Hope is with women

Seyhan Avşar
 
 
The women activists of Purple Solidarity are preparing for the Turkish Women’s Conference they are holding at the Nâzım Hikmet Cultural Centre in Şişli on 23-24 December. The conference will see the participation of hundreds of women from 22 provinces, and buses will set out for there from seven provinces. Well-known figures who have devoted their all to the women’s struggle will line up at the conference.
 
I set about discussing the Purple Solidarity Turkish Women’s Conference with Purple Solidarity volunteers Perihan Koca and Gamze Özkök. Perihan Koca says that various prospects opened up for her the moment that Purple Solidarity was established. Koca, stressing how the Founding Summer Camp that they held in September of 2016 led to them pacing their activities by the calendar, said, “We created an organisational model that would respond to women’s quest for freedom and would embrace the current rebellion.” Koca describes the activities undertaken by Purple Solidarity over the course of one year as follows: “We are faced with a crisis of masculinity in the form of single-man politics that is trying to define women in all senses. There is an attempt to redefine these mechanisms in conformity with forms of regime or rulership that accord with this crisis of masculinity. To counter this, we have forged a model of organisation that sees or foresees the process we are undergoing and provides a way out. We have tried to reach out in some form to worker, proletarian, student and refugee women. We have held camps and workshops. With women’s quest for freedom becoming more pronounced, we have tried to bring women out of the home. We have spent a year in this way. At every step, we have entered another province and whispered freedom into the ear of another woman.”
 
Koca says, “This conference will also be attended by women from the streets, neighbourhoods, workshops and homes. The end of the first day will see women’s music groups take the stage. We will have a good time as women all together. We will experience the joy of women’s solidarity.” Koca, stressing that they would discuss what action can be taken in the women’s struggle for freedom and problematic focus points, says, “We will address topics with such headings as patriarchal capitalism, women’s fear of independence, forms of violence, war and militarism, migrant and refugee women, self-defence, ecology and women and LGBTI individuals. At the end of the conference, in turn, we will discuss methods of organisation. We will address such topics as the action we can take in the women’s struggle in the coming period.”
 
We are trying to cross thresholds
 
Gamze Özkök notes that in recent times helplessness and hopelessness has been imposed on women. Özkök says that, in the face of this imposition, Purple Solidarity stands against darkness and hope is with women. She talks about their activities over the one year they have left behind them as follows: “We placed certain thresholds before us. We endeavoured to cross these thresholds in the course of one year. We conducted activities in neighbourhoods and saw that women knew nothing. We saw that we could give tangible form to certain things on coming into contact with them. We went from door to door, house to house. We met women at bulgur salad days and on panels and seminars. We went out onto the street with women who had never done so on that day and got up to things. We set up women’s assemblies in our neighbourhoods and waged struggle. We took steps at these assemblies to enable women themselves to take decisions over their own lives. We set up psychology and law committees to promote psychology and law services that women have great difficulty accessing in their neighbourhoods. Coming side by side at various workshops, we staged self-defence and consciousness raising workshops.” Özkök, recalling the adage, “Women are women's worst enemy,” comments, “We were not the ones who said this. Women can quite easily get on with one another. We have great love for one another.” Özkök, saying that they will come together with women by speaking at the conference, exchanging ideas and having fun, invites all women to the conference.