Self-defense is the ability of living beings to display the consciousness and capacity to frustrate and eliminate, through their own strength, every kind of threat or attack directed at them.
It is the sole path to existence for every living being. It is the struggle of an entity to secure its own safety and liberate itself. For humankind and society, it is a consciousness: the consciousness of defending and protecting oneself, bringing oneself into existence and sustaining that existence. It may also be interpreted as a line of life, its organization and its moral-political consciousness.
It does not consist merely of defending oneself against attacks involving violence. Defending oneself against ideological, cultural and faith-based attacks constitutes the essence of self-defense.
The wise person defined self-defense as “the most fundamental matter of consciousness, organization and action.” It is the consciousness of being oneself and being able to defend oneself. Socrates, too, points to the necessity of self-defense when teaching “know thyself.” Or we may say that he placed the step “know thyself” at the foundation of self-defense. As we advance toward becoming individuals of the democratic nation, the soundest approach is to regard self-defense as an indispensable principle.
If we make the consciousness of self-defense more concrete through some of its dimensions, we can see that self-defense plays a leading role in the mechanism by which our universe brings itself into being and sustains its existence. We speak of a living universe. Our universe has a mode of movement that operates continuously. Our galaxy possesses every manner of color and diversity, and an accord exists among this diversity. It is stated that our galaxy moves in the form of spiral arms. It is in motion with a speed and harmony far beyond our perception and what we are able to perceive. Perhaps it is in a position of defending itself against a danger that might come from the void of space and time. With our galaxy beside us like a treasure awaiting discovery, we can examine the defense mechanisms of the living beings within our universe.
It is not sufficient by itself to treat self-defense as a natural stimulus-response reflex displayed by living beings to protect their existence. Alongside these basic characteristics, it will be useful to view the course of the development of the human species in this light.
The most fundamental characteristics distinguishing humankind from other beings may be listed as follows: thought, speech, design, toolmaking, socialization, the creation of meaning, and so forth. The development of these human characteristics occurred as the result of a long evolutionary process extending over millions of years. We must consider socialization an important mechanism of self-defense inherent in the human species. Socialization, which expresses conscious coexistence, carries an indispensable meaning for the human species to sustain its existence. Socialization has been humanity’s most fundamental creation in confronting every kind of attack and hardship of life.
Socialization is the condition of existence of the human species
In the course of humanity’s development, the wise person evaluates “sociality as the condition of existence of the human species.” The development of the statist, power-oriented system made the understanding of violence and force dominant. With the transition to class society, the exploitation of one sex by the other conditioned the exploitation of nature, animals and all human values. For individuals or societies, we cannot regard any kind of war as permissible apart from a necessary war of defense. Wars waged with the mentality of state and power have always brought disaster, evil and destruction upon society. Resorting to force (war) becomes meaningful only when no other means remain to protect one’s existence, freedom and honor. In this sense, we can state that the revolutionary people’s wars waged from history to the present, and still being waged, express self-defense in their essence.
Under today’s conditions, self-defense is the cornerstone of bringing oneself into existence. It does not appear possible for any individual, society, group, system or living being to sustain itself without a mechanism of self-defense. It is therefore important to wage the active struggle for liberation in every sphere and moment of life, and to make continuous the struggle to preserve the consciousness of freedom, in its structural and semantic dimensions, within that consciousness’s continuity.