The 2nd Conference of the North-East Syrian Academy of Jineoloji was held on 25-26 September at the Serdem Hall in Hesekê with the slogan ‘Women's Wisdom is Updated with Jineoloji’. 300 delegates attended the conference, where the foundations and methods of women's science were discussed.

Preparations for the conference started three months ago and the topics of ‘Intellectual tasks in the establishment of the academy system’, ‘The methodology of Jineoloji’, ‘The role of Jineoloji in the construction of the women's revolution’, ‘The method and aims of Jineoloji trainings’, ‘The universalisation of Jineoloji and its level of expansion in the Middle East’ were determined through common discussion and collective wisdom. Working groups were formed for each of the five topics identified, and these groups conducted research, surveys and workshops. Following the workshops, during which observations, analyses and discussions were made on all areas where Jineoloji studies were carried out, not limited to North-East Syria, each group started a writing process in order to commonise the information and opinions reached. The written collective discussion document was prepared to be presented to the conference.

In the format of a scientific conference, the conference addressed the level of Jineoloji, the methods of women's science in accessing knowledge and doing science, aiming to reflect the aesthetic perspective of women historically and socially. Unlike the classical positivist science conferences, it reflected the colour, language and future of the women's nation in the language of art and culture with the determination that ‘life is science and science is life’.

At the entrance of Serdem Hall, a stand with books published by the Academy of Jineoloji was opened. In the entrance hall, where photographs of women pioneers such as Hypatia, Rosa Luxemburg, Sakine Cansız, Zeynep Kınacı, Arin Mirxan, Nagihan Akarsel, Helin Murad, İsyan Armanç, Leyla Agiri were displayed on the walls, there was also an exhibition of the productions of women living in Jinwar and booths displaying the handicrafts of women from the Women's Foundation.

Delegates entering the hall for the conference were first greeted by Ishtar's words from thousands of years ago. The conference started with the performance of Ishtar’s song, one of the world's oldest music, and the recitation of her poem, found in the Temple of Ishtar. Four women in national costumes, representing the peoples of North-East Syria, took the stage and recited Ishtar's poem in Kurdish, Arabic, Armenian and Syriac, which includes the words of Ishtar: ‘I am the Goddess Ishtar/I am life/You say I am dead, but I am the law/I saw, they cut me into four pieces/Now you gather my pieces...’.

Leyla Qehremen, Co-Chair of the Syrian Democratic Council (MSD), made the opening speech of the conference, starting by commemorating the pioneer women who lost their lives, and said the following:

“The crises, successive conflicts and chaos experienced by societies have brought human life to the stage of extinction and social collapse today because of the centralised authoritarian regimes based on sexist, religious and nation-state mentality for centuries. This situation, which causes social, political and economic oppression of women and deterioration of social and cultural relations between men and women, is most clearly manifested in the crises experienced by capitalist modernity and its ideological system. Capitalism has made a distinction between object and subject in a way that excludes women, physically stereotyped their roles, made them part of men, systematically applied mechanisms and tools of oppression and transferred them to all cells of society. In societies, oppression and cruelty have taken the form of a stance that condemns women to the extreme of slavery, making them vulnerable to all forms of intimidation and marginalisation. All this was done to stop the struggle of women and distort the reality of women struggling for freedom.  However, women have continued without giving up at every stage of the history. The history of five thousand years of hierarchical statism is also a history of deviation, wars, genocides, ecological disasters.”

Following the opening speech, a screening on Kurdish People's Leader Abdullah Öcalan's perspectives on Jineoloji and women's liberation was screened in Kurdish and Arabic. Afterwards, greetings from the Kurdistan Women's Communities (KJK) Coordination, the Kurdistan Women's Freedom Party (PAJK) and many women's organisations were read.

In the first session of the first day, Evin Ehmed, lecturer at the Department of Jineoloji at Rojava University, made a presentation titled ‘Intellectual duties in the establishment of the academy system’. Evin Ehmed made the following statement:

“In the democratic confederal system, academies carry out intellectual, ideational and educational awareness-raising activities that will serve the free and democratic development of society. A democratic, free society is possible through a revolution of mentality based on the synthesis of moral, political and aesthetic values complemented by a cultural, intellectual and scientific revolution. The world of free mentality develops through education, consciousness and science in academies organised in all aspects of social life. Free will develops when thought and practice complement each other. For this reason, it is one of the main duties of academies to train academic cadres who will educate and raise awareness in society. It requires having a broad horizon that opens up to the revolution in the Middle East and the world as well as the revolution in Kurdistan. There are difficulties in our academy and educational activities in terms of personality change and being effective in social change-transformation.”

