Assessment by the Istanbul Feminist Collective (IFK) of the March 8, 2014 Feminist Night March
By now, the entire opposition knows! Every March 8, the Feminist Night March takes place on İstiklal Avenue. First held in 2003, the night march continued every year thereafter: 2004, 2005… This year we held the 12th Feminist Night March.
A Brief History of the Feminist Night March
Twelve years ago, the Women’s Liberation Movement was continuing to lose strength… On the one hand, feminists’ demands and words were becoming less prominent at various women’s events; on the other, almost all components of the women’s movement were embracing many feminist ideas and formulations, above all “male domination.” This twofold situation showed that the ideological/political background distinguishing feminist from non-feminist women was not entirely clear either. The difference between the Women’s Movement and the Feminist Movement had become increasingly blurred in the effort to act collectively and articulate a more inclusive politics. For this reason, we had begun discussing among ourselves the idea of holding a feminist action that would express our ideological difference, apart from the actions we organized together as the women’s movement or participated in. On March 8, 2003, the year of the invasion of Iraq,“Hitler, Mussolini, Sharon, Milošević, Bush, Saddam… All Men: A Coincidence?” was written on the banner we carried in a march from Taksim Square toward Mis Street, our first action. Thus we took the first step toward the Feminist Night March that has become a tradition in Taksim over these twelve years.
The action was called a “night march” to express our feminist rebellion against the attempts to make nights and streets off-limits to women. Participation in our march grew every year. Inviting women and trans people, our march brought together almost 5,000 of us last year; this year, also under the influence of the Gezi uprising, that number grew further.
In 2004, women again gathered in Taksim Square, this time focusing on femicide, and marched with a banner reading “Men Strike, the State Protects Them; We Want Shelters, Not Graves.” In 2005, the march went from Galatasaray toward Taksim Square, and the words “We Do Not Obey the Male Order!” were written on a banner carried on the march. In 2006, we marched under “Feminist Revolt”, and in 2007 under “Feminist Struggle against Patriarchy, Capitalism, Militarism and Nationalism.” Those were the banners we carried. The main slogan of the marches held in 2008 and 2009 was “Feminist Struggle against Militarism, Capitalism, Nationalism and Patriarchy”. In 2010, women chanted in unison “Feminist Rebellion: We Rebel against Femicide”, and in 2011 “Feminist Struggle against Male Domination.” In 2012, family was on feminists’ agenda; their banners read “We Are Women, Not Families: We Are in Feminist Rebellion”. The night march that began with around 100 women in 2003 had drawn thousands of women by 2012. Thousands of women gathered on İstiklal Avenue cried out, “Long live our feminist struggle!” In 2013, feminists marched with a banner reading “Our Lives, Our Bodies, Our Decisions Are Ours: Keep Your Family to Yourselves.” This was the banner they carried.
Since we began organizing in 2003, the night march has been collectively organized by independent feminists and women from independent feminist organizations. We worked to ensure that the march would not be a space only for feminists, and that no group or individual would take center stage, as we have encountered at so many actions. We therefore had a clear position against placards, flags and banners bearing signatures and/or identified with an organization appearing in the march. We agreed to march behind a single banner, with flags and placards bearing only the color and female symbols of women’s resistance, as well as rainbow flags, the colors of resistance to heterosexism. This agreement remains the basis of the march. To this day we have succeeded in organizing the Feminist Night March on this political basis. Of course, there have sometimes been arguments and mistakes! In particular, the discussions we had with our trans friends during the march taught all of us a great deal.
The Parting of Ways over the March 8 Daytime Rally…
In organizing and preparing the daytime rallies held almost every year since 1997, the debates at March 8 Platform meetings over “March 8 with or without men” had become exhausting and irresolvable. In those years, women’s groups stood at the front, a human chain formed between sections, mixed groups stood behind that chain, and men marched at the very back. In 2005, a split occurred in the organization of the March 8 daytime march. Until then, we had agreed that men would march at the back. Also linked to the debate over revolutionism and reformism, a group advocating “women and men hand in hand” decided to organize a separate March 8 rally.
