The role of free co-life in the construction of socialism
Nora Merino
“Socialism can only be achieved through the liberation of women. One cannot be socialist without women’s freedom. My first test of socialism is knowing how to speak with a woman. Whoever does not know how to speak with a woman cannot be socialist. A man’s socialism is related to the way he relates to women.”
In his 8th of March message, this is how Rêber Apo referred to the link between socialism and men’s relationships with women. He establishes the foundation of socialism in women’s liberation, and specifically focuses on evaluating a man’s socialism through his relationship with women. By “knowing how to speak with a woman,” we can think he refers to men’s attitude, knowledge, and understanding toward women and their capacity to weave relationships that overcome hegemonic patterns of thought and behavior, to move toward liberating relationships that contribute to socialism.
Identifying the Problem
The foundation of socialism is society. The foundation of society, in turn, is the relationships of coexistence between the individuals who make up that society. Therefore, we must ask ourselves: what is the situation and reality of social relationships today? Whether romantic relationships, companionship, friendship, or family relationships, the reality we encounter is that society is blocked by power relationships that benefit the hegemonic system and prevent the construction or strengthening of a democratic society and free coexistence. The foundation of this is the ideology and culture of domination generated over thousands of years in which man is placed as dominant and woman as oppressed.
Every revolution and struggle for socialism needs science. Science allows us to analyze and understand society’s situation and its socio-historical reality. Revolution, in turn, aims to solve society’s problems on a sociological basis. Analyzing the problems that society experiences – those things that do not allow society to live and develop on its moral and political foundations – and understanding the origins of these problems is necessary to be able to work on overcoming them and building alternatives. Situations that occur in nature cannot be defined as problems. Rather, we define social problems as those that spoil society’s ethical and political consciousness. Masculinity and femininity are phenomena that reproduce in all living beings, but this does not pose any problem in nature. The problem stems from socially constructed masculinity and femininity, and the meaning of the relationship between both in human society. Thus, understanding the origin of social problems like the man-woman domination relationship will contribute to the solution.
If we observe from a historical perspective, we see that humanity’s first contradiction was gender-based; different institutions, relationships, and social thought were built on the foundation of the ‘dominant man – oppressed woman’ relationship. We are not talking about an individual relationship between a man and a woman, but rather a mentality and culture that was imposed on society and all the ways it relates. It would be erroneous to take this as simply a matter between men and women, as it also exists between woman and society, society and nature, adults and children… But if we manage to liberate woman-man relationships, which is the foundation of the conflict, we can achieve liberation of the rest of these relationships.
As Rêber Apo says:
A research method devoid of women’s reality, a struggle for equality and freedom that does not place women at the center, cannot reach truth, cannot guarantee equality and freedom. […] First of all, defining woman and determining her role in social life is essential for a correct life. We do not express this judgment based on woman’s biological characteristics and social condition. The concept of woman as a being is important. To the extent that woman is defined, it is also possible to define man. We cannot correctly define woman and life based on man. Woman’s natural existence is in a more central position.
Here, Jineolojî gains special importance as the science of women and life, as well as the science of free co-life. We know what the situation of women was after the great socialist revolutions of the 20th century for which they fought so hard. The influence of positivist science as well as sexism and nationalism in real socialism were reasons why, once again, women’s reality was not taken into account in sociological analysis and in the understanding and definition of socialism itself. Women were moved from the center to the peripheries of revolution. The examples of the USSR, Cuba, China, or the Revolution of ’36 in Spain are some of the most evident examples. What changes did they make in social mentality and culture regarding relationships between women and men? How were the achievements obtained by women through their struggle systematized? What role did women come to have in society? Despite the great contributions of socialist revolutions to humanity, unfortunately the answers to these questions are scarce. The difficult and questionable relationships that great thinkers and revolutionaries like Marx, Lenin, or Che Guevara himself maintained with women remind us again of the importance of Rêber Apo’s words with which we began this article.
