Meral Çiçek, of the Kurdish Women’s Relations Office, on the Bombing of Makhmur
Dr. Jeff Miley interviews Meral Çiçek about the recent Turkish bombing of the Makhmur Refugee Camp and Sinjar, in Iraq.
Meral Çiçek was born in 1983 in a Kurdish guest-worker family in Germany. She started political and women’s activism at the age of 16 within the Kurdish Women’s Peace Office in Dusseldorf. While studying Political Science, Sociology and History at the Goethe-University in Frankfurt she started to work as reporter and editor for the only daily Kurdish newspaper in Europe, Yeni Ozgur Politika, for which she still writes a weekly column. In 2014 she co-founded the Kurdish Women’s Relations Office (REPAK) in Southern Kurdistan (Northern Iraq). She is also editorial board member of the Jineoloji journal.
Jeff Miley is a Lecturer of Political Sociology at the University of Cambridge, and a member of the Board of the EU Turkey Civic Commission (EUTCC) and a Patron of Peace in Kurdistan. He is co-editor, with Federico Venturini, of Your Freedom and Mine: Abdullah Ocalan and the Kurdish Question in Erdogan’s Turkey (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2018).
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A brief History of the Kurdish Women’s Movement in four parts of Kurdistan
At the latest since the historical resistance against the so-called Islamic State in Kobanê, the images of the Kurdish female fighters of the YPJ have been present everywhere.
But many people do not know that the Kurdish women in Rojava derive their strength for the construction of a democratic, multi-ethnic, ecological and gender-free social system from more than 40 years of resistance against the Turkish occupation and annihilation. In this seminar we want to learn about the manifold and enlightening history of the Kurdish women’s movement in all four parts of Kurdistan.
The Defeat of Gilgamesh: An Ancient Epic History of Love and Power Paperback
By Greta Sykes published on 30 March 2020
Enheduanna, High Priestess in the city of Ur, tells the story of Inanna, Goddess of love and war and the hero Gilgamesh. It is the year 2450 BC. Inanna’s grandmother, the Goddess Ishtar, determines that Inanna must rescue the privileges and high status of women and sends her on a voyage together with a friend and a eunuch. A near death experience leaves Inanna wounded and weak. In the town of Kish they learn that one of the great heroes at the time, Gilgamesh, has acquired fame and notoriety, leaving the citizens of Uruk bewildered and helpless. Together with the High Priestess Nin of Kish, they figure out a plan to bring about his downfall. The revenge of his mother nearly cost them their lives.
https://www.gretasykes.com/