Since then, the daytime rallies have been organized along two separate lines. Although both identify themselves as outside the system, there is a fundamental distinction in how they organize March 8. The first was the March 8 Women’s Platform. Comprising the Kurdish Women’s Movement, feminists, women from many socialist parties/groups, DİSK, KESK and democratic organizations, this platform placed male domination at the center of its struggle, while also putting struggle against heterosexism, capitalism, militarism and nationalism on the agenda. It advocated organizing a women-only rally closed to men’s participation. The second line organizing the rally was the Revolutionary March 8 Platform, which placed class struggle, revolution and socialism at the center and advocated women and men struggling hand in hand. Emekçi Kadınlar (Working Women, EKA) and Kaldıraç were also part of this platform, which came together under the slogan “March 8 is red and will remain red!” Over time, some of its components left, criticizing the sidelining of women’s agenda, and joined the March 8 Women’s Platform. Some continued holding their own mixed actions while also attending the rally. This year EKA and Kaldıraç did that.
The Revolutionary March 8 Platform described its separate rally at the time as a gain achieved through a major confrontation with both feminists and the state. Indeed, in the split between revolutionism and reformism, they characterized the reformist wing as defending feminism and being influenced by it. The platform’s approach to organizing March 8 was almost identical to its approach to organizing May Day. Groups left the platform because it did not foreground women’s agenda and the specificity of March 8.
EKA held mixed actions in Taksim on March 8 in 2007-2009, during the daytime. In 2010, it held its March 8 action in Taksim on March 7. In 2011, when EKA moved its march to 19:00, feminists met with EKA to prevent its action from coinciding with the Feminist Night March. Following positive discussions, the overlap was avoided, and feminists gathered in Taksim after moving their action from 19:00 to 19:30. In 2012, EKA designated Tünel as its assembly point at 19:00; the Federation of Democratic Rights also called for a gathering at Tünel at 19:30 that day. Once again, feminists’ efforts to communicate with these groups prevented a clash. To avoid any tension, and also because it found arguments over territory meaningless, the Istanbul Feminist Collective adjusted the direction and timing of the Feminist Night March to accommodate socialist groups holding marches that day and hour without regard for the annual March 8 Feminist Night March or the thousands of women taking part.
These groups’ failure to take feminists’ traditional march seriously, their indifference to it, is of course no coincidence. Even if thousands marched, even if they had been marching for years, to them the marchers were only women, feminists! There were many socialists among them too. But what stood out was purple, the color of resistance in women’s struggle. Making way and clearing space for those who wanted to paint March 8 red, for mixed socialist groups, fell to women, to feminists (!)
We encountered the mixed EKA group at the 2013 Feminist Night March too. Male participants passed us chanting “March 8 is red and will remain red.”
The March 8, 2014 Feminist Night March and What Happened
This year there was a particular situation: no social opposition group was permitted to march from Galatasaray to Taksim. On March 8, Women’s Day, women’s march and their taking their resistance into the streets had special significance. Attacks on women’s bodies and labor had increased in recent years. Femicide, harassment and rape continued unabated. A women’s employment law condemning women to flexible work and bearing more children was on the agenda. The AKP denied women’s existence outside the family. We therefore attached even greater importance to March 8 this year as a moment in our struggle against male domination and AKP rule. This was also the year of the women who rebelled at Gezi against the oppressive policies the AKP government had recently pursued through women’s lives, labor and bodies. We believed that, despite the ban, we would hold our feminist march, the ground where struggle against patriarchy joins contemporary feminist politics, with a crowd larger than last year’s. And we did.
As IFK, we immediately emailed a response to EKA’s invitation to socialist groups and the Socialist Feminist Collective (SFK) to jointly organize a March 8 march. For us, a positive response was impossible, because accepting would mean canceling the Feminist Night March. Nor had EKA, which objected to feminism being dominant on March 8, changed its politics concerning women. Despite all our efforts, the previous March 8 we had overlapped with the mixed EKA-Mücadele Birliği contingent. EKA had expressed its approach by passing us chanting “March 8 is red and will remain red.”
