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Turkish Studies

ISSN: 1468-3849 (Print) 1743-9663 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ftur20

Alevi Openings and Politicization of the Alevi


Issue During the AKP Rule
Derya zkul
To cite this article: Derya zkul (2015) Alevi Openings and Politicization of the Alevi Issue
During the AKP Rule, Turkish Studies, 16:1, 80-96, DOI: 10.1080/14683849.2015.1022722
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14683849.2015.1022722

Published online: 01 Apr 2015.

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Turkish Studies, 2015


Vol. 16, No. 1, 80 96, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14683849.2015.1022722

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Alevi Openings and Politicization of


the Alevi Issue During the AKP Rule
DERYA OZKUL
School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney NSW, Australia

A BSTRACT This article reviews recent government efforts to address the Alevi issue and
identify their successes and failures. It demonstrates that the Alevi openings constituted
paradoxical processes: tracing various components of the openings through news media,
it shows that, on one hand, they enabled the Alevi issue to be brought to public attention.
On the other hand, once Alevis were made more visible in public, non-sympathizers could
mobilize their representation for their own ends. These empirical findings have profound
theoretical implications. They show that discursive claims of democratization at the state
level do not necessarily result in democratic mechanisms, which can resolve the demands of
a pluralistic civil society. The author argues that what she calls the tutelary secularism
in Turkey, in other words, the management and disciplining of religious groups, continues
under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) rule. This model not only fails, but also produces new sources of conflict in Turkey.

The growing literature on Alevis in Turkey generally starts with a statement about
who the Alevis are, how many Alevis currently reside in the country, which cities
they live in and which languages they speak. These rather hackneyed introductions
stem from the fact that discussions about Alevis in Turkey have been visible in the
public sphere only in the last few decades,1 a time that is commonly known and
referred as the Alevi revival2 or the Alevi renaissance.3 Throughout the history
of the Turkish Republic, the founding Peoples Republican Party (Cumhuriyet
Halk Partisi, CHP) has not played an active role toward the Alevis, a group that
has constituted a large segment of its electorate, in the name of separating religion
from politics.4 Furthermore, the newly established state executed excessive
measures (referred to in the literature as a massacre or genocide) in the Dersim
region in 1937 38.5 Alevis faith-related demands (from hereon, referred to as the
Alevi issue) were brought into public discussion for the first time, ironically, by
the conservative Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalknma Partisi, AKP).6
Correspondence Address: Derya Ozkul, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney,
R.C. Mills Building, Sydney NSW, Australia. Email: derya.ozkul@sydney.edu.au
# 2015 Taylor & Francis

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After their second victory in the 2007 general elections, the AKP took various
initiatives to democratize Turkey through the democratic openings. These
included introducing the Alevi, as well as the Kurdish, the Armenian, the Rum Orthodox and the Assyrian questions into public discussion. Indeed, Turkey had plenty of
open wounds and needed to come to terms with historical atrocities between different
ethnic and religious groups, as well as between those groups and the state. Both the
Turkish state and its citizens had committed crimes against one another7 and the
healing process would take time, energy and willingness. The AKPs initiatives in
this regard attracted many liberal intellectuals who had criticized Kemalists for
their authoritarian stance against Kurdish and Islamist citizens. Alevis, in this framework, had been better tolerated than Kurds and Islamists, because their religious
beliefs were more congruent with Kemalists secular ideals, but they had also been
deliberately ignored. This article explores the AKPs democratic openings
toward this previously ignored religious group by examining the developments
around the recently initiated Alevi openings.
It first contextualizes this debate within the scholarship on the relationship between
the state and religion in Turkey through existing theoretical models. It argues that
although the literature in this field generally evaluates the different degrees of secularism, it ignores a major fact that both the Kemalist and AKP administrations have
sought to control and manage religion rather than establishing freedom from or
freedom of religion. It then demonstrates this idea by looking at various components
of the Alevi openings. The findings of this article have empirical and theoretical
implications. At the empirical level, it reviews recent government efforts to
address the Alevi issue and identify their successes and failures. At the theoretical
level, it demonstrates that the AKP policies do not diverge from the Kemalist policies
in terms of the management of religion by the state in Turkey. AKP has taken a
similar path to the authoritarian Kemalist policy-making processes by deciding on
civil groups rights in a top-down manner. These findings show that discursive
claims of democratization at the state level do not necessarily result in democratic
mechanisms that can resolve the demands of a pluralistic civil society.
Relations Between the State and Religion in Turkey: Theoretical Debates
Relations between the state and religion in Turkey have been contested since the
Republic was established. How could religion be separated from politics, as the ideology of secularism dictated in the Turkish Constitution? Was this separation ever
viable for the cultural and political traditions of Turkey? Essentially, Kemalists followed Erastianism, namely the doctrine that in ecclesiastical matters the state
should be superior to the religious institutions8 for the good of the general society.
This idea has been challenged in many parts of the world, including Turkey.9
Looking at the separation of church and state in the West, Bhikhu Parekh, for
instance, questions the very idea of separating religion from politics. He argues
that in the weaker version of the secularist thesis, secularists separate state and religion and maintain that the state should not enforce, institutionalize or formally

