Creating a New Roadmap in Changing Dynamics: Developments in Syria, Their Reflections in Turkey, The Urgent Agenda of the Feminist Movement: Final Declaration of the Workshop on the Struggle for Secularism
As World March of Women Turkey, with the workshop that we organized on January 17, 2025, we say “Let us fight against massacres, occupations, and imperialist aggression targeting the peoples of Syria!”
On December 8, 2024, groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) declared that the 24-year rule of Bashar Al-Assad had ended and that the opposition forces had entered Damascus. They announced that the new Damascus administration will be led by former Al-Qaeda member, ISIS emir, and Al-Nusra founder Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani, now known as Ahmed al-Sharaa. Jolani, who is one of the main perpetrators of the massacres in Syria, began to be presented as a hero in the Western media. Western countries, including Turkey, established official state-level relations with the new administration and recognized the Jolani administration as a legitimate administration.
Although they want to present themselves and their new administration as “saviors” who will rebuild Syria with the support of imperialist powers, we have known Jolani’s jihadist organization HTS for decades. The harbinger of the Salafi jihadist state they seek to build is the attacks they have launched against Arab Alawites and minorities and their misogynist rhetoric. Jolani, who was introduced to the Western public with his suit and new image, appointed Sharia executioner Shadi al-Waysi as Minister of Justice in the cabinet he formed. The first actions of the new Syrian cabinet were; the announcement that female judges would no longer be able to return to their duties as judges and would only be able to work in “work suitable for women” in accordance with Sharia law, the removal of evolution from the education curriculum and the addition of jihad. The takeover of the Syrian administration by jihadists who have been trying to establish dominance with fatwas targeting women and forcing women into sexual slavery in the regions they have seized for 13 years, creates a deep concern. At the same time, the underground and natural resources in the region are being deliberately occupied and destroyed, and the lives of the Syrian people are being besieged in every way.
The step-by-step establishment of a Salafi jihadist state right next to us will undoubtedly strengthen the anti-secular, misogynist, neoliberal, and fascist policies of the Political Islamist AKP government day by day. The AKP government’s declaration of 2025 as the year of the family with the slogan “Under the auspices of the state, under the shadow of the crescent and star” is also a declaration that 2025 will increase the oppression of women and LGBTI+ individuals day by day. For this reason, it is of vital importance for women in our geography to struggle together against imperialism and one of imperialism’s most useful tools, fundamentalism.
Secularism is the foundation of our control over our bodies and lives, the right of people to self-determination. It is not just a principle, but an essential part of our struggle for equality and freedom. We argue that secularism is the primary condition for women, LGBT+ individuals, and peoples to be subjects in political, legal, and social life, and that it enlightens our path with every step we take.
As women who have been surrounded in every aspect of their lives by neoliberal and political Islamist policies, we call on our sisters all over the world to increase the struggle against these policies and regimes of oppression, occupations, imperialist aggression and solidarity with the people of Syria!
World March of Women Turkey Coordination