Partizan’s statement on the Feminist Night March
While women’s labor, ignored and regarded/portrayed as worthless, is condemned to precariousness and appropriated through unregulated workshops and home-based work;
While women and LGBTI people are subjected to slaughter through murders of women and LGBTI people, killers are protected through the collaboration of the male-dominated state and judiciary, and violence in every form puts life in a stranglehold;
In short, while male domination, through laws, practices, state institutions and society, seeks to punish “non-men” or those who refuse to submit to male domination, to place them under its control through abortion, “mixed-sex” living and so on, and thereby keep the wheels of the system of exploitation turning;
It is inevitable that the streets take on the color of rebellion on March 8. As every year, this year too women and LGBTI people took to the streets in anger across the country against gender inequality, male domination and heterosexism.
On the Feminist Night March…
One of these places is Istanbul.
As March 8 approached in Istanbul, women’s celebrations, actions and rallies began taking place almost every day. Among these actions, the 12th Feminist Night March held in Taksim on the evening of March 8 was organized by feminist women’s organizations, but women’s organizations that do not define themselves as feminist also called for participation and attended. Nearly ten thousand women and LGBTI people took part.
We would like briefly to address some of the arguments at this action, which was very spirited both in bringing women’s angry slogans into the streets and in being the largest demonstration held in recent months in Taksim, which had been made off-limits following the Gezi Uprising.
Let us briefly explain how the argument unfolded from our side:
When the march reached the French Consulate, the police blocked the women’s path, seeking to prevent them from entering the square. At that time, our comrades carrying Partizan flags were among the crowd between the women and the police barricade that was the target of the Istanbul Feminist Collective’s criticism. However, our comrades’ intention was not to participate in the Feminist Night March. As Partizan, we had issued no call for this action. Various actions had been called for the same evening and hour on the occasion of Abdullah Cömert’s birthday and the worsening of Berkin Elvan’s condition, and our comrades had taken their places in Taksim with their flags in response to these calls.
When they saw some progressive, democratic organizations confronting the police barricade, our comrades joined them and pushed against the barricade with the crowd. When arguments began upon the women’s arrival and the women took the position that men should leave the area, our male friends moved aside, while our women friends continued pushing against the police barricade with their flags. However, after a while, our women friends too lowered their flags, ending their participation with organizational flags, which did not accord with the format of the Feminist Night March that had brought nearly ten thousand women and LGBTI people together for March 8.
At this point, we wish to emphasize that our presence in Taksim with flags was not for the purpose of participating in the feminist night march. Nor was our aim to undermine the initiative of the women organizing the action, violate its format, or confront the police through our male friends in place of women and LGBTI people. Above all, we never had, and could never have, any intention of “waiting for and using the women participating in the night march as a force to push against the barricade”! Despite all these intentions, however, we acknowledge our mistaken conduct in the situation that arose (our presence with flags at an action without organizational flags, and our refusal, even for a time, to lower them), and offer self-criticism to all organizations and women who organized and participated in last night’s march.
A Brief Note…
Although it is not directly related to the incident in Taksim on the evening of March 8, we would also like to share our thoughts on a formulation in the Istanbul Feminist Collective’s statement:
IFK’s statement on the matter includes the sentences: “When we feminists reached the police barricade, mixed socialist groups (Kaldıraç, Mücadele Birliği, Partizan, EKA), who had stood inactive in front of it until we arrived, did not clear the space for us despite our earlier warnings. This is the clearest expression of certain socialist groups’ approach that refuses to recognize the legitimacy of feminism’s struggle and organization as a political movement.” On our own behalf, we object to such an assessment.
For yes, there are points on which we do not agree ideologically with feminism. But this does not mean we do not see the feminist movement’s struggle and organization as legitimate. Although we do not adopt a feminist understanding, we do not deny that the feminist movement is one of the important actors within the women’s movement in our country. We therefore believe it is not correct to assess the difficult situation that arose on the evening of March 8 through this political perspective.
Partizan
March 9, 2014