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endorse any religion; and in its stronger version, secularism separates politics and
religion and maintains that political debate and deliberation should be conducted in
terms of secular reasons alone.10
The literature exploring the relationship between the state and religion in Turkey
also considers the issue through the debates around secularization theory.11 Scholars
following this path illustrate the ideology of secularism in Turkey as a spectrum and
offer dualistic models. Accordingly, the extreme versions of secularism are oppressive, while the milder versions can be liberating. Considering the Turkish case,
Ahmet Kuru works to differentiate degrees of separation and draws a dualistic
model of passive and assertive secularism. In his words, passive secularism
implies state neutrality toward various religions and allows the public visibility of
religion, whereas assertive secularism means that the state favors a secular worldview in the public sphere and aims to confine religion to the private sphere.12 He
identifies the earlier secularist model in Turkey as assertive secularism due to the
ban on headscarves in all educational institutions, and the one in the United States,
for example, as passive secularism due to the authorization of religious symbols in
the public sphere.13 Furthermore, he argues that Kemalists in Turkey are supporters
of assertive secularism, whereas the rightist political parties such as AKP adhere to
passive secularism.14 Kurus analysis follows Wilfred McClays negative and
positive conceptions of secularism, which distinguishes between a fairly
minimal, even negative understanding of secularism, as a freedom from establishmentarian imposition and the more robust, more assertive, more positive understanding of secularism [ . . . ] at least insofar as activity in the public realm is
concerned.15 Similarly, in his earlier work, Charles Taylor differentiates two
modes of secularism: one that is based on a religious common ground and the
second that is a political ethic independent of religion.16
Conversely, Hakan Yavuz develops a third model of secularism for the Turkish
case. Acknowledging that the literature argues for versions of secularism as an opposition between freedom from religion versus freedom of religion, he illustrates that
control of religion is the dominant mode of understanding in the Turkish case,17
and argues that in Turkey, secularism is about regulating the relationship between
religion and political institutions.18 Moreover, he argues the Turkish version
does not aim at separation but rather control of religion and also its exclusion
from the public sphere.19 Several other scholars support his point.20 In defining
the Turkish version, Yavuz refers to the Kemalist model and places this in opposition to AKPs model of secularism, by claiming that AKPs secularism consists of
neither separation, nor control.21 Although Yavuz briefly criticizes AKPs
Sunni-favoring policies and ignorance of Alevis,22 he still claims the AKP stresses
a democratically negotiated secularism.23 This article questions this idea and
demonstrates that as much as the Kemalist regimes secularism model was the management of religion by the state, instead of a separation of religion from politics, as
the above-mentioned authors suggest, the AKP administration is continuing the same
model, albeit in different forms. Below it further questions what implications the
Alevi openings have for politics in Turkey.

