Turkish Alevis Demand Recognition

The new willingness of the Turkish government to talk to the Alevi minority in the country has met with mistrust from many of its members. Most of the Alevi organisations refused to accept an invitation to dinner issued by the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Andreas Gorzewski reports

According to Alevi associations in Turkey, the conservative government of the Justice and Development Party, the AKP, has done nothing over the last five years to reduce the discrimination under which the religious community suffers, and they do not trust the latest offers of dialogue made by the prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Most of the Alevi organisations failed to turn up for a symbolically important dinner which was to be attended by the government and representatives of the Alevis.

The dinner, to mark the Alevi period of fasting, was the idea of an AKP member of parliament, Reha Camuroglu, who is himself an Alevi. But his attempts at mediation have mostly met with criticism from his fellow believers.

The mistrust which the Alevis feel towards the government is deep. Izzettin Dogan, chairman of the Alevi Cem Foundation, believes that the AKP's interest in dialogue is an election campaigning tactic. The AKP, he believes, wants to appeal not just to Sunni Muslims but also to Alevis. Ali Yildirim, head of the Alevi Research Centre, thinks the AKP is following a policy of assimilation.

The governing party, he believes, would like to integrate the community into the Turkish official structures, in order to deprive it of its separate identity.

The role of the EU

As well as the suspicion that there are domestic political reasons for the government's willingness to talk to the Alevis, Turkey is also under pressure from the European Union. The issue of the country's failure to recognise the ten to twenty million Alevis in Turkey and to give them equal treatment has been criticised in the EU's reports on Turkey's progress towards accession.

At the dinner, Erdogan emphasised the common ground between Sunni Muslims and Alevis. "We all belong to the same country," he said. "We are all brothers." But there are few similarities in religious practice between the Alevis and either Sunni or Shia Muslims.

Alevis do not pray five times a day, their fasting period is not during the month of Ramadan, and they do not make the pilgrimage to Mecca. Adherents of the religious community, of which there are many among both Turks and Kurds, do not pray in mosques, but in so-called assembly houses, cemevi. But according to a recent ruling by an administrative court in Ankara, these cemevi are not officially recognised as places of prayer.

The Alevi faith developed in Anatolia during the Middle Ages, mixing Muslim and non-Muslim influences. For centuries, as a result of their religious non-conformism, Alevis have been viewed as heretics and have repeatedly been the victims of persecution.

Rights for Alevis?

According to the Turkish state religious authority Diyanet, Alevism is part of the Muslim tradition. That means Alevis are not an independent religious community with its own rules. Many Alevis reject that view firmly.

At the same time, the almost three hundred Alevi organisations in Turkey are hopelessly divided as to how their faith relates to Islam. Some Alevis see themselves as Muslims, others regard their religion as being something separate.

They also cannot agree on what kind of recognition they want. Some organisations want financial support from the state. That would include salaries for Alevi clerics, who, unlike Sunni imams, receive no money from the state. Some organisations want representation in the state religious authority. Others want the complete dismantling of the state religious authority, which until now has only represented the interests of Sunni Islam.

Threat of exclusion

But there was unusual unity among the organisation on the issue of boycotting the government dinner. Turan Esser, chairman of the Alevi-Bektashi Federation, complains that the dinner was only intended to sweep Alevi demands under the carpet.

Those Alevis who nevertheless attended the dinner have been threatened with religious exclusion from their communities.

This strict rejectionist line has been strongly criticised in the media. Taha Aykol, a columnist in the daily "Milliyet", described Erdogan's invitation as a chance to solve an age-old conflict.

"Party political or ideological fanaticisim should not prevent this," he wrote. And the commentator Mehmet Metiner, writing in the paper "Bügün", asked, "Can one be so frightened of dialogue?"

Andreas Gorzewski

Translated from the German by Michael Lawton

Qantara.de

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