25 November is the day of women’s rebellion

We publish the statement by Purple-Red Collective:

against all kinds of reactions!

The sisters Patria, Minerva and Maria Mirabel, who fought against the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic, were tortured and murdered by the fascist Trujillo dictatorship on 25 November 1960. At the Latin American Women’s Congress in 1981, 25 November, the day of the murder of the Mirabel sisters, was declared “International Day against Violence against Women“.

From that day onwards, 25 November became the name of the day on which oppressed, exploited and violent women all over the world raised their voices to rebel against the violence they were subjected to in all areas of life.

This year we are celebrating 25 November at a time when the economic crisis of the imperialist capitalist system is getting worse and worse, when nature and living spaces are being plundered in the pursuit of excessive profit and unjustified wars are being waged by the imperialists all over the world.

The Zionist state of Israel, which enjoys the full support of its imperialist masters, is turning to the annihilation of the Palestinian people. We welcome “25 November, the International Day against Violence against Women”, at a time when words lose their impact in the dust and smoke of bombs exploding every minute of every day, when thousands of people are murdered and the bodies of women and children are dismembered.

We welcome the 25th of November, at a time when schools, hospitals and all areas of life are depriving people of their most basic needs and bombs are raining down on them with the support of the imperialists. The oppressed peoples of the world, especially the oppressed of the oppressed, the women, take to the streets and proclaim that the Palestinian people are not alone.

We celebrate it at a time when the fascist Turkish state is heading towards the complete destruction of the Kurdish nation and the invasion and airstrikes against Syrian and Iraqi Kurdistan continue unabated. As in all areas of life, we women pay the highest price in wars. We are seen as spoils of war, subjected to harassment and rape and sold as slaves.

In the countries we emigrate to, the economic crisis hits us women the hardest. Because we do not speak the language of these countries, we are completely trapped within the four walls of the home. We are subjected to racism, discrimination, violence, abuse and hate speech and are pushed out of socio-economic and political life.

Our labour is fully exploited as precarious and cheap labour in factories, in the fields, on family farms, in seasonal work and homework. Our labour at home (care work) is ignored and we experience all kinds of violence at home. As if that were not enough, our father, our brother, our husband, our closest “relatives” become our murderers. The state acquits our murderers and rapists. There are days when we die in our schools where we are exposed to futurelessness.

If we do not accept violence and exploitation, if we rebel against it again and again, if we organise ourselves and take action to achieve what we are entitled to, we first come up against the violence of the state. We are tortured, imprisoned, arrested and even murdered. So as long as the patriarchal system of exploitation exists, we women are not safe anywhere. And we have no choice but to fight for our freedom.

• Just like in Clara Zetkin’s words: “I want to fight wherever there is life”!
• As Maria Mirabel said: “We will continue to fight for everything that is justified”!
• Like the women who have become Jinha Mahsa Amini all over the world with their slogan “Jin, Jiyan Azadi”!
• As in the words of Asmin, whose head was cut off because they were even afraid of her corpse, who said: “So that no one wakes up to darkness, I go to become the sun in the morning…”!
• Like Harika Kızılkaya, who was murdered on the border to Meriç and whose body was abducted!
• Like the women who take to the streets every day against the murder of women and say “You will never walk alone!”
• Like the countless heroines who fought on the front line in the Paris Commune, the October Revolution, the Chinese Revolution and all the world’s social and national liberation struggles!

They showed us the path we must take. The women’s fight for freedom is led by those who walk this path.

Today, women all over the world are defending their lives against violence, organising themselves and achieving success. On the streets, women are crying out in revolt against the patriarchal system.

The will of the Mirabel sisters, who rebelled 63 years ago against the fascist Trujillo dictatorship, lives on today in the Palestinian women who are barricading themselves against the bombs of Zionist Israel. On this 25 November, let us shout in the streets and squares the slogans of rebellion of all the oppressed and working women of the world, especially the women resisting in Palestine.

We, the Purple and Red Collective, call on all oppressed and working women to fill the streets and squares against violence on 25 November and shout the slogans of rebellion together.

November 2023

PURPLE-RED-COLLECTIVES