by E.A.S.T. (Essential Autonomous Struggles Transnational)
On March 8th 2023 we are raising our voices against a climate of war that is legitimizing authoritarian governments, cutting freedom of abortion, feeding patriarchal violence and attacking women and LGBTQ people.
We recognize in the feminist strike of March 8th the possibility to struggle against neoliberal cutbacks of a welfare state – therefore in France we will connect with the protests against the pension reforms. We will build on the series of strikes by the hospital and essential workers – for example in Belgium, Germany, Bulgaria and France, which have united the struggle for better working and wage conditions in the hospital and care sectors, with the one against harassment and patriarchal violence in the workplace and the whole of society. We will shout “not one woman less” in Bulgaria to protest rapes and feminicides and denounce the authoritarian and patriarchal attack on women and LGBTQI+ people expressed in the call for a Referendum on gender ideology in the schools. We will take to the streets to show our rage against the government in Turkey. The devastating effects of the earthquake in Turkey, Syria and Kurdistan show again the political consequences of a corrupted and authoritarian regime, with over 50 thousand people killed. It wasn’t only the earthquake that was responsible for this many losses, but the evident result of Erdogan’s government which disregarded people’s lives for the sake of profit, while being legitimated by its role in war’s equilibria and by being the EU borders’ watchdog against the movement of migrants. It plays with the life of millions of women, migrants, children, LGBTQ, Kurdish people with the sole purpose of clinging onto power.
This March 8th we are connecting the feminist strike with the ongoing women’s uprising in Rojhelat and all four parts of Kurdistan. We look to the Kurdish and Iranian women who are still rising up against the patriarchal regime in Iran, joining in their call for “Jin! Jiyan! Azadi!”. Feminist and climate activists have recognized the need to connect the global strike of the 3rd of March with the feminist strike of the 8th of march on the common terrain of social reproduction struggle. The opposition to the war intensifying patriarchal oppression and aggravating the climate crisis in the name of energetic security, and the claim for a future without violence and environmental degradation are the common basis of the strike. To fight for peace means to connect our struggles and build power to overturn a whole political and economic system that uses the war as a weapon to reproduce itself and its hierarchies. We follow the example of the feminist movement Non Una di Meno in Italy which on the 24th of February, exactly one year after the beginning of the war, together with climate activists performed actions in the street and shouted: Strike the War!
The war in Ukraine has worsened our living and working conditions and changed the possibilities for our political initiative. By this it showed once again the urgency of building transnational connections. Thus, in the last months, E.A.S.T. has continued to be a network where struggles taking place in different contexts could speak to each other. During the transnational meetings in Sofia in September 2022 and in Frankfurt in February 2023, we discussed the urgency of the opposition to the war for feminist struggles in social reproduction. The war in Ukraine is turning into a new normality within public discourse; used to legitimize restrictive border politics and a militarization of foreign affairs; to enroll motherhood under nationalistic banners making it a patriotic duty; to strengthen exploitative working conditions. It is built on increasing social disparities that are affecting especially workers, women and migrants.
On 8th of March, to make more visible the transnational dimension of our fight against patriarchal violence, climate crisis, war, institutional racism and capitalist exploitation, we will stand up together to shout “Woman, life, freedom – strike the system!” and “Feminist strike against war, patriarchy and climate crisis!”
- Join us in a global scream.
- Make banners with the common slogans and send pictures to essentialstruggles@gmail.com
- Follow updates on https://www.facebook.com/EASTEssentialStruggles