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Alevis in Turkey
Before delving into the topic of the openings, it is necessary to briefly note that
Alevis religious rituals, which are fundamentally different from the mainstream
Sunni Islam, and which include music and dance, have not been regarded as legitimate religious practices in the eyes of the Turkish state. Because many of their
written sources were lost due to decades of oppression, Alevis history remains controversial: today some Alevis believe that Alevism is the essence of the Islamic faith,
others argue that Alevism is outside of it. The first group suggests that the philosophy
and the required practices of Islam drifted away from its origins and that todays
Alevism constitutes Islams true version. The second group, on the other hand,
argues that Alevis (except for pronouncing Gods, Alis and Muhammads names
in their rituals) do not perform any of the Muslim practices, and that therefore they
cannot be considered as being part of the Islamic faith. These differences are reflected
among Alevi organizations. Some organizations, such as the CEM and Ehl-i Beyt
Foundations, advocate the first position, whereas others, such as Pir Sultan Abdal
Cultural Association (PSAKD), identify with the second. There are also other organizations that host members with diverse views such as Hac Bektas- Veli Anatolian
Culture Foundation, Alevi Bektasi Federation (ABF), which is the umbrella organization including the Alevi Cultural Associations (AKD). The different views between
Alevi individuals and institutions in defining and practicing Alevism has hindered
their struggle for public recognition as a coherent voice. Although they have had
diverging views over their recognition related problems, Alevis in Turkey have so
far made certain demands in similar terms.24 The sections below detail AKPs
efforts to manage their demands by the process called Alevi openings.

Alevi Openings
As a response to Alevis demands and the role the EU accession played, and following its initiatives for other civil groups, AKP set up what is known as Alevi openings in 2008. At the center of the openings were the Alevi workshops; but many
other initiatives were also important. The early steps included the election of a
number of Alevi deputies such as Reha amuroglu (who also later became the
chief advisor to the PM on the Alevi issue) and Ibrahim Yigit. However, at the
same time, many of the lawyers who had worked for the perpetrators of the Sivas
massacre against Alevis in 1993 had become AKP deputies or cabinet ministers.
Partly because of this, but largely because of their long-standing association with
Sunni Islamist groups, the majority of the Alevi associations did not believe in
AKPs sincerity.25 Despite the general feeling of distrust, some of the groups promoting Alevism as part of Islam such as the CEM and Ehl-i Beyt Foundations supported
the Alevi openings, although they were critical of them to some extent. This
revealed the existing distinction between the two main strands among Alevis in
Turkey.26 As will be demonstrated, this distinction was salient in all of the state-sponsored openings. The Alevi openings that will be considered in this article include

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the Alevi iftars (dinner that terminates fasting), the Alevi workshops, the changing
status of cem houses, the changing content of compulsory Religious Culture and
Ethics courses, the revival of the Dersim and the burial of the Sivas massacres.

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Alevi Iftars
One of the initial attempts by the AKP government in the Alevi opening process was
to introduce the so-called Alevi iftars to celebrate the so-called Muharrem fasting
iftar. But according to the Turkish Language Association, iftar was the dinner meal
during Ramadan,27 and many Alevis did not name their dinner following Muharrem
fasting as iftar. Furthermore, the majority of Alevis claimed that Muharrem fasting was
a mourning ritual and that it would not be appropriate to terminate this ritual with
celebrations in luxurious hotels, as the government planned, but in modesty. Nonetheless, the first iftar was organized on January 11, 2008 by the AKP Istanbul deputy Reha
amuroglu, a figure much criticized by other Alevis, although he has an Alevi background. The majority of the Alevi associations in Turkey rejected his invitation:28
among the 279 Alevi associations, only six attended the iftar organized by amuroglu,29 along with some independent individuals. In total, there were 1000 participants;
but only 498 of them were Alevis.30 The following years continued the same pattern:
low attendance rates by the major Alevi organizations. On November 26, 2012, the President of the Republic, Abdullah Gul also organized an Alevi iftar. This was an important moment in Turkeys history, as it was the first time in the Turkish Republic that a
President organized an event specifically designed for Alevis. Again, some Alevi
organizations attended31; others, such as the ABF, PSAKD, Hac Bektas- Veli Anatolian Culture Foundation, refused to go.32
In such iftars, organizers made their best efforts to show that they respected Alevi
beliefs. For instance, the room where the first iftar took place in 2008 was decorated
with a picture of Ali (the major holy figure in Alevi belief), a picture of Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk (the founder of the Republic whose secular ideas have been supported
by some Alevis) and Turkeys national flag in between, all in equal sizes. In his
speech, the PM Erdogan employed words of unity. He said: I came here not to
share your sorrows but the sorrows of all of us. This sorrow is our sorrow. [ . . . ]
Our path, our guides and our destination are the same.33 On the other hand, the
Quran was read before starting the dinner. In reality, many Alevis do not read the
Quran in their rituals, but some of the associations claiming membership of Islam
(such as CEM and Ehl-i Beyt Foundation) do so. Labelling the dinner as iftar, emphasizing the similarities between groups with inclusive language (despite the fact that
there are great philosophical differences between Sunni and Alevi beliefs), as well
as reading the Quran, were all attempts by the government to pull Alevism toward
their history and perception of the world, in the hope of making the Alevi issue
more manageable and controllable. These iftars have continued on a yearly basis
from 2008 until now. Despite the criticisms from many Alevi organizations, the
AKP-initiated Alevi iftars have created a tradition,34 which renders Alevis visible,
but at the same time domesticated in Turkish politics.

