[03-08-1987] Thomas Sankara: The revolution cannot triumph without the emancipation of women

The revolution cannot triumph without the emancipation of women

The specific character of women’s oppression

Woman’s fate is bound up with that of the exploited male. This is a fact. However, this solidarity, arising from the exploitation that both men and women suffer and that binds them together historically, must not cause us to lose sight of the specific reality of the woman’s situation. The conditions of her life are determined by more than economic factors, and they show that she is a victim of a specific oppression. The specific character of this oppression cannot be explained away by setting up an equal sign or by falling into easy and childish simplifications.

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The intersection of sex, capitalism, and militarism

The intersection of sex, capitalism, and militarism

The intersection of sex, capitalism, and militarism highlights how these systems often intertwine, with capitalism’s focus on commodification leading to the exploitation of sex work, while militarism frequently creates environments where women and vulnerable populations are particularly susceptible to sexual violence and trafficking, often due to the presence of military forces in a region, further perpetuating power imbalances and economic disparities. [12345678910]

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Syria’s Rojava [Where They Run Torture Camps] Is in Grave Danger +

Federalization of Syria a.k.a. Balkanization

Syria’s Rojava Revolution Is in Grave Danger (Reason magazine)

If the Kurdish-Arab alliance unravels, the U.S. military may decide to directly back Arab tribes as a bulwark against Iran and the Islamic State, according to Nicholas Heras, who has advised the U.S.-led military coalition in Syria and is now senior director for strategy at the nonprofit New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington. In 2019, when former President Donald Trump wanted to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, the Trump administration considered a strategy of letting the Kurdish forces fall to Turkey and buying off Arab tribes.

The United States has, directly and indirectly, backed all sides of the fight. Turkey is a NATO ally. Some of the SNA [Syrian National Army] units now attacking Kobane had received weapons and training from the CIA and the U.S. military. (After the Trump administration cut off support, a U.S. official condemned these same factions as “thugs, bandits, and pirates that should be wiped off the face of the earth,” and the Biden administration imposed human rights sanctions.) Meanwhile, several hundred U.S. troops are embedded with the SDF.

In his Sunday victory speech about the fall of the Assad government, President Joe Biden said that he wanted to support an “independent, sovereign—an independent—independent—I want to say it again—sovereign Syria.” But U.S. policy at the moment seems to be creating the opposite: a Syria chopped up [Balkanization] by foreign powers.

Rojava is also known as the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.

Related:

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Communism and the Family

Women’s role in production: its effect upon the family

Will the family continue to exist under communism? Will the family remain in the same form? These questions are troubling many women of the working class and worrying their menfolk as well. Life is changing before our very eyes; old habits and customs are dying out, and the whole life of the proletarian family is developing in a way that is new and unfamiliar and, in the eyes of some, “bizarre”. No wonder that working women are beginning to think these questions over. Another fact that invites attention is that divorce has been made easier in Soviet Russia. The decree of the Council of People’s Commissars issued on 18 December 1917 means that divorce is, no longer a luxury that only the rich can afford; henceforth, a working woman will not have to petition for months or even for years to secure the right to live separately from a husband who beats her and makes her life a misery with his drunkenness and uncouth behaviour. Divorce by mutual agreement now takes no more than a week or two to obtain. Women who are unhappy in their married life welcome this easy divorce. But others, particularly those who are used to looking upon their husband as “breadwinners”, are frightened. They have not yet understood that a woman must accustom herself to seek and find support in the collective and in society, and not from the individual man.

Communism and the Family

Related:

Family Code On Marriage, The Family, And Guardianship

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