by PERMANENT ASSEMBLY AGAINST THE WAR
This year contesting male, domestic and patriarchal violence on the 25th of November means saying NO to war! We stand with women and lgbtqi+ people that from Palestine to Iran, from Ukraine to Italy, from France to Turkey are claiming with their relentless struggles for their lives, against subordination in the houses and in the workplaces, against systematic rape used as a weapon of war and to attack the women’s movements. As Permanent Assembly Against the War we have seen, since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and with the beginning of the genocidal war in Gaza, how the violence of the war, beyond the unbearable massacres and starvation, has further legitimized violence against women, racism, and exploitation not only where the war is being fought. For this reason, fighting against patriarchal violence means to struggle against the war that is constraining women’s freedom all over the world, raising the level of acceptable violence in society and trying to shape a monolithic support to the war operations by erasing all internal opposition. Also where the war is not being fought, women are told that they need to be prepared to sacrifice for the eventuality of war, to be ready to bend their lives to make babies for the nation and work like crazy in the houses and outside to fill the voids left in a growingly underfunded welfare at the benefit of rearmament.
In Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinian men and women are resisting the Israeli bombs and assaults, and every effort goes into survival, all the while Palestinian women face patriarchal and male violence of the army and colonizers. While the Israeli government is using the LGBTQIA* movement to present its war operation to destroy Palestine as a liberal enterprise, Israeli deserters are undermining this fake “democratic” narrative with their refusal to submit to the war imperatives. In Ukraine, talks about mandatory conscription of women to solve the problem that they don’t find enough men ready to die for the nation, find a powerful response in women fleeing and helping men escaping the draft, and Ukrainian refugees in Germany protest against Zelensky’s coercive attempt to refuse them the passports and bring them back to die. At the same time Putin continues to appeal to Russian women to send their kids to die for his aggression in Ukraine, who are in turn rejecting their role as supposed mothers of the patriots. On 25th November we say that the fight against patriarchal domination we are building across the borders aims exactly to the opposite than an equal participation in the slaughter. What we aim to build with our struggles is exactly the opposite than a nation of patriots.
Iran is repressing women’s protests seeking freedom to study, live and move without a male guardian, like the action staged by Ahoo Daryaei in front of Azad’s University in Teheran and the thousands strong march in North-East Syria against the death sentence of the Kurdish activist Varisheh Moradi. While cherished by many as a pro-Palestine hero of resistance, the Islamic Republic continues to enforce an authoritarian regime within and at its borders, forging alliances with fundamentalist actors in the region to shut down the movement ‘Woman, life, freedom’ that is opposing both the war and patriarchy. This while planning to deport 2 million Afghan migrants by spring 2025 and building over 300 kilometers of walls in the eastern part of the country. At the same time, cries against war and militarism are growing: the slogan “Stop the war and think about the people” has become a core chant in workers’ and retirees’ protests in Iran these days. The same is happening in Turkey, where Erdogan is hiding the detentions and killings of Kurdish activists, the removal of Kurdish administrators from municipalities and the bombing of Rojava with a similar strategy. Strong of his “mediation” role in the war in Palestine, its government deprives refugees from Gaza, Syria, Afghanistan of any legal status and secludes them in squalid camps. The attack on women, started with the withdrawal from the Istanbul convention to prevent male violence, continues in the refugee camps and against all internal opponents.
As men, women and lgbtqi+ who are fighting against the war and its logics, we know that patriarchal violence is legitimized and obfuscated as the violence of the war takes hold on everyday life. For this reason, we will take to the street and support feminist demonstrations organized in all sides of the world to denounce the murderous links between the war – from the massacre in Ukraine to the genocide in Palestine – and patriarchal violence. In France, under the slogan “boss, motherland and patriarchy: same fight”, demonstrations will connect the struggle against imperialism, racism and capitalist patriarchy with the one against sexist and sexual violence as a war weapon and an instrument to enforce exploitation in the workplace and obedience at home. In Germany, feminist movements will protest against rape as a strategic weapon used in the ongoing wars, and against the logics of militarism and virility that subjugate women and LGBTQIA* people, that promote patriarchal values, cut social programs and shrink the access to women’s shelters. In Italy the feminist movement Non Una di Meno will demonstrate in Rome under the banner “Let’s disarm patriarchy”. Women and feminists will march against the Meloni government, which is promoting militarism in schools and universities, attacking migrants by financing detention camps in Albania and the rapists of the Tunisian coast guards, while tirelessly promoting women’s subaltern role in the family and their exploitation in productive and reproductive labour. In Turkey, the march to reclaim the night in Istanbul will be united in the shout “Jin Jiyan Azadi”, connecting the struggle against patriarchal violence that wants to make women a property with that against state violence and against the massacre of the Kurdish people. Feminists, LGBTQIA* and women in Turkey will join those in Iran who are risking their lives for their freedom.
As Permanent Assembly Against the War we are part of these demonstrations to say out loud that we are on the side of the women, men and LGBTQIA* people who are fighting against patriarchal violence and with those who continue to refuse to be enlisted in the fronts of war. If the war divides us, the struggle against patriarchal violence unites us. Stop patriarchal violence, stop the war!
