Öcalan’s works showed me the hidden history of women: Macedonian activist

In an exclusive interview for Medya News, recorded on 1 December, Macedonian woman activist Marija Arsenkova describes the situation of women in Macedonia, with practical examples from her political works organising women there.

Arsenkova, who is also active with the Academy of Democratic Modernity, which is based on the political paradigm developed by imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, talks about the inspiration she found in reading his writings and how they have reshaped her political and social views.

She also recounts her experiences as part of a delegation visiting various Kurdish press institutions, such as the all-female Jin TV (Women’s TV) and Newaya Jin (Women’s Newspaper), and the Kurdish television stations Stêrk TV and Medya Haber.

Lastly, she talks about the political circumstances at the time of the delegation, such as the death sentences against Kurdish women activists in Iran and the outbreak of the war in northern Syria.

Read the full interview, lightly edited for clarity, here:

Medya News:

Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your background?

Marija Arsenkova:

Dembaş [Good day], my name is Marija Arsenkova. I come from Skopje, Macedonia and I’m part of the Dunja Collective, which is an anarcho-communist collective in Skopje. And I could say it’s the only autonomous space in the city right now. I’ve been organised with them for a while now.

But through this collective, and through this social centre actually, I also got into contact with the Academy of Democratic Modernity. So since last summer, I’ve been more and more actively involved in the works of the academy, helping and supporting their work whenever I can.

How would you describe the situation of women in Macedonia?

When I got involved with the works of the academy, I also started working for a women’s rights organisation in Macedonia. And this was my first really direct experience with this area. And I can tell you that the situation is horrible, as everywhere around the world.

For Macedonia, what is specifically more horrible is that the women don’t know that they’re being oppressed. They’re not aware that their freedom is still taken away from them. So they feel, in the Western liberal sense, relatively free. And they actually don’t feel the need for the women’s struggle, so they actively resist and oppose feminism and feminist thought. And they are drawn more to the conservative values of the patriarchal family in a kind of attempt to protect themselves from liberalism. So there is a big contradiction there. They’re a bit confused about it. Also, the violence against women is horrible. It’s getting worse and worse day by day.

Recently, there was a case which I want to tell you about as an example, to paint a picture. In the city of Veles a 14-year-old girl was being sex-trafficked by a group of men. And when this finally broke out, the police intervened. They arrested these men. What the judge then said in the court was, “we really need to think about where minors are moving [to], where they go.”

So [they were] putting the blame on the victim, like it was her fault that she was hanging out with certain people or going to certain places without realising… It should be safe everywhere for minors and children to move and to talk and to discuss [things] and to hang out. We see that the perpetrators are these men who are somehow sick in their minds. They’re psychopaths. But [according to the judge] it’s actually the girl who should be careful and be aware of this and protect herself. Completely the reverse of what is the truth, right?

And then the court actually gave out a sentence to these men that’s below the legal minimum sentence. The legal minimum for sex trafficking is eight years, and they got five years in prison. And right now, we’re trying to organise the women in Macedonia and the women’s movement to learn more about this case.

We have more or less direct contact with the girl who was being abused, but she’s under a lot of stress, so she doesn’t really want to go public with the whole case and organise. So it’s hard to both protect her feelings, her safety, and also to rise up against this completely unlawful and unjust sentence.

Thank you so much for describing the situation of women in Macedonia and giving us insights into the work that you’re doing. As you said before, you’re also part of the work of the Academy of the Democratic Modernity, which is inspired and influenced by the ideas of Abdullah Öcalan, the ideas of the paradigm of democratic confederalism and democratic modernity. Could you tell us what inspiration you took from Öcalan’s ideas and also how you apply them within your works?

The first brochure I read by Öcalan was about the ‘third way’, that is, the building of international solidarity as a third way. And I think maybe the first sentence that really gave me an ‘Aha!’ moment was that actually 90% of the people in the world are against the system and anti-systemic. They have this natural response and reaction against the violence and oppression of the system, but what they lack is organisation.

So this was already a big shift, because for a long time, I believed that people didn’t really care, or that they wanted to be part of the system. But when I looked back, I realised that every day people are talking about being treated poorly by their bosses at work, or losing the unreliable public services offered by the state. So they are always aware and analysing, but they need to come together and they need a strong ideological basis to actually act on these feelings.