Free Co-life as a Concept
The original concept in Kurdish is hevjiyana azad, made up of the words hev (co, together, joint), jiyan (life), and azad (free). The concept emerged from a long experience of analysis and practice and historical and sociological deepening by Rêber Apo, and entered as such into the Kurdistan Freedom Movement’s agenda from 2011, after Rêber Apo wrote about it in his fifth defense writing “The Kurdish Question and the Solution of the Democratic Nation” from the prison-island of Imrali.
We can speak mainly of two types of coexistence. On one hand, hegemonic coexistence. Hegemony is a form of domination that is not imposed only through force, but is built by persuading and convincing, and in this way becomes the norm outside of which it is difficult to think. Hegemonic relationships between men and women are based on sexuality; political, philosophical, cultural, friendship, and companionship aspects are forgotten. What kind of satisfaction and happiness can relationships give that do not take all these aspects into account? Men and women are not solely biological existences that are content with responding only to their instincts and desires. Furthermore, as we have mentioned, these hegemonic relationships are formed by an ideology and culture that assumes one part must be dominant and the other dominated. In contrast, free co-life is based on relationships that go beyond individual freedom, understanding that this is not possible without collective freedom and vice versa, and will be the foundation of a democratic society. It seeks to build ecological relationships, in balance with the environment, where respect of will is an inalienable principle. There no room for domination and oppression; rather, mutual strengthening.
Family and the Democratic Family
The family is not separate from politics. On the contrary, the family is a political and ideological institution. Within the family, people are prepared for life outside. Most likely, if a person learns a democratic mentality and culture within a family, their social life will be that way. If within the family they learn domination-oppression, they will act in the same way socially. Of course, there are other institutions that also impact personality, but one of the most important is the family. At the same time, if a regime, system, ideology, or movement wants to triumph, it will be able to have an impact on society and maintain itself over time only to the extent that it establishes a mentality and culture within the family. History is full of examples of this. Both domination systems and dictatorial regimes, or liberal and social democratic states, as well as real socialism systems and their parties, have tried to shape the family based on their interests to be able to have power in society. Some anarchist and feminist movements have rejected the family institution throughout history and have advocated for its elimination. Today we find many examples of liberal movements or parties increasingly imposing individualism on the family, while right-wing or fascist organizations focus on the sacredness of the classic and conservative family. Based on interests, this can change depending on time and space. But we are aware that the problems experienced within the family, and the state mentality and culture reproduced within it, will not be solved only by rejecting the family and its destruction. As Rêber Apo says, “the family is a social institution that cannot be overcome, but can be transformed.”
With this perspective, considering the field of coexistence as one of the main topics of science, one of the issues that Jineolojî focuses on is research and sociological understanding of the family and analysis of difficulties and possibilities for converting it into a democratic family. As we advance on the path toward democratic society, questions arise. To what extent can we build free co-life, if in the family we learn to relate based on domination and oppression? As socialists, how can we live communally and work collectively, if in our families we are shaped through individualism? As the stem cell of society, the family has a direct impact on it. Hence, the democratization of the family will have a democratizing impact on society. Just as the nuclear family is the micro-image of the state, the democratic family can become the micro-image of democratic society (or socialism).
