Rose Theory and self-defence

 

NEWS CENTRE - In this period when violence against women is increasing but the struggle against it is also increasing, the necessity of self-defence and how it develops stands out as a more important phenomenon for all living things.

 

As 25 Women's Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women approaches, women everywhere are preparing to take to the streets. Women's struggle against violence is based on the triple pillars of self-defence, organisation and action. In recent years, the Kurdish Women's Movement has also been discussing the place of self-defence in women's struggle for freedom. So, what is self-defence and why is it important for women? We have tried to find an answer to this question on the way to 25 November, on the axis of the discussions carried out by the Kurdish Women's Movement. We tried to address the discussions under certain headings. We wanted to create a framework for the development of self-defence in nature, man, woman and society and how it can be.

 

In the second part of our dossier, we will discuss what self-defence means in all living beings, nature and society.

 

Rose Theory

 

PKK Leader Abdullah Ocalan said, "I call it the Rose Theory. I have thought about the rose. The rose grows thorns to protect itself. Even a rose, even a plant has self-defence. It is enough to look at nature and nature for self-defence. Don't we have the right to self-defence even as much as a rose?" It will be useful to make an introduction to self-defence by reminding the determination that all kinds of attacks and massacres against women are increasing and why the women's liberation struggle is necessary against this.

 

Vitality can be thought of in terms of self-defence and protection

 

Seeing or showing society as a physical or inanimate material reality is the greatest approach to domination. It is necessary to understand and analyse that our age, despite all its claims, is experiencing an ignorance and self-knowledge about social existence. The main source of this ignorance is the forms of knowledge and identity artificially created by power. 

 

If it is not a conscious distortion, not seeing the most advanced level of vitality in nature as the leap of life to a social quality should be considered the greatest blindness. It is impossible not to see that there is a form of intelligence in every living creature, ‘whether you call it a reflex or a conditioned reflex’, which makes its own defence in countless rich and inconceivable ways and methods in nature. 

 

It is enough to see how a caterpillar twists the green leaf in which it hides for weeks into a roll, but it also twists many other leaves around it in the same way so as not to attract attention and to camouflage itself well. Without this, it is inconceivable that the caterpillar could develop into a butterfly and complete its life span by maturing. Life can only be conceived in terms of self-defence and protection.

 

Flexibility in social nature

 

As a second nature, society differs from other living species by the common mind it creates and its different, highly flexible and advanced level of intelligence. In this sense, sociality is in essence the power of meaning that it creates in itself. The power of meaning requires self-awareness as self-consciousness. Self-consciousness does not develop outside of sociality, collective life, production and existence.

 

It also requires the accumulation of historical memory and its transmission. Human beings do not create themselves from scratch every time; they create themselves through social accumulations. It is clear that this accumulation is formed by hundreds of thousands of years of history and past, experience, knowledge and knowledge. We cannot think of self-consciousness apart from these. Therefore, knowing the human being requires knowing his/her social history. Knowledge and experience quickly become a value that is collected, transferred and always added to. 

 

Knowledge about how fire is formed, how to use stone, how to shape it, how to build shelters, when and how to eat and what not to eat, where anger should be expressed, where love and loyalty should be expressed, and what behaviour is required, all bring with them a very lively and formative form and pattern of relationship. 

 

For knowledge on how to live, man does not go back hundreds of thousands of years and re-experience. He grows up by acquiring ready-made knowledge in one fell swoop. Without this, self-consciousness cannot develop. In essence, self-consciousness is the reflection of sociality and historical accumulation in human beings. 

 

What the individual can add to this in his or her own lifetime is very limited compared to the accumulated knowledge. Therefore, man lives his own life span, but on the basis of the accumulated material and spiritual values of the vast social historical period.

 

The power of community and self-defence

 

The strength and self-defence of sociality lies in its power to assimilate itself. Sociality is a framework of life and a network of relationships that are laboured, given meaning and identity. Although the methods and means of this network's self-existence change in every age, in essence it is based on very deep socialisation, behaviour, thought, language and emotions.

 

The depth and effectiveness of this in shaping the individual is so impressive that it is the root of all identities. It is not possible to eliminate the ties, effects and results here. Human beings exist through these; they gain identity and become a life force. 

 

The individual's participation in society in this sense, his or her ability to collect the accumulation of society, to express it and to become its dynamic is in itself a lifelong education. The equipping of the individual with sociality is really striking. Understanding this connection is the basic condition for understanding the self-defence of society. Man, with all his fears, insecurities and doubts, his weaknesses and relativism, is prepared for sociality. 

 

Its mechanisms, traditions and systems are extensive. The individual's becoming an epitome of society, a reflection of it and a creative element of it, i.e. a social being, requires political and moral mechanisms. PKK Leader Abdullah Ocalan said: "Morality is the first organising principle of human society. Its main function is concerned with how analytical intelligence and emotional intelligence can be organised for the good of society, how they can be turned into principles and attitudes. One who cannot defend their society cannot live an honourable life. But society cannot be defended without morality.”

 

Participation and formation cannot take place in a community that cannot structure itself politically and morally. Participation is democracy. The participation of the individual in social life with all his/her intellectual, emotional and physical strength requires a great deal of assimilation and freedom. The sum total of all areas, forms and mechanisms of expression of both assimilation and freedom are the subjects of social self-defence.

 

Tomorrow Self-defence, morality and politics