In the second session, Alya Osman, member of Hasekê Jineoloji Centre, made a presentation titled ‘Methodology of Jineoloji’. ‘What is methodology? Why are we putting this issue on our agenda? What is the methodology of Jineoloji? We will try to answer your questions within the framework of this presentation,’ said Alya Osman:

“Methodology has not been institutionalised as a discipline in its own right. As a field of philosophy, it covers research on the methods of different fields of science. If we define the shortest and most fruitful way of reaching the truth as a method, methodology is the totality and system of these endeavours. We can trace the discussions on methodology as far back as the search for truth and giving meaning to life.”

Alya Osman stated that they addressed the problems of the current scientific method under topics such as overcoming the subject-object distinction, overcoming the fragmentation of science and reaching the holistic knowledge of truth, re-establishing the balance between the first and second nature in the liberated (third) nature, being open to methodological dilemmas (universality-relativism, circularity-linearity, globalism-localism), reinterpretation of dialectics, making sense of the metaphysical dimension of human beings and the distinction between good metaphysics-bad metaphysics.

While the presentations ended with questions and answers and discussions, the first day of the conference ended with songs sung by children and women dengbejs from different age groups.

In the first session of the second day, Zeriban Hisen, the spokesperson of the North-East Syrian Academy of Jineoloji, made a presentation on ‘the methods and aims of Jineoloji education’. Zeriban Hisen said that the Jineoloji trainings provided on academic grounds have an important contribution to raising awareness and consciousness according to moral and political criteria, and expressed the following about the importance of education:

“Education can be interpreted as science on the one hand and a discipline in symbiotic relationship with science on the other. It is the most accurate method to interpret whether education is a science or not by utilising various experiences, sources and definitions, starting from the first teacher, Mother Nature. Education and science are two phenomena that have spiralled with each other throughout history and complement each other. From the wisdom culture of the woman who taught society as the first teacher, nature's best student, science cannot be done without education, because most of the systematic knowledge required for science is acquired through education. In the same way, it is very difficult to have education without science. Education is a prerequisite for the efficient utilisation of newly learned knowledge, i.e. for the formation of science and the scientific method. These two concepts, which are almost as old as the history of mankind in terms of historical origin, have always had a place in the life of society as an inseparable whole. In this context, every science develops its scientific theses and experiences and consolidates these theses by opening them to discussion through education. In essence, education can be interpreted as a form of observation, learning, knowing and bringing to consciousness, and a form of cultural transmission and social heritage.”

In the second session of the second day, Zozan Mihemed, one of the lecturers at the Department of Jineoloji of Rojava University, made a presentation titled ‘The role of Jineoloji in the construction of the women's revolution’. Zozan Mihemed said, “We define Jineoloji as the science of the women's revolution. Jineoloji is a social science that will form the scientific basis of the women's revolution and serve the goals of the women's revolution. Firstly, we need to clarify the difference between science and revolution, that is, the difference between science and ideology. In the 21st century, a revolution that is not based on scientific foundations cannot fulfil its mission. When Leader Abdullah Öcalan says that the distance between ideology and sociology is decreasing, he also expresses a new analysis of the unity of science and ideology. In short, ideology refers to the ideal we want to live in, while sociology refers to the reality we live in. In this sense, the distance between ideology and sociology has several meanings.”

In the last session, Zahide Memo, member of the Academy of Jineoloji on Middle East studies, made a presentation on ‘The universalisation of Jineoloji and its level of expansion in the Middle East’. Zahide Memo described the trainings, panels and studies carried out with women from Middle Eastern countries and said: “The issue of and the struggle for women's liberation is both global and local, historical and vital. Since we know that genocide against women in one country threatens the existence and honour of all women, the achievements of the freedom struggle in one region also guide the freedom struggle of women in other countries of the world. In the face of a system of genocide that endangers the lives of women, nature and societies worldwide, we need a global solution that brings together the experiences of women from different regions. The knowledge and culture of the women of the Middle East is important in this respect. It contains the realities of the historical and contemporary women's revolution as well as the deep suffering of oppression. In this context, the task and method of Jineoloji is to analyse the reality of women, which is the essence of society, and the accumulation of system tensions at the local and global level, and, on this basis, to highlight the possibilities of permanent solutions and freedom.”

The presentations were followed by an hour-long screening on the fields and activities of Jineoloji, featuring the 14-year adventure of Jineoloji and activities across Kurdistan, Europe, South America and Middle East, as well as Jineoloj Magazine, Jinwar, Ramana Jin, Şifa Jin, Jingeh Publishing House and the books it published.

After the screening, the participants' suggestions and evaluations were taken, and a final declaration was prepared.

The conference was followed by a play titled ‘Shadow Theatre’ about the women's revolution prepared and presented by the international participants of the Andrea Wolf Institute and a national dance performance by the Armenian Assembly Women's Folklore Group.