Cahide Harputlu/JINHA

KOBANÊ – Nuran Ağırnaslı visited the city of Kobanê, for whose liberation her son, the internationalist revolutionary Suphi Nejat Ağırnaslı, gave his life.Nuranplanted a red flag on Miştenur Hill, where Suphi Nejat was martyred, as she had promised her son she would.

Suphi Nejat Ağırnaslı (whose nom de guerre,Paramaz Kızılbaş, honors Armenian and Alawite revolutionaries) was a member of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party who joined the YPG/YPJ defense of the city of Kobanê last year. The sociology  MA student at Boğaziçi University was martyred in October in the Kobanê resistance.

Nuran says she had long wanted to go to Kobanê to see the revolution ongoing there, but had not been able to go, owing to health problems.

"The first thing I saw was that the city was ruined, so much so that anyone can see it immediately," she said. "Yes, there's been great devastation in the city. But what's more important than this is to see what people wanted and succeeded in achieving here. You can see the conviction in people's faces. With conviction like this, I think anything can be solved. "

Nuran first joined a March 8 march led by Yekîtiya Star, the grassroots women's organization in Rojava. She said that being among women and especially YPJ fighters was a moving experience for her.But more important to her was her visit Miştenur Hill, a site that has become the symbol of the Kobanê resistance. Suphi Nejat lost his life in the battle for the hill.

"They're saying it's not possible to retrieve his remains right now, because Daesh planted explosives over the remains of the people they killed, and in the past people have been martyred trying to search for remains," said Nuran. "But I did promise Nejat that we would plant a red flag on the hill for him."

After planting the flag on the hill, Nuran along with Suphi Nejat's father, friends and comrades, rememberedhim by singing the revolutionary march "We Will Plant the Red Flag," and dedicated folk songs to him.

"I did what I promised him the way I wanted to," said Nuran. "It's a gratifying feeling, even if it stings. Unfortunately, beautiful things have a cost. We paid this cost all together, and heavily." She said, however, that what was present in Kobanê was a spirit of internationalist solidarity similar to that of the Spanish Civil War. She mentioned the young Australian who was recently martyred in the war.

"They've left a beautiful heritage for humanity. In a culture that tends to forgetfulness, they've brought the culture of solidarity back to life."

Nuran said she has much to learn from the Kurdish women's movement and the women's revolution in Kobanê.

"I see a women's movement emerging from this place, where women are exchanged as brides, where men don't shake women's hands, where girls are forced to married at a young age and aren't educated, as a wonderful thing," she said. "I've seen the extent of women's role in the revolution, that glimmer in women's eyes. Even if I don't speak the same language as the YPJ women, there's a closeness that comes from our hearts being one."

Nuran said women in Turkey, where the rate of femicides has gained speed in recent years, needed to seriously advance their struggle. She greeted all women on March 8, International Working Women's Day.

(ns/fk/cm)