"This year, our festival is a sign of struggle, especially against the genocidal attacks targeting women. As successors of Sakine Cansiz, it is our commitment and duty to struggle anytime and anywhere," says Ozen Aytac from the organising committee.
This year the Sakine Cansiz Women's Festival in Switzerland will take place in Zurich on 16 August 2020.
As part of the rich program, the organisers have launched an appeal to activists and people who met Sakine Cansiz.
The organisers wrote: "We thought it would be nice to ask friends and people who have met or known Sara at some stage in their life to tell something about her, about their memory and feeling with her, about their encounter."
ANF spoke to Ozen Aytac, from the organising committee of the festival.
What is the message of this year’s festival?
This year, our festival is a sign of struggle, especially against the genocidal attacks targeting women. As successors of Sakine Cansiz, it is our commitment and duty to struggle anytime and anywhere.
We will say that we combine the traditional fight of Kurdish women with the international tradition of women struggle and we are all together against the genocide attacks. We will continue the struggle with the spirit of Sakine Cansiz together with the women of the world.
How do you combat violence against women?
In our struggle against violence targeting women, we are organized and fight them together. The organized woman is a stance and philosophy of life towards the masculine idea and system. Since we know that violence against women is stopped only with an organized women's society, we will continue the fight as an organized force.
You leave in Europe, how do you organise with European women?
In Europe, women living only in the form of being European, are living in a system where the capitalist style and fatalism prevail. We are aware of this and unite the way of struggling with our comrades in order to continue the struggle for women, their struggle to be themselves. In this period when resistance is for existence, we take steps on this path without discriminating race, colour and religion, and we expect every woman to follow this path.
Violence against women and fighting it are also important. In particular, the capitalist system is trying to eliminate the chaos it is experiencing by attacking women, and against this, women from all over the world are fighting, from Chile to Rojava.
This year, we dedicate the festival to our women, who have reached martyrdom and are struggling especially in Heftanin.
