A demonstration in the city of Afrin, Syria in support of the People's Protection Units (YPG) and the Women's Protection Units (YPJ) against the Turkish military operation against the Afrin Region. 19 January 2018. Voice of America Kurdish. Some rights reserved.This is the third article in a series on ‘confronting authoritarian populism and the rural world’, linked to the Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI). The article opening the series can be read here.
On 20 January, Turkey launched a brutal air and ground invasion of Afrin canton in Northern Syria. Turkey claims that the Orwellian-named ‘Operation Olive Branch’ is a fight against terrorism and an effort to secure Turkey’s borders. However, Afrin, one of the three founding cantons of the autonomous rural region in Northern Syria commonly called by the Kurdish name of Rojava, has been one of the most stable and peaceful regions in Syria since the state collapsed in 2012, and part of a radical experiment in decentralised democracy.
Seeing the invasion of Afrin in context
Some choose to see Turkey’s current aggression against Afrin as simply the next violent episode associated with the Syrian civil war, while others choose to take at face value Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan’s claims to be ridding regions bordering Turkey of their militant threats.