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Alevi Workshops
Murat Boroval and Cemil Boyraz rightly remind us that during the period of the first
AKP government (2002 07), the Alevi problem was mostly ignored, and despite criticisms in the EU Accession Reports on Turkey, there was very limited progress on
only certain issues.35 AKP only began to engage with Alevis after six years of rule,
in 2008. Immediately after introducing the Alevi iftars, the State Ministry conducted seven workshops and three extra meetings between 2009 and 2010. These
were commonly known as the Alevi workshops.
The workshops had a top-down statist perspective since its inception. They were
organized by the State Minister Faruk elik and an Assistant Professor Necdet
Subas, who since 2011 has been an employee at the Diyanets Strategy Development
Presidency appointed by the government. The process of organization took place
without prior large-scale consultation with Alevi community members and organization leaders. The organizers were largely Sunnis under the direction of Necdet
Subas, who has been actively engaged in the AKP political organization, and he
wrote the final report in line with the official conservative view. The report concluded
thus:
On the issue of Diyanet:

. Alevism is a part of Islam.36


. The common feeling is that the wider society is content with Diyanets
services.37
. Diyanet is a factual reality in Turkey. It is as old as the Republic and for many
reasons is an institution whose absence cannot be imagined.38
On the issue of compulsory Religious Culture and Ethics courses in schools:

. Sunni citizens also complain about the content being weak. They want [the
course] to teach some sections as applied in practice [ . . . ] Nevertheless, when
one evaluates the critics of these courses, one cannot say that their reactions are
radical, violent and irreconcilable like those of Alevis.39
. As observed in the workshops, Alevis reactions toward these courses are very
radical and their critiques sometimes go beyond their own concerns.40
On the issue of cem houses and faith leaders:

. According to Sunni participants, allowing cem houses to be considered places of


worship may be tantamount to supporting the birth of a new religion, like
Bahaism. After all, in the context of this approach, some Alevi groups living in
Europe, by defining themselves as a religion outside of Islam, even if for pragmatic reasons, have been in contact with the countries they are situated in.
However, it is important to know that politics produced in this context has the
risk of eroding Alevisms borders and even destroying its known references.41

