they’re hit­ting strong­ly on iden­ti­ty top­ics, would­n’t this LGBTQI+ busi­ness serve to divide the social­ist struggle?”

While iden­ti­ty and belong­ing remain bit­ter top­ics in the Mid­dle East, the Kur­dish Free­dom Move­ment has achieved a social, cul­tur­al and polit­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion in the name of and with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of rev­o­lu­tion­ary Kur­dish women. This is a fact accept­ed by all who approach life from the per­spec­tive of free­dom strug­gles. The fol­low­ing analy­sis about social­ism which suc­ceed­ed through a cen­tu­ry long tra­di­tion is impor­tant: “The the­o­ry of demo­c­ra­t­ic moder­ni­ty and demo­c­ra­t­ic social­ism were devel­oped through the cri­tique of real social­ism. No one believes that the State and social­ism can exist togeth­er. Which means that State social­ism dis­ap­peared. It has been clear for every­one that equal­i­ty and the prin­ci­ples of shar­ing in social­ism based on free­dom and diver­si­ty can­not be achieved through force and oppres­sion as prac­ticed by a State. The dis­in­te­gra­tion of social­ism based on a State inter­me­di­ary is an impor­tant devel­op­ment.” (source)

The Kur­dish Free­dom Move­ment reestab­lished both dis­course and action through its demo­c­ra­t­ic nation par­a­digm, by remov­ing the con­structs of reli­gious belief and eth­nic back­ground as legit­imiz­ing con­flict, vio­lence and war in the Mid­dle East. By inte­grat­ing gen­der lib­er­al­ism and ecol­o­gy in its demo­c­ra­t­ic nation par­a­digm, it expressed its utmost goal of being a plu­ral­ist, egal­i­tar­i­an, lib­er­al­ist and demo­c­ra­t­ic con­fed­er­al­ism. See­ing this, region­al racist and mil­i­tarist sys­tems became agi­tat­ed, see­ing the mag­nif­i­cent trans­for­ma­tion that could be achieved with such polit­i­cal and ide­o­log­i­cal moti­va­tors in all fields of life in the Mid­dle East.

The move­ment served as an ide­o­log­i­cal source while rais­ing the morale of indi­vid­u­als, par­ties, insti­tu­tions and all groups cham­pi­oning labor and free­dom in their strug­gle against misog­y­nis­tic and anti-LGBTQI+ struc­tures hos­tile to diver­si­ty in belief sys­tems and cul­tures, such as ISIL. Social­ist, anar­chist, LGBTQI+ indi­vid­u­als from many coun­tries around the world joined in this strug­gle when they saw that “anoth­er word/life” was pos­si­ble through the Roja­va Rev­o­lu­tion incor­po­rat­ing the Kur­dish rev­o­lu­tion­ary women. They con­tin­ue to serve in this strug­gle by shar­ing, orga­niz­ing and dis­cussing hat they have learned from their expe­ri­ences of Roja­va, in dif­fer­ent cities around the world.

In the Roja­va Con­sti­tu­tion — the most lib­er­al and inclu­sive con­sti­tu­tion in the Mid­dle East  — “gen­der inequal­i­ty” serves to explain biased behav­iors, atti­tudes and per­cep­tions imposed upon indi­vid­u­als accord­ing to their gen­der. The con­sti­tu­tion defines gen­der inequal­i­ty throough gen­der sys­tems estab­lished around mand and woman; “Gen­der bina­ry trans­lates into mul­ti­di­men­sion­al inequal­i­ties in every­day life. Gen­der inequal­i­ty is based on exper­i­men­tal bases or emerges from social­ly accept­ed privileges.” 

Why then are LGBTQI+ mem­bers who are active in this strug­gle absent from this ide­o­log­i­cal polit­i­cal per­spec­tive? Gen­der inequal­i­ty has been estab­lished through the bina­ry notion of woman and man, tak­ing into account none except the two-gen­der con­structs, and it has result­ed in vio­lence, con­flict and war. Isn’t the polit­i­cal line appar­ent­ly stand­ing in oppo­si­tion to this sys­tem falling into the trap of repro­duc­ing the sys­tem it oppos­es the the bina­ry gen­der dis­course iden­ti­fied above with­in the women’s lib­er­a­tion par­a­digm? Doesn’t a sys­tem aim­ing to elim­i­nate the dan­ger of resem­bling its oppo­nent — as did the social­ist rev­o­lu­tions in the 20th cen­tu­ry — need to demand free­dom for all, no mat­ter what gen­der, sex­u­al iden­ti­ty and/or ori­en­ta­tion they may have, with­out any if’s but’s or maybe’s?

Today, vio­lence and oppres­sion over LGBTQI+ indi­vid­u­als are stronger than ever. Dur­ing its con­trol over the region, ISIL per­se­cut­ed LGBTQI+ indi­vid­u­als by throw­ing them of build­ings. In a con­text where the head of the Turk­ish Repub­lic says: “There is no such thing as LGBT, this is a nation­al and moral coun­try”, he invites vio­lence and lynch­ing against these peo­ple. A racist/fascist cli­mate in which, Dogu Per­inçek 1 in an expres­sion of an eclipse of rea­son­ing pow­ers: “In the glob­al­iza­tion process of the USA, after the 1980s, Turk­ish soci­ety has seen imposed upon it sec­tar­i­an eth­nic iden­ti­ties along with drugs, pros­ti­tu­tion, sui­cides and homosexuality.” 

Around the world, indi­vid­u­als and groups who grow in their strug­gle by stand­ing with the Kur­dish peo­ple against the capitalist/patriarchal sys­tem expect the cor­rect per­spec­tive the Kur­dish Free­dom Movement’s dis­course and atti­tude would embody around the demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly mod­ern the­o­ry. In every cor­ner of Kur­dis­tan LGBTQI+ indi­vid­u­als suf­fer from oppres­sion and vio­lence, not only at the hands of estab­lished sys­tems, but also in their own fam­i­lies, social and polit­i­cal entourage. How much longer will the right to life of these peo­ple be under­mined, who are destroyed by vio­lence and assas­si­nat­ed by par­ents who claim “I’m Kur­dish, I’m a rev­o­lu­tion­ary, I’m a social­ist”? I will  tack­le this issue in my next arti­cle through LGBTQI+ indi­vid­u­als’ appeals to the Bar Asso­ci­a­tion of Diyarbakır.

Isn’t it time that Turkey’s Social­ist Move­ment accept LGBTQI+ com­rades that stand by them in streets strug­gles -Gezi rebel­lion/Boğaziçi resis­tance… etc.- as sub­jects of life and strug­gle in all fields of life and adopt a dis­course and prac­tice accordingly?

Translation by Nilüfer Ovalıoğlu Gros
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Ercan Jan Aktaş
Auteur
Objecteur de con­science, auteur et jour­nal­iste exilé en France. Vic­dan retçisi, yazar, gazete­ci. Şu anda Fransa’da sürgünde bulunuy­or. Con­sci­en­tious objec­tor, author and jour­nal­ist exiled in France.