On February 3, as IFK, we sent EKA the following email:
Istanbul Feminist Collective From: Istanbul Feminist Collective feministler@gmail.com
Date: February 3, 2014 11:59
Subject: March 8
To: Emekçi Kadınlar eka.emekcikadinlar@gmail.com, cinayetlereisyandayiz@yahoogroups.com
We heard through friends at SFK that you have issued a call for a March 8 march in Taksim. As you know, every March 8 we organize the Feminist Night March from Galatasaray to Taksim. This year too, our march will gather at Galatasaray at 19:00 and begin marching at 19:30. We know that you too have held a march for the past two years, but have held it earlier to avoid coinciding with ours. In fact, we met about this two years ago. Since March 8 falls on a Saturday this year, it is possible to organize marches without any overlap. Since the march we hold separately from our participation in the joint March 8 rally, and which we will hold for the twelfth time this year, is “feminist,” we cannot combine it with the organization you propose.
We are letting you know that we will not attend the meeting and expect you, as always, to organize with consideration for the traditional Feminist Night March.
With love, and best wishes for your work.
We received no reply to this email. A few weeks later, we learned that EKA had set its action for 19:00 in Taksim. The Feminist Night March would start from Galatasaray at 19:30, and the earliest we could reach Taksim was 20:00. We therefore thought that EKA, to whom we had communicated our march time in advance, would take our concerns into account and finish its action by 20:00.
Ten days before March 8, we learned that calls had been issued to gather at Tünel and Taksim at 19:00 for Abdocan’s (Abdullah Cömert’s) birthday. As the Istanbul Feminist Collective, we emailed the organizers, reminding them that March 8 was Women’s Day and that feminists had marched with thousands of women and trans people for years, and asking them to take this into account. They paid no attention! Two days before March 8, Kaldıraç called an action in Taksim at 19:30, inviting women and men under the slogan “Every day is March 8, every day is struggle.” At that point, we no longer tried to contact Kaldıraç! When Kaldıraç issued its call, we had already publicized the March 8 Feminist Night March everywhere. Let us suppose they did not know we had been marching for twelve years; still, we do not believe that not a single Kaldıraç member had heard this year’s call for the night march. In short, these groups did not care about the feminist night march.
What mattered to us was being able to hold the March 8 Night March. Our aim was to come together with many women and cry out our resistance, rebellion and strength against male domination and patriarchy. We told the national and international public about the legitimacy of March 8, our words against male domination, and the Taksim ban. We sought solidarity from feminist organizations nationally and internationally through a text explaining the March 8 Night March, patriarchal control over women’s labor, bodies and identities, the AKP’s misogynist policies, the Taksim ban and police violence. Brazil, England, France, Argentina, Italy, Portugal… Feminists in many countries around the world stood in solidarity with us. Dozens of newspapers and television channels carried our message that we would be on the streets on March 8, International Women’s Day; that we would not abandon nights, streets and squares; and that we would claim our lives, bodies and decisions. We worked to turn the attention of women’s organizations and the media worldwide to our march. If they placed a barricade in front of our march at Galatasaray, our position was clear: we would challenge it, push against it with thousands of women and trans people, and not leave the streets until 21:00.
At 19:00 on March 8, thousands of women and trans people gathered at Galatasaray, as last year, and indeed in greater numbers. We continued our march as an exuberant, angry, determined and joyful crowd.
When we passed Mis Street, we saw TOMA water-cannon vehicles ahead and red flags in front of them. Two of our friends went toward them to assess the situation and ask permission for the feminist march to move up to the barricade. About 100 demonstrators from Kaldıraç, Partizan and EKA were waiting silently. The men had moved aside, and women stood in the middle with their flags. Some of the large group of men standing to the side also carried flags.
At around 20:00, the Feminist Night March banner reached the back of the group made up of Kaldıraç, Partizan and EKA. We asked our friends to move back to make room for the feminist march. It was clear that a purple March 8 and a red March 8 defining itself in distinction from that purple March 8 stood apart, and wanted to stand apart, in the struggle for women’s freedom and liberation. But particularly given their own claims, organizations identifying as leftist-socialist should have made way and stepped aside for feminists pursuing women’s struggle along a different path and marching with thousands of women and trans people. They should have acted democratically and in solidarity.
Women from this group spoke with our IFK friends. At first they had approached a side where a male friend was also present, but a male friend directed our IFK friends toward the women, saying, “Today, the interlocutors are women, not men.” The women (EKA and Kaldıraç) said they were waiting for the feminist contingent and wanted to challenge the barricade together. Our IFK friend explained that, first, the men stationed immediately in front of and on either side of the barricade had to go to the very back of the feminist contingent. She said that on Women’s Day we wanted to resist with women alone, without allowing men’s shadow, applause or intervention. She also emphasized that this was a feminist march with only purple flags, so we could challenge the barricades together if they put away their organizational banners.
