Comrades, friends,
I respectfully greet all my comrades around the world, outside or in prisons, who are fighting for the liberation of humanity. It is truly exciting for me to be speaking here today at the WAP Women’s Platform Conference.
In the last days of 1993, I was arrested on the charge of “carrying out armed action on behalf of the Leninist Guerrilla Unit, the military structure of the Communist Labor Party/Leninist of Turkey.” Despite the lack of concrete evidence, a verdict was given by saying, “Even if she didn’t do it, she would do it.” Apart from an 11-month period I spent outside due to illness, I was inside for nearly 32 years. It has been two months since I gained my freedom.
I have brought you the greetings of revolutionary prisoners who wave the unconquerable belief in socialism like a flag wherever they are. As you know, all political prisoners are as involved with the world agenda as they are with their own countries. In fact, compared to those outside, they have more opportunity to think deeply about politics, political and economic developments in the world, class struggle, and the theoretical issues of the struggle, because they are away from the rush of daily life. Even though we cannot physically walk the streets and squares, we walk through the cells with the consciousness of those in the squares. Not accepting the narrow limits of the inside, following every step that brings the future closer, accumulating new experience with every step taken, contributing as much as possible to the outside… In short, one of the most important duties of revolutionary prisoners is to organize each day, to produce constantly, and to strive to improve themselves, just like every comrade outside. This is how we survive against fascism. This is how we resist degeneration and decay, and this is how we break down the regime’s policies aimed at taking us over, and walk out from behind those walls free. Because we know that our consciousness and hearts are with those who march at the forefront of the fight.
In the struggle, the inside and the outside constantly feed, grow, and empower each other. Sometimes one side, sometimes the other, becomes the front line of the fight, as if switching roles. Whichever front comes to the fore, eyes turn that way. There are times when the call for struggle rising from inside (in prisons) turns into anger that overflows outside. During the 1996 Death Fasts, when prisoners went on hunger strike against the Eskişehir “Coffin Cells,” poor working people poured into the streets to stand in solidarity with their leaders, their children.
For the first time in the history of Turkey’s and the world’s revolutionary struggle, women revolutionary prisoners walked toward immortality with all their determination. After the December 19 Prison Massacre, during the 2000 Death Fasts, the number of women volunteers have increased… Under the most difficult conditions, they took the lead in the most stubborn struggle… Comrade Sibel Sürücü, who became immortal in the death fast, describes prisons in a poem as “The place where all eyes are turned.”
In our country, on December 19, 2000, a massacre was carried out to destroy the communal lives of prisoners, to kill specific targeted prisoners, and to separate workers and laborers from their leaders. They raided 22 prisons simultaneously at 04:30 in the morning with heavy weapons and construction machinery. Twenty-eight of our lives were killed. Murat Ördekçi was in the Istanbul Bayrampaşa prison. When the soldiers surrounded the prisons and raided with snipers, flamethrowers, and large weapons, they called out, “Surrender!” Our captain, Comrade Murat Ördekçi, replied to this call, “You surrender instead; you are surrounded.” These words express the historical justice and power of the poor, oppressed peoples and the proletariat, who have surrounded the enemy. Let no one strive for the continuity of the imperialist capitalist system, which is doomed to collapse. The future rises in the hands of the working class.
Comrades,
During the time I was in prison, three generations grew up: the 90s, the 2000s, the 2010s, and now the 2020s. Science, technology, and living conditions have changed and developed a lot. Nowadays, it doesn’t even take seconds to communicate with any corner of the world. Faced with all these changes and developments, one might think that we revolutionary prisoners are isolated behind iron doors and concrete walls, cut off from progress. But that is not the case. Because even inside, we feel the movement of every single leaf outside. We follow all the changes and new developments as much as we can. Our hearts always beat together with the outside.
Once women enter the struggle for humanity’s liberation, and once they learn the conditions for social freedom, it becomes hard for them to fall back from the struggle. The liberation of women shows that the defeat of fascism is near. Wherever we are in the world, it is the same system that exploits our labor, enslaves our bodies, and darkens our future. We must strengthen our united struggle for a world without borders, without exploitation, and without classes. In front of us, there is a single enemy that is becoming more aggressive as it drags itself toward collapse, pulling all of humanity into disaster along with it. This enemy is uniting on every front against the peoples of the whole world. We can only break this siege through united struggle.
In class-based societies, prisons serve the same purpose as the policies carried out outside. They always serve the same goal: keeping the ruling class’s exploitation machine running and maintaining its power. For this, they resort to every kind of brutality. Today, we are witnessing a madness that even extends to nuclear war threats. The Third World War has already been going on for years against poor and oppressed peoples and against socialism. But they will not succeed. I can see this clearly today as I look into the eyes of you, my comrades, here in this room. The essence of our power, which unites across borders, is in this hall. This essence is our united struggle that takes its future into its own hands. It is the international struggle that will unite all the workers of the world.
Salute to all the working women around the world who struggle for their freedom!
Always until victory….
