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RELIGION-TURKEY: Alevi Future Bleak Despite Equality Moves

Daan Bauwens

ANKARA, Feb 16 2010 (IPS) - A political initiative to eliminate discrimination against the Alevi, Turkey’s main religious minority, risks being stymied by the Diyanet, the country’s powerful religious body that does not recognise anything but Sunni Islam.

Between June 2009 and January 2010, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) organised seven different workshops to discuss a roadmap towards equal citizenship for the Alevis.

Dede Ali Yaman, who attended a workshop in January, told IPS that the theologians of the directorate of religious affairs were still resisting Alevi demands. ‘’I have the impression that the AKP government is afraid of them. If not for them, decisions to solve the Alevi issue are easy to make.’’

Yaman predicts that the results of the workshops will lead to a stand-off between Diyanet and the Alevi community. “Of course, this initiative is a historic move. But the results are more important than the initiative. If the AKP chooses status quo and agrees with the theologians of Diyanet, the world will see that this government opposes religious freedom.”

According to Yaman, legal changes will not be enough to stop discrimination: “It’s a process that can take centuries. People’s negative thoughts about Alevis have to change. But we already can feel conditions for Alevis in this country are getting better every day. I am optimistic.”

Although there is no official information available about their number or distribution, most sources state that 15 to 30 percent of Turkey’s population is Alevi.

According to some, Alevism is a humanist branch of Shi’ite Islam. Other say Alevis are not Muslims but have beliefs and practices that are pre-Islamic.

Alevis reject a literal interpretation of the Quran and take a progressive stance on various controversial issues: most of them are in favour of abortion, equality between the sexes and strongly believe in pacifism and monogamy.

Because of their left-wing political views – they have always strongly supported the secular state – they have repeatedly been persecuted by military regimes and Sunni religious traditionalists.

“There is systematic discrimination of the Alevites on religious grounds,” says Aykan Erdemir, assistant professor of sociology and deputy dean of the graduate school of social sciences at Ankara Middle East Technical University. “Although Turkey is a secular state and there is no official state religion, everybody knows the dominant element in Turkish society is Sunni Islam.”

“Since the beginning of the republic, both Kurdish and Turkish Alevites have been marginalised,’’ Erdemir told IPS.

“Currently, there are practically no Alevis in the parliament, while there are plenty of high-ranking Kurdish bureaucrats as long as they belong to the Sunni sect. There is discrimination in all political parties: you can’t find Alevi deputies, nor Alevi undersecretaries, only one provincial governor out of 81 is Alevi.”

Erdemir’s statements are backed by his own research. As a member of the scientific board of Ankara’s Alevi Insititute, he conducted 252 interviews with Alevites from various backgrounds in 14 cities. “They are well-educated, but bump into a glass ceiling,” he told IPS.

“Do you see that mosque?” asks Hüseyin Yildiz , professor of law in Dersim, a remote Kurdish Alevi city in the east of Turkey, pointing at a building. ‘’Nobody goes there… it is against our faith to enter a mosque. Despite knowing this, every year the government is building more and more new mosques on our hills. They keep sending imams, paid by the state as civil servants. Alevis pay taxes but don’t receive any services.”

According to Yildiz, mosques started to appear in this region after the military coup of 1980.

‘’It is the work of a huge constitutional body, the presidency of religious affairs or Diyanet, which denies any other religion than the Sunni faith.’’ he told IPS. ‘’It says these mosques are built for us, that it provides services to everyone. It also says there is no difference between Sunni and Alevi. It is a campaign for assimilation.”

It is illegal for the Alevis to build their own place of worship, called a cemevi. Building permits are systematically refused by the government and the Alevis are obliged to perform their rites in secret.

When Prime Minister Tayip Erdogan was mayor of Istanbul, he ordered demolition of the Karacaahmet Cemevi because of “unlicensed construction”. In 2008, the mayor of Ankara Melih Gökçek also tried to destroy a cemevi.

Alevi children are also subjected to discrimination. After the military coup of 1980, compulsory religious classes were introduced in Turkish schools. Although the class is called ‘Religious Culture and Ethics,’ children are only taught the principles of Sunni Islam.

Following a complaint filed by Hasan Zengin and his daughter Eylem, both Alevis, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that the content of these religious classes violated human rights and contradicted the principles of plurality and objectivity.

Besides, the court commented that the pupils do not receive any general information about Islam, but are taught how to pray and how to perform cultural rituals. Children are expected to memorise verses from the Quran.

According to Erdemir, it goes even further: “Alevi children are humiliated by their teachers, there is hate speech against them, there are even proven cases of beatings when Alevi children did not want to practice prayers in class. The children have one choice: or they perform dissimulation and hide their identity, or they resist being beaten or humiliated.”

Since the ECHR decree, the AKP government has postponed the adjustments to be made to the curriculum.

In 1993, a mob of 20,000 Sunni Muslims coming out of their mosques after Friday prayers surrounded the Madimak hotel in Sivas and set it on fire, killing 37 Alevis trapped inside. Several reports said the police, army and fire department did nothing to stop the arson. In 1995, a drive-by shooting in Istanbul’s Gazi neighbourhood and indiscriminate police violence in rioting that followed left 15 Alevis dead.

But the violence proved to be a turning point.

“It was only after these clashes, which were heavily debated and received a lot of attention in the media that the Alevi identity revived. It was then that Alevites got organised and founded associations to voice their complaints,” says Dede (religious leader) Ali Yaman, member of one of the Alevi spiritual lineages.

By 2009 the government had begun addressing Alevi leaders’ demands for equal citizenship.

An early workshop in November was accompanied by a massive rally by 200, 000 Alevites in Istanbul’s Kadiköy district, calling for “sincerity” from the government.

In all, more than 400 people took part in the seven workshops and the report was presented to Prime Minister Erdogan earlier this week.

According to the report, all participants agreed that the cemevi had to be granted legal status, although not as places of worship because this could be problematic and even offensive to other Muslims.

The report also stated that the majority of the Alevi community called for an abolition of the religious affairs directorate. Instead, they proposed that every religious community pay for its own religious services on a voluntary basis, which they emphasised would contribute to peace between different religions.

Regarding compulsory religion courses, all sides agreed that the curriculum should be written down in a neutral language that is acceptable to all the segments of the society.

Erdogan has promised that the first political steps based on the recommendations of the report will be taken in one to two months.