Kurdish National
Congress perhaps is the only Kurdish organisation working
towards a united Kurdistan state. It is an umbrella of few hundred people;
some independent and some affiliated to different Kurdish political parties.
Mr Mella
opened the debate.
Nebez formulated
his debate around several themes and started putting
several issues forwards in order to stimulate the debate. These are some
of
the issues:
- Women are
half of the society; but until now they have not been regarded
as a social class. Can women globally, despite some regional variations,
be
regarded as a social class who has all the prerequisites to have one global
interest and stand against their exploitations?
- Is the
exploitation of women only a characteristic of some reactionary,
feudalism and/or illiterate societies, of the third and fourth world,
or is
it a more universal characteristic of the world as a whole, which appears
in
different format in different locations?
- What is
the role of the religious education in exploitation of women?
- Are there
any fundamental differences between men in different regions, or
men broadly have the same nature?
- If we assume
that men are responsible for the current situation of women,
therefore unless men are changed to better, women's situation would remain
the same.
- Many women
have taken "Feminism" as vehicle to liberate themselves. Can
Feminism achieve this objective?
After putting
forwards the above issues, then Nebez left the floor open for
discussions. Many issues were brought up.
On the issue
of religions, Nebez, himself a prominent scientist
professionally, said that we need to make distinguish between two separate
concepts, beliefs and science. In science, he elaborated, things are
measurable, and to explain his theses, he gave some simple examples, such
as
one can measure how much water is in a cup.
In beliefs,
however, Nebez emphasised, things are not measurable. For
example, how much a religious person identifies with his God, cannot be
measured. Further, he went on, one may not be able to prove or disprove
a
concept of a belief.
Then, he
concluded, a state based on nations and measurable factors -
science, a belief cannot achieve this. That is why religions and states
must
be kept separate. He questioned that there are some eleven religions in
Kurdistan, which one would be the religion of the Kurdistan state.
People must
be free to practice their beliefs, in a Kurdistan state, but
must not impose their beliefs on others. And the state must organise and
give freedom to all the persons to practice their beliefs without fear.
On the equality
between men and women, Nebez states, "if one is not free,
one is not equal." Therefore, women need to be free to be equal.
It was a
productive debate. Perhaps what was disappointing, there was no
resolutions in the end. The debate mainly was about today's situation
and
not what need to be done. Understanding current societies is important;
but
perhaps more importantly is to understand how to change it.
Some concepts
such as women need to organise themselves; men need to assist
women in their freedom movement; increase the societies literacy and so
on,
were debated, But a workable proposal did not emerge from this debate
to
assist in women's issue.
It was also
unclear how the concept of treating women as a social class
helps liberation of women.
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