March 8, 2017 - Istanbul, Turkey - Thousands of women join the rally at Istiklal Street on the occasion of International Women's Day, in Istanbul, Turkey. Can Erok/Press Association. All rights reserved. Last January, shortly after Turkey’s military operation started in Afrin, I was at a women’s event held by a pro-government civil society organisation in a working-class suburban district of Istanbul. After talking tearfully about the first woman martyr of Islam in the seventh century, the invited speaker uttered a prayer for Turkish soldiers who had died on Syrian territory and concluded by wishing us all the chance to become the blessed mothers of martyred soldiers one day. The enthusiastic approval with which this last statement was greeted by the other women participants shocked me profoundly. What could make the idea of having dead sons desirable for those women? What could make the idea of having dead sons desirable for those women?
Women are usually among the first targets of human rights violations in undemocratic regimes and armed conflicts thought of as ‘weak’ targets, self-sacrificing individuals, or the instruments of mass mobilization strategies. In Turkey on a daily basis, authoritarian governance is increasingly constructed and validated through women. Nationalism and sacrifice for ‘the common good’ recognises no limits and seeks to subordinate every social activity and individual to its own ends.
The attempted control of women’s bodies, public presence, and their social, economic and intellectual activities have also become an integral part of the authoritarian politics. Yet, as in all repressive political system, women’s resistance exists in an available public space, pushing back the boundaries of ‘the allowed’.
