Gulîstan, Land of Roses

"The strength of the guerrilla is the strength of the mind". To know how to shoot, we must learn to breathe. To train, every day, our body and our mind. Our scars, as necessary sacrifices for the people. To embellish ourselves with the struggle. In the PKK, 40% of whom are women, there is not only war. There is participatory and direct democracy. There are meals, games and dances. There is waiting, watching and Patience, the weapon of a comrade. The one who watches and spies on the enemy's actions. But there is also Beloved, the one who saves lives. But from whom? From Daech, the Islamic State hidden in these mountains, deserts and dust that fills the frame? Or from our capitalist system, from the Western world that sells weapons to the highest bidders; that beats and rapes its women; that destroys its peoples. Our emancipation. Our freedoms. Us.

Behind the intimacy, Gulîstan, Land of Roses erases the historical and geopolitical considerations of the conflict that divides Kurdistan to touch a universal convergence of feminist and anticapitalist struggles. "Today, our revolution is spreading everywhere", can be heard in one of the revolutionary songs.

Rémi Journet
Tënk's editorial assistant