Gülseren Onanç
The year 2022 has come to an end. Women fought for democracy, equality and freedom this year and waged a strong struggle against patriarchy to make the world a better place to live in. As SES Equality, Justice Women’s Platform, we remembered 15 unforgettable moments for gender equality and women’s rights in the world in 2022, and listed some of the women that gave us inspiration.
I have listed the kind of world and Turkey we want through women’s struggle as my wishes for 2023.
Here are my 10 wishes for 2023.
- I wish a new year for Turkey where democracy will prevail in the 100th anniversary of the Republic: I hope that this year’s elections will bring an end to the authoritarian government and that the winning political coalition will rebuild a secular, democratic and social state.
- I wish Turkey to restart the European Union membership process: The EU negotiation process will serve as an accelerating anchor in rebuilding democracy. Achieving gender equality seems to pass through Brussels.
- I wish Ukraine-Russia war to end in peace. I wish for peace talks to start as soon as possible between two countries with a shared history. I want this war to end, for Ukrainians and Russians who had to flee their countries to return home and I dream for the winds of peace to breeze across the Black Sea.
- May women’s uprising in Iran result in victory and the Taliban regime comes to an end: I wish that the regime in Iran, where hundreds of young people and women have been killed and dissidents have been executed for months after Mahsa Amini was killed by the morality police, will be overthrown by the women’s struggle. If the revolution started by Iranian women succeeds, women in other countries in the region, such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria and Turkey, will be greatly inspired by it. I wish for the end of Taliban regime that has turned women’s lives into a nightmare and dragged Afghanistan into medieval darkness.
- May Gezi and all political prisoners be freed: May Osman Kavala, all Gezi prisoners, Selahattin Demirtaş, Gültan Kışanak, Ayla Akat, Sebahat Tuncel, Figen Yüksekdağ and dozens of other political prisoners be freed. As long as they are in prison, we will not feel free outside.
- I wish Turkey to become a party to the Istanbul Convention again: I wish Turkey to become a party to the Istanbul Convention that our country withdrew following the arbitrary decision by the President of the Republic, and to realize the legal and administrative practices required by this convention.
- I wish environmental massacres to end: May the resistance of locals from İkizdere to İkizköy, from the Kaz Mountains to Validebağ be successful and may the environmental massacres of the government, which loves no green but the green of the dollar, come to an end. May the legal and environmental massacre in Kemerköy, which has been going on for 70 days, come to an end.
- In the 2023 elections, women’s representation in the parliament and in the government should be at least 30%: I believe that in the historic elections in 2023, this will be very important for building democracy: representatives of the women’s movement, women who are part of the feminist struggle taking a seat in the parliament and the cabinet.
- May our lives be filled with music and dance: In the past years we had to resist the reactionary forces that targeted music, musicians, dance and dancers. Let this year be a year when we will sing and dance more. Let’s dance a lot, especially “that night.”
- Let us embrace and live together with love and respect: The vicious cycle of polarization that has engulfed the world and the country is eroding the love for the “others” and the will to live together. In 2023, let’s live together with our differences, let the bad feelings in us be replaced by warm feelings of love, respect and tolerance. ❤️️🌈
In 2023, I embrace you all with love, wishing for a democratic, equal, secular and just country.