Turkey is currently at war with an autonomous region in north Syria known as Rojava. Rojava is a Kurdish political project, which comes from a long line of Kurdish independence projects which hopes to bring rights to the Kurdish people. It was created during the Arab Springs in Syria. Turkey has a history of oppressing the Kurdish people and this time is no exception.

Kurdish people have faced oppression from many places in the Middle East. The place where the Kurdish face the greatest amount of discrimination is in Turkey. For example, in 1980 the Turkish government made the words Kurd, Kurdish, and Kurdistan illegal. Following that, the government has detained and imprisoned anyone who speaks, sings, or writes in Kurdish. Turkey tried to rename the Kurdish people to Mountain Turks. Kurdish people have very few political protections. This has caused the creation of many Kurdish nationalist groups like the PKK and Peshmerga.

 Now that we understand the precedent for this violence, we can explore it more. Rojava was another independence project formed by the Kurdish. When it was formed, Turkey declared it a rogue state and has since done everything to try to exterminate it. They have blocked aid, attacked civilians, and even lightly allied with ISIS. This has been cripling to Rojava and led to them giving up autonomy to Syria which has greatly hurt their political project.

Speaking of political projects, here is their political project. Rojava, like many other Kurdish political groups, was inspired by the politician Abdullah Octollan. He had an emphasis on politics based in democracy, feminism, and the protection of not just Kurds but other minorities as well. This has led to the very progressive Rojava, which not only protects the voices of the minority groups within its territory, it also protects the voice of women. 

In conclusion, the conflict between Turkey and Rojava comes from a long history of anti-Kurdish violence. Turkey has long repressed the voice of the Kurdish and it has always led to violence. Turkey has taken this violence to a new place with the extremes they have gone to. Rojava is also an interesting political project because of its progressive, and pro-democracy, ideals. All in all, this is a very complicated subject but also very important to understand the position of the Kurdish at the moment.