Rojin Mukriyan, a PhD candidate in the Department of Government and Politics at University College Cork, Ireland, has outlined a comprehensive understanding of the root causes of violence against women on a global scale, and called for a collective effort to address and dismantle the intersecting systems of patriarchy, capitalism and nation-state power dynamics.
🔴In a recent interview, PhD candidate Rojin Mukriyan (@RojinMukriyan) highlighted the root causes of violence against women globally, linking domestic violence to structures perpetuated by patriarchal states.#JinJiyanAzadiAgainstViolence | #RevolutionaryFeminism… pic.twitter.com/eOWUHaWDIg
— MedyaNews (@1MedyaNews) November 26, 2023
Mukriyan, whose research focuses on political theory and Middle Eastern politics, particularly Kurdish politics, drew attention to the intersection of power relations caused by patriarchy, capitalism and nation-state dynamics. “As many radical feminists, postcolonial feminists and the Kurdish women’s liberation movement have argued,” Mukriyan said, “violence against women originates from the trio of patriarchy, capitalism and the nation-state.”
She went on to stress that discussions on violence, especially in a global context, must go beyond just domestic violence, as this is itself linked to the structures perpetuated by a patriarchal state. Mukriyan drew attention to the commitment of the Kurdish women’s freedom movement to a revolutionary movement called ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ or ‘Jin Jîyan Azadî’, which targets the roots of violence inherent in the dynamics of patriarchy, capitalism and the nation-state.
Mukriyan traced the origins of these revolutionary movements from the Qandil Mountains, a stronghold of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Iraqi Kurdistan, to the Kurdish-majority regions of southeast Turkey, North and East Syria and the Kurdish-majority western areas of Iran, noting how the revolutionary ideas spread globally from there.
Against the backdrop of global conflicts, Mukriyan drew attention to the pervasive impact of violence, focussing on examples such as Israel and Palestine, Turkey’s actions in northern Syria, and conflicts in South Africa. She stressed that these conflicts share a common thread – the mentality of patriarchy, the nation state and capitalism.
“In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 11,000 civilians have been killed, two-thirds of them women and children. The same pattern can be seen in Rojava, where Turkey is deliberately targeting and killing women, especially those in high positions within the women’s revolution,” Mukriyan said.
