Turkish Alevis participate in a Cem ritual in the eastern Turkish city of Sivas. ADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty Images[/caption]
Erdal is a Muslim: it is official. It must be so, because it is there in black and white, stamped on his identity card—a part of who he is, forever. He is a Muslim because his government tells him that he is.
Yet, Erdal is an Alevi, a member of a minority religious group in Turkey that counts at least twelve million people among its followers at home, and many millions more abroad. Although Alevism technically falls under the Shi’a denomination of Islam, it is very distantly related and mixes elements of Sufism and pre-Islamic regional faiths. The Turkish government does not recognize the Alevi faith as a religion in its own right; it comes under the general label of Islam. In Turkey Islam means Sunnism—the majority sect, and the one that is endorsed by a state that is meant to be secular.
Yet the Alevis do not see themselves as Sunnis, and many do not even consider themselves to be Muslims. “We do not pray as Muslims do,” says Erdal. “We worship through songs and poetry. And we do not have a religious book like the Qu'ran. Everything is passed down through oral tradition.”
Erdal was one of the thousands of people who jammed the streets of Anatolian Istanbul on Tuesday July 2 to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Alevis’ darkest hour. In 1993 thirty-three Alevi intellectuals were killed in an arson attack as they gathered at a hotel in Sivas for a conference. Despite a number of arrests being made and a high profile trial last year, no-one has ever been convicted and the Alevis’ demands for the hotel to be turned into a permanent memorial to those who died have been consistently ignored by the Turkish government.
The Sivas fire was a devastating manifestation of the prejudice that the Alevis face in Turkey. It is a prejudice that seeps into daily life as well as religion. “Alevis do not fast during Ramadan, it is not part of our religion,” says Atilla Özedemir, an Alevi doctor and head of the Pir Sultan Abdal Kültür, an Alevi campaign group. “But people have lost their jobs because they have eaten at work during Ramadan. And in some reactionary areas of Turkey people paint symbols on the doors of Alevi houses, and Alevis have been attacked on the streets because they were smoking.”
Because the Alevi faith is not recognized by the Turkish state, neither are the Alevis’ places of worship. The Cems—where Alevi ceremonies such as funerals are held—are classed as cultural centers rather than as religious buildings, this leaves them open to attack by religious extremists. “Three months ago two people came to one of our Cems and threatened the people who had gathered there,” says Özedemir. “They said ‘If you don’t believe in the Qu'ran, then according to the principle of jihad we have the right to kill you,’ and those people were never punished.”
Now, Özedemir says, the Turkish government is using the uprising across the border in Syria to consolidate the social and political dominance of Sunnism in Turkey. Erdoğan’s support for Syria’s Sunni rebels is further widening the gulf between him and the Alevi minority. “Erdoğan is carrying his Sunni politics over into Syria,” he says, “and yet nearly all the people in Turkey, and especially the Alevis, do not want this war. A lot of Alevis live in the cities that border Syria and they have a kinship with the people.”
Last Tuesday’s demonstration would have happened regardless of the current situation in Syria and the Gezi Park protests. Alevi anger over what happened in Sivas has not subsided in the twenty years that have since passed. But their demonstrations should also be viewed as part of the wider protest movement that has shaken the country over the past month. Alongside the placards bearing pictures of the people who perished in the fire, the demonstrators waved flags printed with pictures of Atatürk and chanted slogans calling for Erdoğan’s resignation.
In all sections of Turkish society, and not just in the Alevi community, there is a growing revolt against Erdoğan’s religious preoccupation and its creep into his domestic and foreign policies. “It’s as if the Turkish people have finally woken up,” says Erdal. “They’re not afraid anymore.”
