Vice president of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) Dengir Mir Mehmet Fırat said that “our perspective on women is very different from how the other parties and the other sections of the society approach this issue. We are not for the philosophical belief, the medium of clash, which the feminist thinking creates. The women of the Justice and Development Party have not been slaves to the feminist ideology and they will not”
According to the NTVNSBC news website, in a speech he gave at the Congress of the Adana Provincial Women Branches of AKP, Fırat said that “For we believe that woman and man are inseparable from each other and they complement each other. Therefore, our respect to her is not made up of words, but is real.”
Fırat emphasized that “the woman organizations of AKP were set up a year after the main level organizations were. This was not because that they did not care about women, but on the contrary, it was because they cared very much.”
Fırat stated that “in order to extol the woman organizations of the party on strong foundations, they are being very sensitive and examine carefully how to organize them and who will work in them.”“We will not have our woman branches do cheerleading”
Fırat asked that “what is right? To put a clause in your regulation and put the women in places so they will not be elected, or not to put a clause but to nominate them in places where they may have a chance to be elected, because you believe in the idea” and answered:
“I ask everyone: Is there only one party in Turkey, the Justice and Development Party? Isn’t there any other party? Aren’t there parties who call themselves social democrat and nationalist? Are they not in the parliament? Which one of these parties had their woman organization assemble a congress? Some assign, some give orders and those who take orders applaud those who give orders, they do their cheerleading. We have not had our woman branches do cheerleading and we will not. We want our women to take part at every level by doing politics while we remove the obstacles before them. We are sincere in this.” (NZ/TB)