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In addition to other similar statements, the final report clearly articulated a protective stance from the Sunni majority perspective, and considered Alevis only from
their own dominant ideology. The two other important requests Alevis made about
stopping building mosques in Alevi villages in Turkey and yielding the administration of Bektasi shrines to Alevi Bektasi associations were not included in the
report. Despite criticisms by the Alevi participants in the workshops,42 the final
report claimed that the process was very successful.
Although the workshops did not bring about immediate concrete findings, their
most important contribution to the Alevi issue in Turkey was promoting discussion
about what Alevism is into the public realm. Alevis were already struggling to answer
this question as a coherent voice, and through the workshops they had to do so in
public. In fact, any group of adherents to any ideology, religion or sect is heterogeneous by their very nature, but believers in a majority faith do not have to legitimize their faith for others. Alevis, on the other hand, were for long time the
suppressed group in Turkey, and to be legitimized in the eyes of the Turkish state
and the public they would have to put forward a unified definition of Alevism in
order to be recognized. The workshops highlighted divergences between Alevis
views over their requests to the state. Furthermore, by introducing these workshops,
which became an official space for them to debate with one another, the AKP government presented Alevis to the wider society as irreconcilable and unable to compromise. Therefore, the state took the responsibility to intervene in order to help
them. The final report openly concluded on this point:
Essentially the problems between Alevis cannot be resolved with their own
initiatives. The groups no longer have respect for one another. It is expected
that the state should take the lead to build the communitys unity and
solidarity.43
As such, the way the Alevi workshops were organized and reported on was paternalistic: by forcing them to frame the definition of Alevism in public, the workshops
categorized Alevis demands once again through the dominant Sunni perspective.
What the workshops achieved, however, was to make Sunnis re-think about their position towards Alevis.
The Changing Content of Compulsory Religious Culture and Ethics Courses
Another layer of the Alevi openings constituted the changing content of the Religious Culture and Ethics courses, which have been compulsory in all Turkish
schools. This course was made obligatory after the 1980 military coup with the objective to educate the next generations in the ideal of Turkish Islam synthesis.44 Since
then, some students have reported finding the course discriminatory,45 and Alevis
have long requested the abolition of the course, as it taught only Sunni beliefs.
They argued that the forcible teaching of a religion-based course was against the
official definition of secularism, that is, the separation of state and religion.46 For

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instance, on January 2, 2004, Hasan Zengin and his daughter Eylem Zengin made an
application to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against the Republic of
Turkey. They claimed that the compulsory course infringed their rights as guaranteed
by the Article 2 of Protocol 1 and Article 9 of the Convention. The ECHR found their
application just and imposed a penalty to the Republic of Turkey.47 Since then, the
AKP government has discussed alternative ways to change the content and the
form of the course. The Directorate General of Religious Instruction (DOGM) has
revised the curricula slightly for secondary schools in 2006 and for primary
schools in 2007.48
The fact that the Religious Culture and Ethics course was compulsory was a
major item also on the Alevi workshops agenda. Alevis made different requests,
including its complete abolition or its revision. Nonetheless, the workshops final
report concluded that it was impossible to remove these courses, but instead
Alevism should be included in the curriculum.49 Later, the State Minister Faruk
elik stated that all students needed religious instruction,50 and the DOGM revised
the curriculum to include more elements that pertained to Alevism. Many Alevi
organizations criticized the newly added information because it did not reflect their
philosophy; nevertheless, from 2011 to 2012 teaching year onwards, Alevism was
included in the Religious Culture and Ethics course to students from the 4th year
onwards. Yet including Alevism in the school curriculum had the effect of essentializing it as a fixed ideology and hindered its fluid and flexible character. Indeed, as
Faruk elik argued, the objective of the initiatives was to teach Alevis who do
not know or who know incorrectly about Alevism through right sources, in a
right way,51 in other words to discipline them from the perspective of the state.
Changing Status of Cem Houses
The Alevi openings also brought the status of cem houses, the places where Alevis
look after their spiritual needs, into public discussion. Cem houses status has been
controversial in Turkey, because there has been no legislation permitting their construction as a place of worship despite the fact that Alevis in Turkey claim that
they are legitimate places of worship. According to the development plan law,
places of worship can only be mosques, churches and synagogues. Cem houses therefore have no legal status, and are recognized only as a part of the Alevi associations or
of the foundations in which they are located. Often Alevis applications to build a cem
house are declined, with various reasons being given by the municipal government.52
One recent example was a request dated November 2012 by the Hac Bektas- Veli
Anatolian Cultural Centre to build a cem house in Ankara. Ankara Metropolitan
AKP Municipality responded to this negatively in February 2013 with the reason
that there was no land available for a cem house construction. Soon after this
response, in April 2013, Izzettin Dogan, the President of the CEM Foundation,
declared that together with the government they would construct a joint place of
worship in Ankara by including a mosque, a cem house and an eating-house in
between.53 As this example shows, some Alevi organizations tended to be favored

