A black-covered widow army
Journalist Medya Doz accompanied YPJ fighters in the final stages of the offensive against the last ISIS enclave of al-Baghouz. She describes the ISIS women she encountered in the Eastern Syrian desert.
Journalist Medya Doz accompanied YPJ fighters in the final stages of the offensive against the last ISIS enclave of al-Baghouz. She describes the ISIS women she encountered in the Eastern Syrian desert.
Recently, we have experienced one of the most outstanding developments of recent centuries. The ISIS has been defeated in its last position al-Baghouz under the leadership of women. The victory was made possible by the women's defense units YPJ, which have become the symbol of the fight to eliminate this nightmare. Watching the YPJ fighters, who look clean and tidy even in the Desert Storm, with their smiling faces and gleaming eyes, the details of this last phase of the offensive against the ISIS becomes apparent. These fighters have taken on the task of building the revolution of Rojava. As with all activities, they are also on the front line against the ISIS in the offensive. Who moves with them, gets all the details. Thousands of women have been rescued daily in this last phase. The social life of each of these individuals is a single ruin with their feelings and thoughts.
Hundreds of black-shrouded women sit in the middle of a desert, as if they have fallen from a black cloud in the sky on the ground. Your sight takes your breath away.
"It was said that life in the Islamic State is convenient"
Two of the women from this column arouse my attention. I step closer and try to understand the situation. Both have difficulty walking. One is from Tajikistan. She is an old woman, diabetic, all her teeth are gold. As she herself says, her son has become a "martyr" in Syria. Because she cannot take care of herself, she asks the YPJ fighters for help. The YPJ fighters ask, "Aunt, why did you come here?" She replies, "It was said that living in the Islamic State in Syria is comfortable, so we came." A comfortable life?!
While the YPJ fighters help her, I look at her with hatred and think about whose blood has been shed for her gold teeth. I cannot remember ever hating a woman like that. I do not feel a spark of pity for this woman, who came all the way from Tajikistan and thought she could live comfortably here, destroying the lives of others. I even think that she deserves to be in this situation now. You cannot be objective and impartial here. Strangely, your feelings and thoughts force you to take sides. Your sense of truth and justice makes you biased.
The sociological reality created by ISIS is not yet defined
A little further on is a woman from Tunisia. A doctor and the YPJ fighters have been talking to her for hours so she can accept medical treatment. The woman refuses stubbornly, she does not say her name. She probably participated actively in the war and is a radical ISIS member. She has lost one leg; the other leg is threatened by gangrene. Jason, a doctor of the charity Good Life Club, struggles for hours with the woman. Because he cannot convince her, he asks the YPJ fighters for support. They ask the woman questions first in English and then in Arabic. She says quietly: "My husband was a doctor, so he was not allowed to leave al-Baghouz. Without his permission, no man should touch me, even if it is for medical treatment." We are appalled by her words. What a blind faith is this that takes the life of man in every form. They have murdered people in firm faith and they have died with their faith. One finds no expression for the tragedy of these women whose lives depend on the word of a man. Jason squints his eyes and takes a deep breath. "They do not love life and people, they do not laugh," he says, wringing his hands. Then he points to the YPJ fighters and says, "You are always smiling." The doctor only shows the opposites he encounters. He has not yet understood the sociological background. I realize that the sociology created by ISIS has not yet been defined and there is an urgent need for a description.
Objects in the lives of men
I've been watching the women rescued from ISIS for a while now. The brothers, husbands, fathers and sons of most of them are ISIS members. The life stories of these women have been shaped by the men around them. Actually, they have no history of their own. They live as objects of the history of men.
If you look at these ISIS jihadists with their gruesome looks, their soulless looks, and their hands ready for murder anytime, you cannot help wondering how a woman could give birth to something so ugly. Then one forces oneself to resort to the thesis that every human being is innocent at birth and that the good and the bad in man only grows over time. Otherwise, the doubt on everything that is beautiful, good and right gnaws away at one's mind.
I try to find a name for the reality of women created by ISIS, but I do not succeed. ISIS has created an undefined community with no social characteristics of black-hooded women and the children in their arms. Any child you ask about his father either does not know him or says he is dead. Every woman has been married three or four times, all of them have lost their husbands two or three times in the war, and they have married again and again. That's the Sharia law.
Matter painted with religious brushes
Close your eyes for two minutes and imagine thousands of children of rape in a vast desert... Imagine thousands of women whose minds and bodies have been used roughly and who have been wasted away in every way ... At the sight of some children you are shocked. The woman is Russian, the father of one of her children is Uzbek, another of the child Arab and the next Chechen ... They sit in the lap of a single woman. The child of a Yazidi mother speaks Russian, the child of a Canadian mother can speak only Arabic. Nothing fits together, everything is in a strange vortex. I feel sick in the face of futility when a Turkish woman enumerates the chronology of her five marriages in the last three years. In the list of her "spouses," as she calls them, there is an Afghan, an Indian, a German, a Kurd, and a Tunisian. I cannot think of a sociological term. Love does not exist in it, no mental or physical decision, no sexual dignity ... Nothing at all. No will of their own, lovelessness to the utmost, an ugly and degraded sexuality. Matter painted with religious brushes without a hint of ideal meaning ...
And yet you are sorry for these women, whose heads and hearts have been put into this position by the ugliest men in the world. Something they can call "me" did not stay with them. They belong to everyone, just not themselves.
The laughing people won the war
At the sight of this black-veiled widow army you can do hundreds of analyzes. The terrorist organization ISIS hasnot only occupied land, it has destroyed the chemistry of society by occupying the women. It has not only attacked historical and cultural phenomena; it has managed to create an artificial conception and make every subject an object. With great mastery it has created a soulless community of women and thus committed a feminicide. As I mentioned above, the reality created by ISIS requires a sociological analysis and definition. Presumably some definitions need time, at the moment you can only make comparisons. The comparison between those who laugh and those who do not laugh ... Between those who speak, live and love, and those who remain silent, do not love and devoted themselves to death in every way ... Our only consolation is that those who have laughed, won this war ... Only those women who have the will and the strength to win the war can highlight certain issues that cannot be described. My expectation is that the fighters of this country will later find expression for the reality of women created by ISIS. I hope so.
With the development of a proper sociological analysis with the free perspective created by the Jineology, it will become clear against what and how this struggle is conducted. Ultimately, man gets to know himself better when he analyzes the inhuman...
It takes time to lighten the darkened soul of a woman. I believe that the women who weave their freedom step by step will solve this Gordian knot. More than anything else in this world, I believe in the hands of these women who fight for freedom...
In the original, the article by Medya Doz appeared in the women's newspaper Newaya Jin.