Against the capitalists, religious sects, and rogues!
Do not clench your teeth, clench your fists!
March 8 is the name of the struggle of working women against poverty, slave labor and war, at the beginning of the previous century. It is the day of working women, it is our day.
What the AKP government is inflicting on us today is no different from what happened a hundred years ago. Poverty, exploitation, violence… On top of that, the rights we have won through struggle until now are today under attack. The AKP has no tolerance for us being in life, demanding our rights, demanding equality. That’s why they are promoting religious sects. That’s why they are fueling violence against women. That’s why, hand in hand with the capitalists, they are trying to make us suffer from poverty, to forcefully make us accept lesser evil.
The bourgeois opposition has at least as much share in this dark period created by the AKP. For years they have supported these developments by abandoning secularism, turning their face to right-wing policies such as AKP, trying to please the capitalists. They saw women only as a decoration and vote counts. They even tried to justify the sins of Akşener (*the leader of the right-wing nationalist Good Party, formed by ex-MHP members), who is a bloody fascist, by the fact that she is a woman. They are all but the same…
We will get rid of AKP, and those who call for caliphates, those fascists with blood on their hands! But it won’t end with them… Those who make us work for pennies in the workplaces, those who are responsible for our poverty, those who foment religiosity, those who plunder our lands, those who drain our waters and forests? All of them will be confronted by us!
They are afraid of this, all of them, all at once, and they are scared to death… They are afraid that the women they condemn to violence, exploitation and futurelessness will unite with their class. That is why they are trying to steal March 8, our day, from us. They are supposedly gathering for March 8, but there is no mention of the women who work without insurance for less than minimum wage, who are subjected to bullying and usurpation of their rights while working. On March 8, a journalist may choose to pose a microphone to former TÜSİAD (Turkish Industry and Business Association) President Ümit Boyner instead of a working woman. Boyner, who is responsible for our poverty, is also talking about it: The reason for violence against women is the widespread lack of “kindness”, but the business world is different. They would organize projects for women, create jobs, and give funds to women associations. As the Republican bourgeoisie, they did their best for the Republic. Boyner does not talk about how they exploited women, how they liquidated the Republic hand in hand with the AKP, how they plundered this country. We will rid this country of capitalists, holdings and TÜSİAD!
We don’t have wealth, millions or holdings. We only have our labor and struggle in this life. And our credit card debts, bills, installments to be paid… We don’t even know what will happen to us today in this system, let alone thinking about tomorrow. Are we going to be fired from our jobs, is our landlord going to kick us out, is our furniture going to be seized, are we going to face violence… All of these are possibilities for women like us who cannot make ends meet in this system.
We have been living for others all our lives. Not only because we make money for the employers… but also because everyone around us expects care, love, attention, devotion, compassion from us… Because we have to work separately at work and also at home… Because we are burdened with the nurseries that the capitalists do not offer and the care homes that the state does not provide… Because it is left to us to take care of those who cannot access the privatized health and education system… And because we are the ones who suffer the greatest poverty, the greatest debt, the greatest unemployment, the greatest contempt, the greatest violence, despite all our labor, all our efforts, all the years we have given out of our lives… But we only come to this life once and we want to live for ourselves.
However, we are aware that in such a social order there will never be peace and safety for us. Every one of us knows this, we live it, we see it…
We have the right to divorce, we cannot exercise it. We have the right to work, we are the most unemployed. We have the right to live, we are murdered every day. The laws that function like clockwork for the capitalists, for the rich, do not function when it comes to us. Those in the parliament who make the biggest fuss for the continuity of this social order don’t even make a sound when eight women are murdered in one day. Whatever happens to us in this system, we are alone with our tragedy. Our biggest tragedy is waking up to such an order every day.
Until now, they have always told us to be patient, to clench our teeth. But no more! We working women want to put an end to this tragedy and wake up from this nightmare. We want what we deserve, we want a humane life. We want an end to this violence and exploitation.
We want the religious sects and cults to be disbanded. Because as more and more room is given to sects, cults and religious mongering in this country, the room for us women to breathe is shrinking. Because whatever our beliefs are, violence against women increases the most with the spread of religious reaction in society. That is why we write the struggle for secularism next to the struggle for equality.
We demand free kindergartens, nursing homes and food halls in neighborhoods and workplaces. We want to get rid of all the drudgery imposed on us. We demand equal pay for equal work in every sector. We want free, secular and scientific education. We want free healthcare, transportation, housing, heating, energy and water. We know that all of these can be realized if the resources of this country are used to serve the people, not the capitalists.
We are fed up with politicians who take the people for fools, municipalities that serve rent-seekers using our taxes. We now want to get rid of the rogues* (The municipal elections slogan of TKP). For this, as members of Women’s Solidarity Committees, we ran for mayorships from TKP in 76 different parts of Turkey, and hundreds of us ran for municipal council memberships.
We are aware that the projects and associations of Ümit Boyner and people like her are promoting will not mean any kind of liberation for women. We do not want the liberation of one or five of us, we want our liberation together. We working women want the bourgeois order to end. We want to build a secular, equal and independent socialist republic together. We know that if we stand side by side in neighborhoods, workplaces and campuses, we can turn all these demands into a reality. That is why on March 8, we call on all women who cannot see a way out of this system to strengthen the struggle for socialism, together with the Women’s Solidarity Committees.
March 8 is the day of working women trying to fight with exploitation, poverty and violence, it is our day. Long live March 8, International Working Women’s Day!
Against the capitalists, religious sects, and rogues!
Do not clench your teeth, clench your fists!