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over others. Some cem houses, which argued that Alevism was outside of Islam, were
considered as centers for DEV-SOL and terrorist organizations, argued Mehmet
Metiner, an AKP deputy and the former advisor to the PM Erdogan.54 On the contrary, cem houses that positioned Alevism within Islam and that were willing to
cooperate with the government were seen as legitimate. The CEM Foundation, in
this context, had gained an opportunity by remaining close to the governments
democratic openings. This suggests that the institutions or the individuals who
wanted to gain public recognition had contributed to the development of the
Alevi openings.
Politics of Memory: Reviving the Dersim Massacre and Burying the Sivas
Massacre
Another component of the Alevi openings were issues related to the management
of collective memory. Among these, the Dersim massacre of 1933 34, which
resulted in the mass killing of Alevis, constitutes an open wound in collective
history. Together with other democratic openings, PM Erdogan brought the case
into public debate during his partys 2009 municipal elections campaign. He stated
that there were thousands killed in the 1930s in the Dersim region and accused the
CHP, which dominated Turkish politics at the time. Erdogan continued with
similar declarations, and in November 2011, he even made a public state apology
by placing CHPs new leader in the role of the prosecutor. He said:
Klcdaroglu, where are you escaping? How will you get out of this? Will I
apologize, or are you going to apologize? If there needs to be an apology in
the name of the state, if there is any such literature, I apologize. But if there
is anyone who needs to apologize for the CHP mentality, you say you are
the new President, [then] that is you. Go on, lets see, save your honor.55
Indeed, various mechanisms for the politics of memory create a public space that
brings victims, witnesses and persecutors together.56 But coming to terms with the
past also allows the new government to establish legitimacy to present itself as the
hero. In the aftermath of the public apology, the State Archives General Directorate
released numerous documents related to the massacre.57 Many newspapers wrote
about these newly surfacing documents and images, as well as the thousands of
Alevis who were exiled at that time. AKPs declaration of the public apology over
the Dersim massacre could convince the liberals and some Alevi citizens that
Turkey was democratizing. Furthermore, by referring to the Republican regime as
the source of the atrocities, the post-Islamist intellectuals located the Alevi question
within the broader framework of emancipation of religion from the pressures of the
state.58 However, as Susan Sontag59 argues, images have their own careers; their
beneficiaries change over time. The apology over the Dersim massacre could be interpreted as mere political staging that attempted to assert the legitimacy of the AKP
regime over the Kemalist one.

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Alevis collective memory included not only the Dersim massacre, but also many
other atrocities that occurred in Turkey. A very important one is the Sivas massacre
where, on July 2, 1993, 37 people died after an attack by radical Islamists. That day,
Alevis and a few non-Alevi participants including Aziz Nesin, who had translated
parts of Salman Rushdies Satanic Verses into Turkish, had gathered for a cultural
festival. The radical Islamist group who regarded Alevis as heretics protested
against the festival and chanted for hours outside. By the end of the day they had
set fire to the Madmak hotel, where some of the Alevi artists had been staying.
During the many hours of the radical Islamists protests, Alevis had asked for help
from officials including parliamentarians. No response was forthcoming to these
requests and the security forces could not save the hotel from burning down. This
event constituted a significant moment in Alevis collective consciousness and
ignited widespread mobilization of Alevis demanding greater public recognition of
their rights. After the Sivas massacre, the number of cem houses and public activities
flourished. Since 1993, Alevis have commemorated every 2nd of July and some of
them have requested that the hotel where the artists were staying should be transformed into a museum of shame.
The Sivas massacre has been particularly important in Alevi history because
burning was a direct form of inflicting pain over Alevi bodies. According to the literature on body politics,60 the body forms the existential ground of culture and the
self. In Sivas, more than 30 Alevis were killed, hundreds were injured and those
who witnessed the massacre through the media were left traumatized. Inflicting
pain upon Alevi bodies thus aimed to dissolve and fracture their sense of Alevi subjectivity. Commemoration of the Sivas massacre has been a crucial act for Alevis not
only for the brutality of the event per se, but also because violation of the bodies
formed a part of their communal identity. Commemoration also helped keep hope
alive for the future: Alevis annual meetings in Sivas have served to reiterate their
petitions to the state, for example, the request that the remaining criminals responsible
for the deaths should be judged. Following the incident, 124 people were indicted on
charges. Five suspects were still on trial as at March 2012. By organizing protests
around the country, Alevis asserted that the massacre constituted a crime against
humanity. Nonetheless, in March 2012, the Sivas massacre case against the remaining five suspects was dropped due to the statute of limitations. Furthermore, during
the AKP government, it was warned that commemoration of Sivas massacre could
be prohibited or hindered through the legislation of organized crime.61
Here it is important to point out that the commemoration of the Sivas massacre is
understood by the state as building a particularnamely, politicalAlevi identity.
The festival in Sivas was organized in the name of Pir Sultan Abdal, a figure who
is considered by Alevis as a symbol of opposition against the injustices of authority.
The revolutionary attributes of the Anatolian Alevis were certainly not the ones that
the state wanted its subjects to remember. Alevi demands were not wholly dismissed,
but particular characteristicssuch as those that focused on seeking social equality
and justicewere discharged by the openings. Similarly, the discussion from the
Alevi workshops concluded that the transformation of Madmak Hotel into a

