Nûrê Alkış, spokesperson of the Yazidi Women's Councils Roof Organization (SMJÊ), spoke to ANF about what 4 April, the birthday of Kurdish people's leader Abdullah Öcalan, means for Yazidi women.

Noting that five thousand years of patriarchal thought, together with the capitalist system, left Kurdish women, especially Yazidi women, face to face with extinction, Alkış said: “Kurdish women saw themselves thanks to the philosophy of Kurdish people's leader Abdullah Öcalan. We, as Yazidi women, saw ourselves in his ideas and have shaped our lives according to them.”

Reminding that Kurdish women were exposed to migration after the ISIS mercenaries attacked Shengal in 2014 (a massacre the Yazidi called the 73rd edict, or Ferman), Alkış drew attention to the fact that “as a people who have been subjected to genocide for the 73rd time, we know very well what it means to be a people wanted to be eliminated.”

‘The Yazidi society is courageous’

Noting that the Yazidi community has been a society that has defended its language, culture and religion to this day, the spokesperson of SMJÊ said: “Thanks to the majestic mountains in Shengal, the people defended themselves by resisting in these mountains during the genocide and continued their struggle. The war at that time was not the technological war we are facing today. Martyr Zerdeşt Şengalî used to say that ‘the Yazidis do not need courage, the Yazidi community is courageous, able to struggle and fight.’ For this reason, we continued to resist in these mountains and carried out our self-defense.”

Reminding that genocides have been imposed on Yazidis throughout history, Alkış continued: “Saddam Hussein had plans to exterminate the Yazidi people. They wanted to intellectually discourage people from their language and culture. With the collapse of Saddam's regime, the KDP took over the South Kurdistan administration. We can say that the KDP administration, which is no less than Saddam's regime, aims to alienate, intimidate and destroy the people by implementing dirty policies against the people living in the Shengal mountains, and we have to say that they have achieved these goals to a certain extent.”

'4 April very important for Yazidi women'

Emphasizing that the KDP abandoned the people of Shengal when the ISIS mercenaries attacked the region on 3 August 2014, Alkış drew attention to the importance of the paradigm of Kurdish people's leader Abdullah Öcalan in the resistance against the genocide.

Paying tribute once again to the 12 freedom fighters who reached Shengal protected the Yazidis, especially women, from the genocide, Alkış said: “The assembly in Shengal, the Autonomous Administration, the military assembly and the YJŞ-YBŞ were formed thanks to the paradigm of Kurdish people's leader Abdullah Öcalan.”

SMJÊ spokesperson Nurê Alkış said that women, organized around the paradigm of Abdullah Öcalan, are creating their own language, culture and administration with their own will, and added: “Therefore, the leader's birthday is a very important day for Yazidi women and we can call it existence day. For this reason, every year on 4 April, mass events take place in Shengal and saplings are planted. The freedom of our Leader is also the freedom of Yazidi women.”