NarinÇapan/JINHA

KOBANÊ – For the fighters of the YPJ, the women's liberation philosophy of PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan and the provision of self-defense education for womenarethe keys to their struggle to build women's freedom in the Middle East.

As Daesh forces abduct women from across the region from their ancestral homes—including most recently Assyrian and Syriac women in an attack last week—women in Kobanê have been busily rewriting women's history. The fighters of the YekîneyênParastinaJinê (YPJ, or Women's Defense Units) see their fight as one against a patriarchal mindset, of which the armed attacks of Daesh are just one example.

RukenCudi said YPJ fighters like her "get enough strength to shake the world" from the ululations and slogans women comrades shout in the course of battle.

But resistance is not just a matter of armed struggle. According to Ruken, the YPJ sees one of its main goals as provisioning self-defense education to everyday women in the Middle East to ensure that "we never see an attack like the one against Shengal ever again."

YPJ member AryenGüneş saysYPJ women like her draw the strength to fight on the frontlines of Kobanê from the women-oriented philosophy of PKK Leader Abdullah Öcalan, as well as the historical resistance of Kurdish women before them.

"All our women comrades are fighting with the hope of a free tomorrow," she said. "The system we find ourselves in takes women as its target at every opportunity. We're responding to these escalating attackswith an armed resistance."

RukenCudisaid that after the YPG/YPJ forces drove back such attacks in Kobanê, it was wonderful for her and her comrades to see people begin to return to Kobanê.

"We see it as one of our biggest responsibilities to mobilize with all our strength for a way of life worthy of our people as they begin to come home," she said.

(na/mç/fk/cm)