Democratic Palestine : 15 (ص 23)
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- Democratic Palestine : 15 (ص 23)
- المحتوى
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International Women’s Day
On March 11th, the PFLP women’s branch organized a public meet-
ing to celebrate International Womens Day. Comrade Leila Khaled
chaired the meeting and introduced Comrade George Habash who
delivered the following address on the women’s question.
The women’s question is no less
important than the question of the cur-
rent political situation. On this occasion,
it is your right that | speak on the subject
of the Palestinian woman. | convey
heartfelt greetings on behalf of the
PFLP's politbureau and central commit-
tee. We salute our women comrades in
the jails of Zionism and reaction. We
remember the women martyrs who sac-
rificed for the Palestinian and Arab liber-
ation cause. | will speak on women’s lib-
eration and the main tasks towards
achieving this. | chose this subject not
only because of the occasion, but due to
my conviction in its importance, and our
need to emphasize it so as to release the
potential of this large sector of our
people. We will speak of how to release
women’s potentials and enable them to
participate in liberating Palestine and
building a socialist society. We are for a
comprehensive change in the women's
role in the liberation process whereby
they take a full place as citizens with
complete rights and duties.
When we speak of liberating Pales-
tine from Zionism, we speak of liberating
all the people - men and women. When
we speak of liberation from a class view-
point, we speak of liberating all the
Palestinian masses from the exploiting
classes. When we speak of women's lib-
eration, we mean liberating women from
their social status, as being unequal to
men in terms of rights and duties. More
frankly, we mean liberating women from
men and how men look upon women.
We experience this inequality con-
stantly in everyday life. The boy, when
born, is welcomed with joy - the girl,
maybe with anger, with sorrow, or at
best with grudging acceptance. Inequal-
ity is seen on many levels. Male youths
can go and come as they please - the girl
does not. It also applies in inheritance. |
remember | inherited two times as much
as my sisters. We want to explain this
phenomenon of inequality so as to be
able to remedy it.
Revolutionary work is struggle to
eliminate the exploitation of man by his
fellow man. On this basis, we struggle to
liberate Palestine, because the Palesti-
nian people are oppressed by ‘Israel’.
On this basis, we will continue to strug-
gle in the process of class liberation, to
end exploitation. This must continue to
end any kind of social exploitation of
women by men.
Inequality has its roots in a stage of
history when a division of labor occurred
whereby men began to be responsible
for productive tasks, while the women’s
task was to provide services, mainly
domestic duties. This is the root of the
inequality. There is a great difference
between production and_ services.
Goods come by way of production -
industrial or agricultural or crafts. This
gave man greater value than that
accorded woman. This historical pro-
cess left its mark on women and their
status.
Accordingly, women will be liber-
ated only under socialism which pro-
vides women with productive work
whereby they provide goods. Thus, a
new understanding will prevail whereby
women will be regarded as people with
full rights and duties. Thus we would
have ended inequality which even af-
fects women’s honour. You may have
heard the expression: «Women are half-
wits.» Yet medical research indicates
that women, from a biological viewpoint,
have the same mental capacities as
men. You should have faith in women’s
capabilities and right to equality.
However, the importance of
women’s liberation does not mean that it
takes priority over the liberation of
Palestine and all other political tasks. It
would be a great mistake to draw this
conclusion. | warn against infantile left
misinterpretation of what | have just
said. Women’s total liberation can only
be achieved after liberating Palestine
and building a socialist society. If we
forget the dialectical relationship bet-
ween the liberation of Palestine and the
liberation of women, we would be mak-
ing a big mistake. Through liberating
Palestine and then building a democra-
tic, socialist Palestine, we will have
genuinely contributed to liberating
women.
Until that time, shall we leave this
important task aside? No. We can begin
now to forge a path towards liberating
women, linked with national liberation,
then social liberation. There are three
main tasks which we can start now.
One is the ideological task which
means spreading the ideas | mentioned
above. We must constantly speak of the
woman's right to equality, of her ability,
whether or not we can find solutions to
these problems or not. This is‘a main
task for the PFLP, for the women’s
branch and for all Palestinian women’s
organizations, so that there will be a
21 - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 15
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- أبريل ١٩٨٦
- المنشئ
- الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين
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