Our friends from Partizan put away their flags. As we learned from their subsequent statement, they were there for the action marking Abdullah Cömert’s birthday, and as soon as they understood the issue they respected the will of the Feminist Night March. In response to all this, women from EKA and Kaldıraç said that the male friends were at the front but to the side; that they had sent the men aside because feminists did not want them, but could do nothing more; and that they would never put away their organizational flags. Our IFK friend then said, “Under these conditions we cannot come up to the barricade, and we will have to end the action.” During this discussion, the women from Kaldıraç and EKA were also told that “the political meaning of what they are doing right now would be to undermine the action of women celebrating March 8 independently of men.” In general, Kaldıraç and EKA did not consider what IFK members said justified. One of them said that “our withdrawal would leave them exposed to attack.” Another said, “Do whatever you like!”
When two IFK friends were holding the first discussion with women from Kaldıraç and EKA, the Feminist March was approaching the entrance to Bekar Street. Shortly after the marching column reached Zambak Street, there was suddenly a commotion and the smell of gas spread. There was movement at the front of the barricade: the police had sprayed gas. Our IFK friends responsible for the action immediately ran to the barricade and repeated their proposal. Meanwhile, the men beside the front of the contingent came alongside the feminist contingent. As some women from EKA and Kaldıraç in front of the barricade spoke with our feminist friends, men there also intervened. On the one hand, the men at the front encouraged a woman pushing against the barricade, saying, “Push, push, push against the barricade”; on the other, saying they would fight together as women and men, they insulted our feminist friends who asked the men to move away, calling them “Idiots” (there is a video). The women in front of the barricade not only repeated that they would not lower their organizational flags, but did not intervene in the statements and insults of the men at the front. Meanwhile, the “male comrades” alongside the contingent also mingled with the front of the feminist contingent, and harassment escalating into violence occurred.
Given this situation at the barricade, feminists had only one way out: to end the action. By then, some women who had come to the Feminist Night March had already left. Our friends from the feminist initiative continually tried, all around the area and in front of the barricade, to persuade the EKA and Kaldıraç group, but unfortunately these efforts were fruitless.
During this process, an announcement was reportedly made from a police vehicle that none of us heard: “The group coming from behind, there are people throwing stones at the front; stop them.” https://www.facebook.com/kaldiracdergisi?fref=ts
As we all know, the police make such warnings. What matters is how one responds to that announcement. Meanwhile, a brief dialogue took place between the police and the friends responsible for organizing the Feminist Night March. The police suggestion, “Make your press statement,” was rejected, and they were told that “no press statement would be made until the barricade was opened.” Indeed, IFK left the demonstration area without reading its press statement.
Because the two groups, which do not organize women’s actions together and follow separate paths in the women’s liberation struggle, have very different forms of action, organization and resistance, it was hardly possible to end their actions jointly. The only condition under which such unity could happen was acceptance of the demand to lower organizational flags. Since these groups refused to accept this demand, it was decided to end the action on the initiative of the majority of friends on the front lines involved in organizing the Feminist Night March. When this decision was forcefully voiced at 20:45, our trans women friends from Hevi LGBTİ said they wanted to continue resisting. Once IFK’s reasons for ending the action were explained to them, they too tried to get the Kaldıraç flags, prominently visible at the front, lowered. But their efforts also failed. On returning, to express their reaction, they shouted “Kaldıraç out!” once or twice, well behind the police barricade. Men from Kaldıraç standing right beside us turned toward our trans friends; one entered the contingent and, swearing, kicked one of our trans friends. The person who kicked her was stopped by his friends. By around 20:50, most of the feminist contingent had withdrawn. The part of the march remaining in the area walked to Galatasaray with songs and slogans. Immediately afterward, Kaldıraç also left.
Before we ended the action, women from Kaldıraç and EKA stood ahead of the feminist contingent. The police had formed a human wall with shields and would not allow the march through. The women paused at intervals and chanted, intermittently hitting and kicking the shields with sticks and feet and trying to strike the police over the tops of the shields.