And this was something that first blew my mind, I can say, this shift in perspective. So no, we’re not little, we’re not the minority. We are the majority. We just need to stand together. And then also, of course, another big revelation I had was the women’s liberation issue, which is central to liberation as a whole in general. And this is something I always felt, but I couldn’t find the words to express.

And for a long time, I was actually, as a woman, very angry at fellow women for not organising against this patriarchal system. I thought they’re complicit, they accept it. But Öcalan’s works and the education [courses] provided by the academy showed me the hidden history of women, showed me that they have always resisted, always, and they will continue resisting, even if it costs them their lives.

And this gave me so much motivation and inspiration, and it restored my faith in women, in my own gender. So this, and to come back to the point of democratic confederalism and the democratic nation, I think another thing that was really interesting for me was that in one of the education [courses], one of the hevals [Kurdish: friends] presented the structure of Rojava [North and East Syria] to us in a very visual way. So I remember looking at the structure, and if you just look at the form, it really resembles a state. Like there’s all these different committees for culture, education, health, like the different ministries.

And so a lot of people [see] this [as a] contradiction, so what is the difference then? But I intuitively understood that the difference is the essence [of hte Rijava structure], not its form. So its form, this is free, this can change depending on the needs and the circumstances, but its essence is to understand not that there is a government who is governing the people, but [that] this is a self-governance of people, this is a self-organisation of people, and they decide their structures, they decide their needs. So it’s a shift in mentality, and this is the real revolution. And another saying by Rêber Apo [Abdullah Öcalan] is that 95% of the revolution happens within.

So this is something that I really always knew in a very intuitive way, but now I have the words and the concepts to actually discuss it with my comrades as well, who are very much for organising, but they’re not so keen to self-analyse and discover the system within. So democratic confederalism, for me, is a way for the people to self-organise and defend themselves against the attacks of the capitalist modernity, which is always looking to exploit us, to abuse us, to oppress us.

At the moment you’re part of a women’s delegation which is visiting different Kurdish press institutions. For example, you saw Jin TV, the women-only Kurdish television. You also saw Newaya Jin, which is a newspaper being produced by women. And then today you also saw Stêrk TV and Medya Haber, two [more] Kurdish television stations. Could you tell us, like when visiting these press institutions, which was one thing that inspired you the most, or that maybe also surprised you the most?

First of all, what really inspired me was that the hevals told me this is the first such delegation. So it’s considered a historic moment in the history of the movement, and I was honoured to be invited to be part of it.

Another thing that always inspires me is to get in touch with other women, especially from my region, where we have a shared history [and] a shared culture, and to get to know them personally, but also as organisations and structures, to know what the actual capabilities are that we share, the talents that we all have, [and] that we can pull together and do something together.

But then coming to the delegation, finally, or coming to this tour, I have to say, I visited all these different media, but I was most touched by Jin TV, by the women’s television, simply because it was really inspiring to see how the women are not treating it as work or something to do for money, but they’re treating it as their mission, as their life, and they’re all very dedicated. They don’t mind getting up early in the morning. They don’t mind staying late. They don’t mind giving their effort, their soul, putting it into this work, and I’m sure this is the same for the mixed [gender] media. I realise this, but it’s always nice to see strong women acting together.

And also, I think it’s a very lucky or good moment, an opportune moment, to now visit the Kurdish free press, the Kurdish free media, because it’s a very tumultuous time, right? So we have first the death sentences [in Iran] of Pakhshan Azazi and Warishe Moradi. Pakhshan is a journalist, so it’s directly connected to the media work, and now we have an opportunity with women from the Balkans to organise in solidarity and to stop the death sentences and to abolish this death sentence in Iran altogether, right?

So it’s a good moment. And another good aspect of it is that right now, as we know, there’s chaos in Syria again, which started very unexpectedly. To be fully honest with you, I don’t understand all of the geopolitics behind it, so it’s been nice to be able to talk to the journalists, who have a deeper analysis and much more information than me, and they can explain the situation to me.

So now I realise a bit more what’s happening, because it’s a thing for people who are not so in touch with everything all the time. It’s very confusing with all the acronyms, with all the letters. Okay, so this is who, this is Turkey, this is Syria, but a heval sat down with me yesterday and actually explained the whole situation to me, and I also read a bit after that.

And now, of course, it’s very clear to me that this is an attack on Rojava. This is what’s happening. So it’s good that we’re here together, and we can learn more about it together, and we can organise to defend Rojava.