Canda Su …..
We object to the understanding of history in which time is detached from space, explained with the moment lived, and that moment carried into today through writing, stone tablets, reliefs. Of course we value this knowledge, but beside this we believe that history is a living thing just like time. Just as the time goes by so does history. Just as time is the result of the past moment and the origin of the coming one, we believe that history as well is imprinted from past to today in our social memory and flows continuously in our genetic map. We take history as a moment, a place, a memory that guides us in the flow of our lives instead of a firmly defined phenomenon. We claim that the understanding of time as a series of events and phenomena attached one after another in a straight line is against the time’s spirit. We claim a cyclical feminine concept of time against the masculine rectilinear time. We want to stream into the future by giving meaning to the flow of life in the moment as well as embarking on an excavation at the source of time. In the cults of Ana Fatma, in fairy tales, in the love of Mem u Zin, in the songs of dengbêj, in the New Year rituals and in many other phenomena we are intending to find our lost truth, to restore our bond with the universe. We believe wholeheartedly that starting such an excavation all together with Jineoloji is an important step that we will take into the free life.
Indeed, we are living in a century that the social, temporal, spatial cohesion is broken into its atoms. This cohesion that is being broken down in the name of science is also threatening the inseparableness of life with the place and time. The life deprived of its truth has virtually declared an alarm. We hear this scream not only in human life, but also in all living and non-living natural life. Depleted resources, extreme population growth, life disconnected from time and place, stocks of nuclear arms, moral bonds devoid of meaning, extinct creatures, extinct languages, an alienated mass of human beings. It is obvious that the root of all these disasters that we can keep naming the reason is based on mathematics and law. It is very important to analyse well the roots of the mentality that approaches the universe and the time as the universe’s flow as phenomena that needs to be dominated and controlled through rigid laws instead of treating them as living organisms. It is true that the approach that initiates history with the invention of writing and attributes this to the Sumerians ignoring the 98% of the history of humanity, which includes the initial socialization process that preceded the invention of writing, constitutes the foundations of the positivist mentality. Inarguably the mentality of the Sumerian priests prevails with the scientists. Or else, how do we explain the disasters that occurred in a time span that might be considered so short for the universe!
Forasmuch it is known that, while this time span is expressed in thousands of years for the societies, the universe has existed for millions of years. While history dealing with the living beings, especially the humans, is an expression of the time of a progressive development, it is known that various time cycles, particularly the seasons, are indispensable for the formation of the living beings. Just as there is no existence without time, the fact that time is also a being is accepted by all the different currents of thought. Also, it is known that every existence has its own notion of time. But this does not mean that different beings do not or cannot have a unity.
In terms of place, societies that have been the cradle of the existence of rich vegetation, water sources and animals constitute a stronger ground. The search for the lost truth of humanity in Mesopotamia and not in the earth’s poles reveals the cohesion of place with time and its significance. We do not hesitate to say that, indeed, today the real war in Mesopotamia, where all the world powers piled up their war stock, is based on impeding the forces of the democratic civilization, that is women, peoples, cultures, faiths and many other forces searching for their truth, to advance towards the construction of their own system for the first time in history. It is true that the real aim is to suppress the resistance of the forces of democratic civilization that is on the verge of attaining a system under the name of Democratic Modernity led by the esteemed Abdullah Öcalan.
It is important to explain how the human being, searching for its truth in mythology, religion, philosophy and sciences in every stage of history with different methods, drifted apart from free life. Even the conjunction ‘either/or’ on its own points out to the divisions such as subjective-objective, idealist-materialist, that dominates the human thought. Rather, approaches such as ‘and/or’ that are connective and based on the strengthening of connections instead of deepening the discrepancies of the binarisms, are more determining. Dealing with these binaries that played an important role in the systematization of the capitalist civilization, as a form of abstract history serves the current power structures. But we think that Democratic Modernity’s understanding of history is one of a concrete history that comes from within life, in which not the values of power but of all kinds of cultures accumulate. And we believe that the creation of efficient forms of mentality and will for this kind of an historical understanding is possible with the historical approach that esteemed Abdullah Öcalan expressed as “The History of Liberty (social history)”. We treat history within a context that is predicated upon bringing together societies with their temporal and spatial reality and that is united with the nature rather than expressing it as the work of individuals outside of the society.
As Jineoloji, we aim to bring into light the values of the forces of democratic modernity and especially of women that have been left in the dark, to forge strong bonds between the differences of every being as well as respecting these differences and look at history from an inclusive point of view. We sense that we are standing at the right point most of all through the bond between women and nature, through our menstrual cycles that stand outside the universal male notion of time. Indeed, when we look at the other creatures’ lives, we can see that cyclical time expresses femininity and linear time masculinity. While the origins of cylicity become woman’s menstrual cycle, we feel that she goes beyond the universal male notion of time with her menstrual cycles that unite with the moon. Even if we do not know for sure, we sense that the origins of cyclicity mean menstruation. We believe that, just as such an understanding of time in contrast to exact, determining and progressive male notion of time incorporates everything about life, nature, society, it will also be a river that will safeguard the most their differences and carry them into the future.
Although we pursue the goal of rewriting woman’s history, we will neither do it by appending women to the existent historicity nor will we approach it by only putting a woman’s stamp on history. Principally, as Jineoloji, we will assume the reconstruction of the society and the life by questioning the existent historical framework, by taking all of the experiences of women, which existed until today, as a base. Do not let it be misunderstood, when we talk about Jineoloji we are not talking about an understanding of science under the control of certain segments. Contrarily, we will expose the disasters caused by the scientific understanding that places itself at the center and that is detached from the society and history. When we say Jineoloji, we want to remark that every individual, every entity, every group, every clan and every investigation that is inside life, that is on a determined quest of deciphering the codes of collective memory, that is conscious of being a living member of a culture, a tradition, a ritual and of history existing in the lands where it is born, that manages to look at life from the perspective of women and that feels that it is the real meaning of life, is part of Jineoloji.
For this site, we are looking forward to research essays on these matters. And we would like to state that, we are conscious of the fact that the living history, the oral history carry on with us, and thus this kind of knowledge is very important. We should not forget that we are the successors of people whose souls and bodies mingled with soil and nurture the roots of our family tree and that the collective history persists with us. As that is the only way we can give real meaning to the moment we are living in. In this way we will feel deeply how valuable we are, as people who unite with time, space and the society in the excavation that we will undertake with the lead of Jineoloji.
We are living in a century that, generations who have an idea about everything but do not know anything exactly multiply. That is why we are the generations with the most responsibility to give meaning to time. On the other hand we have the advanced technique and access to knowledge that can give us the opportunity to get to know, to feel and to give meaning to centuries and generations living together. If only we can learn how to fly with the magic wings of pursuit! The history continues in the lived moment. The Middle-East knows, feels and lives this in the deepest way. We are inviting everyone to history in the moment, the moment in history and a voyage departing from both to the future; everyone who insists on nurturing the hope that takes sides with love, freedom, peace and comradeship, in their hearts and minds….