The foundation of the Kurdish Women’s Initiative in Scotland has been announced in the capital, Edinburgh, Diren Dicle Erden from the daily Yeni Özgür Politika reported.

The initiative was founded in the context of expanding and organising activities of the Kurdish Women’s Initiative in the UK, and its management structure consists of twelve women.

The Initiative aims for women from all parts of Kurdistan to act in partnership, and plans to set up a council within a short period. There have been many discussions ahead of the Initiative being founded, and Elif Xeyal, co-chair of the Kurdish People’s Council in the UK and Besime Başar, joint spokesperson for the Kurdish Women’s Initiative in the UK also took part in the foundation meeting. Emine Al and Özlem Şimşek became joint spokeswomen for the Kurdish Women’s Initiative in Scotland.

Kurdish women have been increasingly organising in Scotland in the past recent years. It is one of a number of countries in which the Kurdish population is increasing. Kurds in Scotland are mainly concentrated in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and families face serious problems such as integration, work and language. As ever, it is the women who face the largest share of these problems. Women can also be faced with harassment and racist attitudes in a number of areas, particularly as a result of difficulties with integration and language.

The Initiative timed the announcement of their foundation with the anniversary of the beginning of the international conspiracy to capture Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdish people, on 9 October 1998. They condemned the conspiracy, and stressed that they intended to increase the free women’s struggle. The spokeswomen for the Initiative said that they intended to create an organisation to work to tackle all problems women face.

“We believe that we will create a wide sphere of organisation in Scotland by making the Women’s Freedom Struggle more organised along the lines of Zilan, Sakine and Beritan [women martyrs to the Kurdish freedom struggle].”

‘We will meet with women’s organisations’

Emine Al, spokesperson for the Kurdish Women’s Initiative in Scotland, said, “The Initiative is an important step towards forming a council. We will form relationships with local women as well as Kurdish women. There are women here who know the Kurdish freedom struggle. We have women friends from other ethnic groups and there are other women’s organisations too.

We also aim to work in solidarity with Turkish revolutionary women’s institutions too.”

Children who do not understand racism close in on themselves

Al said that thousands of Kurds live in Scotland and they are an important part of the population. “There are large numbers of Kurdish families from West and South Kurdistan. There is a large flow of migrants from West Kurdistan {Kurdistan in Syria]. Language and integration are very serious problems. There are also serious problems regarding children and young people.

There are problems brought about from not learning the language or not being able to find solutions to other things from not knowing the language. Difficulties in finding work, or problems of identity, manifest themselves in different ways. Children can be unable to understand problems they are experiencing at school. For example if they are faced with racism they cannot understand it. Instead of fighting against this they close inwards on themselves. Whereas we need to rise above problems of identity and culture. To do this we have to preserve and develop our own identity and also initiate activities to overcome language and similar problems.

Response to the plot

Al emphasised that the women’s liberation ideology of Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan had paved the way for the development and growth of the freedom struggle of Kurdish and other Middle Eastern women: “We know the importance Öcalan gives to the Kurdish Women’s Freedom Struggle. The women’s struggle is growing and developing in all parts of Kurdistan. The Rojava [Syrian Kurdistan] revolution has given women great hope all across the world, because this revolution was a women’s revolution created by Öcalan. We have announced the foundation of our Women’s Initiative as a response to the 9 October plot against Öcalan. We women will have given the strongest possible response to fascism and capitalist modernity against the plot, by spreading Öcalan’s democratic, ecological, women’s liberationist paradigm in every field. In this way we condemn the plot one more time.”

Besime Başar, spokesperson for the Kurdish Women’s Initiative in the UK, stressed that the model of the women’s struggle and the women’s liberation ideology were the basic sphere of struggle against all inequalities, violence and racism; “This model of the women’s liberationist struggle developed by Öcalan has been a source of inspiration in women’s struggles from Rojava to Turkey, to Europe and many places in the world. This women’s liberationist model has also achieved an important level of organisation in Scotland today. As Kurdish women we have given the strongest possible response to the 9 October plot by organising in Europe as everywhere else.”