Love
When speaking of relationships and free co-life, one of the main topics that surely comes to our mind is love. Thinking and debating around love will help understand the depth of the issue. Rêber Apo defines capitalist modernity as a system based on the denial of love. In the name of love, great crimes, murders, and violations are carried out. What is called love today is more related to the obsession with possessing and has more to do with consumerism and private property characteristics of the capitalist system than with what love really is. Capitalist modernity fragmented life between public and private and imposed individualism through the ideology of liberalism. In this separation, love was relegated to the private sphere. In reality, there is nothing that is separate from society, from the time and space we inhabit. Capitalist modernity uses the arts, sports, and sex industries to numb, manipulate, and control society. These activities developed and practiced by human beings for thousands of years as forms of social connection and development of communal values today turn against us in the form of industries that control the largest percentages of the globalized world’s economy. In the name of freedom, women are sold as sexual products. The sexual policies of the hegemonic system develop relationships within society that lead us toward a meaningless life in the name of freedom and love. In this system, wherever we look, everything is sexualized, and it is one of the main topics of conversation, as well as one of the greatest concerns. With all this, love is confused with sexual desire. But love goes much further than the body and erotic desire. The property and dependency relationships that develop, enable the capitalist system to ensure its continuity in the name of love. Likewise, capitalism’s inherent consumerism has also been imposed on relationships, where we can often see how people, bodies, emotions, hearts are consumed… all to escape from the solitude to which individualism condemns us.
Capitalist modernity, by promoting sexism like a cancer, is destroying society in the name of love, when true love is the emotion of feeling participant in the formation of the universe. – Rêber Apo
We would not exaggerate if we said that the main feeling through which human beings feel deep connection with life is love. Whether because of the incredible vitality we can feel within ourselves when we love or because of how painful life becomes when that love becomes loss. And that is humanity’s great tragedy. The loss of love. The manipulation of love. With this, doesn’t it become a revolutionary responsibility to save love from tragedy? To return its authentic meaning to it. And the fact is that love cannot be understood if not from freedom, and vice versa. The love-freedom relationship must be an organic and symbiotic relationship. One requires the other. Because as Rêber Apo says, love is a free life. Love becomes motive and objective. Love is the main topic of debate, concern, doubts, and at the same time is also one of humanity’s main searches. Everyone seeks love, wants to define it, feel it. Science says that love is chemical reactions produced by hormones. When these chemical reactions end, love ends. Sociology says that when two people in love end their relationship, they should spend 30 days without speaking to be able to overcome the pain of loss. Is love perhaps just numbers and hormones? Is humanity’s greatest search really something so simple?
It is necessary to liberate love from the classic definition that has frozen and imprisoned it. But for this, we first have to ask ourselves: am I prepared to liberate love from this definition? In the same way it attacks our mind and imposes a way of thinking on us, the system also attacks our feelings and imposes a way of feeling on us. Therefore, just as it is important to stop thinking like the system, it is also important to stop feeling like the system.
Likewise, we need to go beyond and overcome the individualist conception of love as someting just between two people, in order to understand love’s social character. In this way, we will understand love’s connection with the environment, with society, with history, and even with the universe. It is necessary then, to deepen love’s social character, to take it beyond the limits of a relationship between two people, and build what Rêber Apo calls a “collective love” and a “personality of love that makes you capable of loving millions.” Thus love has a social and universal character. Social and collective love is one of the foundations of free co-life relationships and a socialist personality.
A woman-man relationship that separates from its society is like a tree that separates from its earth. It is also important to think about how we can build free co-life relationships in a dominant system that enslaves. A bird builds a nest before laying its eggs. At the same time, a bird does not build the nest just anywhere. So, where do we create our nest? If it is in a place of slavery, oppression, violence, birds capable of flying will not be born. Therefore it is important to ask: are the relationships we have at the service of our struggle for freedom or are they at the service of the system? Do they empower us, make us grow on the path toward freedom? Or do they make us reproduce the system’s ideology? Can I build free relationships when society is not free? There are many questions we can and should ask ourselves. We find that the first and most important step is to turn our strength and energy toward the struggle for freedom. We must know ourselves, cleanse ourselves from the personalities and mentalities imposed by the system that converts us into its most faithful representatives, and we must give meaning to our emotions, and educate and organize them. And make all of this a social culture. It is not enough to respond “yes, I have done it.” For this would be falling again into liberal positions that take individual freedom as a foundation. Rather, the relationships we develop have to build ethical and political values for society and contribute to the construction of democratic society.
