Anti-ISIS fighter visits Oxford — discusses Kurds and Turkey

Matt Florence
Nov 4 · 3 min read

— By Matt Florence

Above — The Bob Crow Brigade (BCB) consists of British and Irish communists who travelled to Syria to fight against ISIS alongside the predominantly Kurdish and socialist YPG (People’s Protection Units) The BCB is the British and Irish branch of a larger organisation of international volunteers called the International Freedom Battalion (IFB). The IFB fights alongside and supports the YPG.

On the 23rd of October the Oxford Brookes Journalism Society hosted a special outside speaker, former anti-ISIS fighter Alexander Norton. A former railway worker turned journalist for Britain’s trade union newspaper The Morning Star, Alexander travelled to Syria in 2015 to work on humanitarian projects. After witnessing the Kurdish socialist society in Rojava (Northern Syria) built by the YPG, coupled with his communist beliefs and need for justice, he joined the International Freedom Battalion (IFB) to fight against ISIS.

Left — members of the Bob Crow Brigade (BCB) / Right — Former BCB member Alexander Norton speaking at Oxford Brookes University
Alexander Norton happily introduces himself to the Oxford Brookes Journalism Society

20 minutes late to his own event, Alexander arrived sprinting through the university and burst into the lecture theater to find the journalism society using the projector to play music requests. After preparing his slides, Alexander opened his presentation by asking the opinions of some of the audience.

Kurdish civilians throw stones and rotten vegetables at US troops abandoning their positions to allow for a Turkish invasion. Trump moved troops away frm Kurdish positions towards oil fields, allowing the Turkish military to bomb YPB positions.

Alexander was very eager to let people know that the YPG alliance with the USA against ISIS was not the brotherly bond that much of the English speaking media portrays it to be. He told the audience that not a single US soldier was killed fighting ISIS despite their soldiers being in Syria for several years. 10,000 YPG fighters died while defending their homes from ISIS while the Americans sat in their bases firing artillery and conducting airstrikes many miles away from the battlefield. During his lenghty stay in Syria, Alexander said he only saw US troops twice. They never spoke to him and stayed far away from him and his fellow anti-ISIS fighters. He also explained how the only American support him and his fellow fighters saw came in the form of a few unimpressive small arms such as M16 rifles. Infact Alexander and his fellow fighters were so ill-equiped that they fought without body armour and instead of grenades relied on home-made explosives. It seemed that ISIS themselves had more american equipment than the volunteers and Kurds fighting against them.

Alexander Norton showing a propaganda video created by the Bob Crow Brigade. The video shows several of their members dancing on a rooftop with a giant hammer and sickle logo while clips play of children dancing below the building alongside them. Other clips showed British and Irish communists fighting against ISIS in Manjib.

Another important point he made was the types of people joining the International Freedom Battalion (IFB) to fight alongside the YPG against ISIS and Turkey. The vast majority were leftists, most were communists mixed with a small number of anarchists. Alexander was keen to stress this as evidence that conservative Brits are wrong when they claim that the British left is soft on Islamist terrorism and that no conservatives or right wingers were ever seen in fighting alongside the Kurds against ISIS.

One Turkish student (grey hoodie) disagreed with Alexander (left) and the two debated on various topics for much of the event

During this event a Turkish student in the front row of the room challenged Alexander on various topics concerning Turkey’s invasion of Syria. However the man did agree with Norton that Erdogan can be considered a dictator and that Turkey’s treatment of Kurdish people has been abysmal. At the back of the room were several local Kurdish activists who also chimed into their debates and for a while the event got out of hand.

Despite the heated debate at the last segment of the event, an after party was organised at a nearby pub where the unfortunate president of the Oxford Brookes Anime Society was forced to defend his existance from Norton’s relentless banter.

Matt Florence

Written by

Matt Florence is historian and journalist from England.

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