The We Will Stop Femicide Platform did not participate in the feminist march and had assembled for its own action in Taksim at 18:30. At around 20:30, women from the We Will Stop Femicide Platform also joined the Kaldıraç and EKA group with their own flags.
After the announcement that the Feminist Night March had ended, 98 percent of participants left the area. But at the front of the feminist banner, some women from Kampüs Cadıları (Campus Witches) and Halkevleri refused to fold up the Night March banner and end the action. Despite efforts to persuade them, they would not hand over the banner. Particularly women from Kampüs Cadıları accused IFK members in very harsh terms, saying they did not consider the decision to end the action right and would not recognize it. At that point in the evening, the collective feminist organization participating in the March 8 Feminist Night March had fractured. Halkevleri women and Kampüs Cadıları distinguished themselves from the rest of the march through their group identities. These groups joined the group at the front with individual women who had remained unaware of what was happening or had chosen to stay, and after briefly pushing against the barricade together with EKA women, decided to end the action. Following brief statements by representatives of EKA and Halkevleri women, this group ended the action with the song Bella Ciao. By the time these statements were made, Kaldıraç and Partizan had also left. The remaining group’s pushing against the barricade, statements, singing Bella Ciao and dispersal occupied ten minutes. In other words, the demonstration area was completely empty ten minutes after the Feminist Night March ended.
IFK representatives stayed in the area until the mixed groups ended their actions. As the women dispersed, they left the banner used in the action on the ground. Collecting it fell to IFK members (at 21:07).
What we are concerned with here is not that the area did not empty after the march coordination announced the end of the action, or that some of our friends stayed there. Specifically, it is that Halkevleri women, acting through their group identity, refused to recognize the decision to end the action and took the initiative to end our night march together with EKA. We are saying that the message conveyed both by the final words and by the final song disregarded the Feminist Night March’s historical gains as well as its organizing principles and concerns.
At meetings of the Feminist Night March, organized by feminist groups and individual independent feminists, women participate individually, solely as feminists, not as representatives of any organization, party or institution. When this principle was recalled at organizing meetings, everyone attending said they were participating individually, not representing their organizations. However, at the assessment meeting after the March 8 Night March, we learned that one friend on the fifteen-person action coordination had joined as a representative of Halkevleri/University Women’s Collective, contrary to what she had declared at the organizing meetings. We therefore repeat our principle, which we sometimes expressed in meetings in ways that went beyond our intention: the Feminist Night March is organized through participation by individual feminist trans people and women, whether they work in mixed groups or are unaffiliated, and by feminist organizations. It is not organized through institutional/organizational representation like the March 8 Women’s Platform. Accordingly, the international and press relations we organized while preparing the Feminist Night March were established through feminist organizations; the promotional clip was made by feminist organizations; and the action’s budget was likewise provided by those organizations. This experience, showing that people were in fact attending as organizational representatives while declaring they came as individual feminists, was unfortunately unsettling and damaged our trust. http://www.renklihaber.net/video/22499/taksimde-8-mart-kadinlar-gununu-eylemi.html
Many feminist women friends from mixed groups who issued calls to participate in the march stood up for the gains of the Feminist Night March and continue to struggle for this independent space from where they stand.
The purpose of this text, offering a brief account of the history of the Feminist Night March and events during it, is to contribute to clearing up misinformation and to leave a record in our feminist history. Otherwise, rather than these debates, what will stay with us from our March 8 Night March is that from its very first seconds we could cry out our anger, joy and rebellion in our own language, more exuberantly and in greater numbers than ever. We know that the enthusiasm and excitement of the March 8 Night March we held as thousands of women this year will continue to grow, because our history bears us out.
Long Live March 8! Long Live Our Feminist Struggle!
***
CALL FOR A FORUM TO ASSESS THE MARCH 8 NIGHT MARCH:
We sent the above informational text only to feminist email groups. We accept that this account may of course have gaps; after all, history can be limited to what we can see and hear from where we stand. It is also clear that throughout the march and in the moment of crisis we did not act in a sufficiently organized way and had certain shortcomings. We need to talk again, grow stronger together and record our history together. To assess the March 8 Night March as feminists, we invite all feminists to the forum on March 29 , 2014 at 16:30 at SFK. We look forward to seeing all feminists at the forum.