Yesterday, the Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP) announced the “A Call For Democracy, Justice, and Peace” declaration after visiting many cities in Turkey. “A perspective without women is doomed to fail,” HDP Batman MP Ayşe Acar Başaran says women will be the pioneers of the new life

SARYA DENIZ/MEDİNE MAMEDOĞLU

Amed – Yesterday, the Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP) announced the “A Call For Democracy, Justice, and Peace” declaration on main problems in Turkey, their solutions, and their interlocutors. The HDP members visited 60 provinces, hundreds of districts, towns, and neighborhoods within the scope of HDP’s campaign called, “We are HDP, We are everywhere” before the announcement of the declaration. Women also held meetings with people, NGOs, opinion leaders, and many democratic organizations. In the meetings, problems in the country were discussed. After meetings, the Kurdish question, economic crisis anti-democratic practices, and attacks on rights and freedoms were determined as the first problems that must be resolved. The HDP prepared and announced the declaration after holding meetings.

Urgent steps should be taken for women

In the declaration, the HDP says, “We want to change the Executive Presidential System” and declares that they are ready for negotiation. “Rights pertaining to gender equality and freedom for women should be assured in every way possible and to achieve equality in representation the practice of co-chairship should be disseminated further. At the same time, it is a necessity to fight against systematic male violence towards women and femicides. Re-enacting the Istanbul Convention and implementing it fully, eliminating political, administrative, economic, and cultural barriers in front of gender equality are among the urgent first steps that need to be taken,” the HDP highlights in the declaration.

We interviewed with HDP Batman MP Ayşe Acar Başaran about the declaration, the agenda in Turkey, and recent debates on who is the interlocutor in resolving the Kurdish question.

*HDP announced a declaration yesterday. Women visited many cities before the announcement of the declaration. Could you please tell us about your visits?

We, as HDP, always aim to be with all women, workers, laborers, youth, and poor people. We thought we should be more active while women, youth, and poor people suffer more from the economic crisis. As Women’s Council of the HDP, we launched a campaign against injustice. It was a long-term campaign. When we first visited the people, we also wanted to see how our campaign would evolve. We saw that the agenda of women, society was different from the agenda of politics. The AKP-MHP coalition has drawn a picture for Turkey but we saw that this picture has no meaning when we talked to citizens.

“The worst economic crisis in history”

Injustice is getting worse every day. We saw the effects of poverty on women. After holding meetings with citizens, we understand the current economic crisis is the worst economic crisis in history. Citizens work in fields, factories for hours to earn a living for their families but they live from hand to mouth. They work without guarantee and they cannot see any future for themselves. Women feel the economic crisis in their lives. The ruling party causes trauma in society while trying to hold its power. Especially, young people have no expectations from the government and they have no plan for the future. We tried to meet with people from every walk of life. People complain about the government’s policy dividing people.

“Women led the change”

*HDP Co-chair Pervin Buldan made an opening speech at the meeting of Women Council and she said, “We will achieve much more than we have achieved so far and we will present all achievements to all women in the country and all around the world.” Could women be one of the actors of the declaration?

In fact, if we look at the current situation in Turkey and all countries, we can understand that politics without women is doomed to fail. The third world war is ongoing in the Middle East. In this war, there are the right-wing populist male-dominated part and women’s struggles for freedom, ecological-democratic system. We can see the fight between these two parts in Rojava. Today, a new system is being built and a perspective in building a new life without women is doomed to fail. The 21^st century will be the century of women. Women will be the pioneers of the new life. Today in Turkey, there is a struggle for life under the leadership of women against the monist perspective formed by the government. HDP is a women’s party. Women are in the centers of all works of our party. We, as women, led the change in Turkey. We have achieved many successes and become pioneers with the co-presidency system and libertarian system of the Kurdish women's movement. We believe that the organized struggle of women will defeat the male-dominated war alliances.

*One of the main problems of Turkey is the Kurdish question. Recently, there are debates on who is the interlocutor in resolving the Kurdish question. What do you want to say about these debates?

Actually, the Kurdish question in Turkey is a general question. In recent years, we have seen that a policy of intimidation has been carried out by a century-old policy of denial. Who is the interlocutor in resolving the Kurdish question? The answer to this question exists in the experiences both in the world and in Turkey. Today, the problem is the biggest problem against democratization in the country. The methods and solutions to this problem are clear. The important thing is to take a step to resolve this problem. In fact, this problem affects mostly women. Women are affected by the policy of denial and war. Many times, they have demanded the Kurdish question be resolved in a democratic way. Hundreds of our comrades are held as hostages in prisons for carrying out democratic politics.