‘Şehid Ivana Hoffmann lost her life fighting Daiş, which is an undoubtedly selfless and courageous act. However, today, on her birthday, we choose not to focus on what she died for, but rather what she lived for. Today, we want to remember the life she lead and the passion she brought to life. We want to remember her as someone that went into struggle with clarity, due to a relentless commitment to liberation. Ivana truly used the time she had with a driven purpose. Already, in her early teens, she had become involved in student protests. Wasting little time, from there she became more and more active in political movements, eventuality involving herself in union work and communist youth organizing (KGÖ). She was someone that didn’t shy away from what it means to struggle and understood both the internal and external dimensions of it. At the age of 19, in her last letter to her comrades, Ivana stated “I want to be a part of the Revolution in Rojava. I want to evolve. In these six months I want to get to know the fight… Maybe I will reach my limits and fall back but I will never give up the fighting spirit and I will go on.”
Ivana Hoffmann came to Rojava as an internationalist with MLKP, someone that was born in Germany to a German mother and a father from Togo. However, her internationalism was not just something inherent in her citizenship status or heritage. Her belief and commitment to internationalist ideals went far beyond that, exemplified clearly by her recognizing it as important to know the languages of those she would be struggling along side with and in turn learning both Kurdish and Turkish before her arrival in Rojava. As a revolutionary lesbian woman of German-Togo decent, we see her as someone that truly connected the different struggles she committed her life to, opposing imperialism, colonialism, racism, fascism, patriarchy and homophobia.
So, today on her birthday, we invite you to take a moment and celebrate the life that Ivana Hoffmann led. Ivana promised that “When I come back, I will infect my comrades and my surroundings with both the fighting spirit and willpower. I will be like a beautiful song and pull everyone under my spell. I will be a guerrilla full of charity and hope.” Today we say that she never left. Instead, we say that she is right here with us as we not only remember but also draw inspiration from her life in order to continue the struggle for which she lived. This way, we can live life to it’s fullest, not waste a breath, and enjoy every moment that we commit ourselves to the struggle. In celebration of both Ivana’s memory and life itself then, we loudly state that we are ready to sacrifice everything if necessary. However, not because the struggle is for martyrdom, but rather exactly because it is for life.
VICTORY TO THE WOMEN’S REVOLUTION IN ROJAVA AND AROUND THE WORLD!
VICTORY TO THE REVOLUTIONS IN ROJAVA, KURDISTAN AND TURKEY!
LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE!’
International Revolutionary People’s Guerrilla Forces IRPGF
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