Washington Kurdish Institute
By: Kevin T. Mason
March 26, 2018
Afrin has been liberated. On 18 March 2018, after a 58-day unprovoked, holy, flawless, peace-bringing operation which Ankara claims cost a grand total of zero civilian casualties, Afrin has finally been liberated.
As if foretelling Operation Olive Branch nearly a year prior, over 2,700 olive trees had been liberated from Afrin’s border with Turkey. In the early stages of the operation, the liberators morale was indeed high. They sang songs of past struggles – of Grozny and Dagestan and Tora Bora. Afrin would be next, they sang. Before Afrin City, however, would be Jindires. Southwest of Afrin City, Jindires saw its bricks liberated from their buildings and its buildings liberated from their foundations.
Throughout the operation, Afrin’s goats, chickens, and turkeys were liberated. The region’s turkeys, in particular, were freed from bondage and returned to their (presumed) homeland. But not all animals proved deserving of liberation. Some of Afrin’s goats must have been collaborators, because they were shot by Afrin’s liberators and left in the fields where they fell. Some of Afrin’s chickens, too, must have been traitors, because they were struck-down by airstrikes alongside their conspiratorial families.
Afrin’s farms are now free, having been liberated from their livestock and farmers, many of whom are so completely free they have been liberated from their lives. Even village doors have been liberated from their hinges. The tractors and cars of Afrin have been liberated. Video has emerged of them parading down Afrin’s streets, proudly burdened with their liberators and the recently liberated inventory of Afrin’s shops.
The homes of the Yezidi community of Afrin, the last of the Yezidis to remain undisturbed in perhaps all of Syria, have been liberated from the families who lived in them. The Yezidis of Afrin, like the Yezidis of Sinjar in 2014, finding liberation difficult, have taken to the mountains.
The women of Afrin have been liberated from their liberation, much like their sisters in Turkey. Following the coup attempt in the summer of 2016, the Turkish State seized – and closed – women’s centers throughout the southeast of Turkey, liberating women from the burden of choice and steering them towards a “complete” life. The women’s centers that have remained open have had all services cancelled except for daycare, which has been replaced with Quran courses.The streets of Afrin have been fully liberated. So much so that not a soul remained on them to welcome their liberators, save for those haunting the city, liberated from their bodies by Turkish airstrikes and shelling. The few bakeries left standing are now liberated from the lines of people’s waiting for bread in a city besieged. The only water treatment facility in the region was liberated from its burden of providing clean drinking water to Afrin’s communities, having been destroyed weeks ago. With laser-precision, the Turkish Airforce liberated Afrin from its 3,000-year-old old history and culture.
Afrin has been liberated from the safety it has been subjected to throughout the course of the Syrian Civil War. It has been liberated from the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Syrians it sheltered. It has been liberated from cultural and religious coexistence. Mothers have been liberated from their infant children and children have been liberated from their parents. The people of Afrin owe their liberators an unending debt for their current situation.
The aptly named “Operation Olive Branch” will continue to sow peace throughout northern Syria by displacing or silencing all those who would dare to resist it. Europe and the United States hastened the liberation of Afrin through their powerful use of “concerns” and “condemnations”. And, of course, weapons sales. Not even a UN Security Council resolution could halt the forced march of liberation imposed on Afrin by Turkey.
After Operation Olive Branch, Afrin has found itself liberated from its people and its people liberated from years of relative stability and prosperity. The one thing the operation failed to liberate the people of Afrin from is their indominable spirit. And so long as a single Afrini lives, there remains a specter on the horizon: hope.
Perhaps that hope will spread to Europe and the United States, liberating them from inaction. And let us all hope that Manbij, Kobanî, and Qamişlo are undeserving of “Turkish liberation”, and that Afrin, in time, proves to be as well.
Mr. Mason is a member of the Representation Office of the Democratic Federation of North Syria in Benelux. The office can be reached at ext.relations@rojavabenelux.nl.
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