International Environmental Protection Week

Dear members of the press,

On the occasion of the start of the international environmental protection week between the 5^th and 11^th of June, we are issuing the following press release. Our hope is that during this week, any work done to protect the environment around the world, will not be limited to such symbolic days, but will be permanent and will lead to an ecological way of life.

Undoubtedly, the increasingly dangerous environmental problems that appear in our daily life because of the ecological crisis, are a priority for the whole world. Until today, no government or organization in power has been indifferent to the environmental problems that threaten the near future of the world community, but at the same time, none of them have analyzed and committed to eliminate the main sources of the problems. This has brought about temporary measures that did not solve the problems radically, on the contrary, they have caused problems to grow even more.

In today’s era, one of the main conflicts is the social crisis that has emerged due to the authority and exploitation of people’s domination over people. The ecological crisis develops as a result of the unbalanced relations that humans impose on nature. In any case, the origin of both the social and ecological crises is the same. Therefore, when we talk about an ecological problem, we are not talking about problems that arise due to natural phenomena. Ecological problems are the outcome of bad and destructive actions imposed by humans on nature. If the environmental problems and the negative effects that we are currently facing are ignored, inevitably larger and more destructive problems will affect our ecosystem. The effect of the greenhouse, the deterioration of the ozone layer, the pollution of water and air, and the extinction of species are symbols of the chaos that surrounds the environment. On this basis, it is necessary that the environmental problems that constitute the ecological crisis are solved permanently and fundamentally, and not superficially and temporarily.

Capitalism causes the ecological crisis by dangerously using scientific-technical advanced knowledge, directly interfering with organic development for unlimited profit. Due to this intervention, the rings of the organic world are being destroyed more and more every day. Therefore, our world and all humanity is facing an environmental crisis. If this continues, it is only a matter of time before humanity ends up with an ecological catastrophe. Stopping this catastrophe can only be achieved by overcoming capitalism.

Dear Members of the Press,

Therefore, what should be emphasized today is not the reduction of this crisis, but its radical solution. For this reason, today’s “world environment week” should not be only about raising awareness on the environmental crisis, as this approach simplifies the problem. The root of the problem goes back to the beginning of civilization. In the early human societies, there was no conflict between civilization and the natural world. For this reason, when we refer to the per-civilization period as the stage of natural society, we are talking about a life in harmony with the natural world. This social life, where the natural world is the only source of life, is not hierarchical and centralized, and it develops with diversity and complements each other. But in the age we live in, it has been forgotten that humans are part of nature, and the way of life is never questioned. Today, the species called human does not live in harmony with nature.

The history of civilization developed with this paradigm has been bloody and destructive. Under capitalism, ecological destruction has been accelerated. Although the entire history of civilization has been shaped by the psychological dimensions of ecological destruction, at no time have humans been more opposed to the natural and social world than capitalist modernity. What we need to question is the mentality of capitalism. Until this world mentality is understood, we cannot properly explain why the environmental problems experienced have become so severe. The mentality of capitalism, the fight between society and nature, how everyone fought with everyone , has caused the development of environmental problems. Robbery and exploitation of natural resources has become the only valid source of market power and social life. This mentality has only one goal: the accumulation of unlimited capital based on the law of maximum profit. Undoubtedly for limitless capital to exist, natural resources are being uncontrollably consumed.

Of course, the cost of this unlimited accumulation-consumption equation, which has dominated our world for the last four centuries, is immense. In the last two centuries, industrialism, an ideology developed by capitalism as an exploitation of science and technology, has turned into a beast that eats the environment. As social and environmental needs are neglected of the sake of profit and capital accumulation, the industrial revolution has become a counter-revolution against the environment and society in the hands of capitalism.

Dear members of the press,

While man with his socialite was an indispensable part of nature, this process unfortunately ended with the domination of man over man and man over nature. Moreover, our world is the product of the development of the world of plants and animals of a very delicately arranged climatic atmosphere. But it is unfortunate that people show the greatest lack of conscience and morality against nature, although nature has reason, conscience and morality. We think that the system of patriarchal-hierarchical state civilization has caused this phenomenon and has disturbed natural balance. We believe in an approach that protects the existence of nature in the form of protecting the right to life of all living things in the whole world and even acts on the basis of equality. Even today, we are talking about how the diversity of life that has been achieved as a result of billions of years of development is decreasing day by day and easily destroys the natural balance. The fact that all these situations threaten our existence once again proves that the problem is not only an environmental problem.

It is also mentioned that the pollution of the atmosphere caused by carbon dioxide (CO2) and other gases, achieved by man, cannot be cleaned for thousands of years, while industrialization, ignoring the natural balance, makes the environment uninhabitable with acidic, chemical liquid and gas waste and plastic products, which are the result of the use of the petroleum industry for profit, makes uninhabitable, pet bottles, exhaust fumes, smoke from the chimneys of factories and thermal power plants, chemical waste from the drains of factories, acidic water flowing into the environment from iron and steel factories, sufficiently show us how natural resources can be transformed into results harmful to man. As a result of these, the deterioration of the ecological balance due to the absence of many species of plants and animals has reached a deep level, and it is impossible to eliminate these consequences quickly and with limited measures. Therefore, while environmental problems were the problem of a limited number of industrialized countries in the past, today they have reached a stage that concerns the whole world.

On this basis, treating the problems as environmental alone will not solve them, but people and communities must be sensitized to natural existence, the finite nature and exhaustion of resources.On this basis, this problem as a work like gathering the remnants of capitalism and trying to live the system created by it, as well as the need to continue these activities that are on the agenda, will not be successful. environmental movements as the results of advanced Western capitalism.

Therefore, until profit-oriented production and the concept of ownership are eliminated, these days will only have a symbolic value and will not radically solve environmental problems. In other words, in order to develop the approach to nature and reduce alienation, the effort to eliminate alienation should be developed on the basis of a new moral and conscientious approach in interpersonal relations. On this basis, the struggle from the smallest to the most extensive and the mistakes that are the negative legacy of the history of class civilizations, should be extensive and deep. It is necessary to develop an initiative without taking into account the small and big problems and to develop the sensitivity of the ecological life from the beginning by supporting the incentive approaches.

Women’s Ecology Platform Rojava

05.06.2023