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museum of shame would bring about new seeds of hatred.62 On November 23,
2010, the hotel became a public entity by providing compensation to the owner,
and was later was transformed into Sivas Science and Culture Centre. At the
time of writing (January 2014), the centers website informed the readers about the
visits of AKP deputies and included no information about the massacre itself.63
This accords with a dominant framing of Alevi political subjectivity as aligned
with and submissive to the Turkish state that continues to be articulated by the
current regime. A major part of this is a politics of memory that is highly selective.
Limitations to the Alevi Openings: Coming to a Standstill?
As the previous discussions have suggested, despite its liberal discourse, the Alevi
openings contained limitations in practice. For instance, a 2006 regulation allowed
individuals to leave the religious identity section of their identity cards blank or to
change to another religion, but in practice applicants faced restrictions. The government listed the options only as Muslim, Greek Orthodox, Christian, Jew, Hindu, Zoroastrian, Confucian, Taoist, Buddhist, No Religion or Other. There was the option of
Islam that could be thought of including both Sunnis and Alevis. However, in practice, Alevis who wanted to claim their identity separately from Sunnis could not use
the Other category. State officials refused a case brought by an Alevi person who
wanted to have his religion noted as Alevi. Other citizens reported that leaving the
religion category on their ID cards blank or choosing a religious category other than
Islam, had exposed them to discrimination.64
Alevi organizations reaction to the openings was also another source of limitation. Some of the well-established organizations issued various joint press releases
that were critical of the opening process. Such alliances demonstrated the existing
distinction between organizations. CEM and Ehl-i Beyt Foundations remained supportive of the opening. Conversely, ABF in Turkey together with the associations
in the USA and Canada, Federation in Australia and Confederation in Europe,
declared:
It is not the right of anyone or any group to intervene in Alevi teaching and
organizations that have emerged as a result of a long historical process and
organic development, to attempt to deform and to change these through
forms of social engineering. As all faith systems, Alevism is a space that
only and only members of this faith and culture can shape as a collective. Primarily the state, and also the non-Alevi individuals and organizations have to
respect this personal space of faith, and have to stay out of it. We make these
statements in the strongest terms.65
The referendum process in 2010 to amend some parts of the 1982 constitution was
also crucial to test the viability of the openings. Following some Alevis large-scale
opposition, PM Erdogan started to denigrate them in his speeches around the country.
In particular, he frequently criticized the main opposition party (CHP)s President

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Alevi Openings and Politicization

91

Kemal Klcdaroglus Alevi background. For instance, in April 2013, in one of the
conservative All Industrialists and Businessmens Associations meetings in Istanbul,
he reminded his audience of a famous saying of Hac Bektas Veli (one of the major
figures of the Alevi faith): Watch your hands, language and waist [body], which
means do not steal, do not lie and do not cheat. He continued: Excuse me, but
we have seen those who could not control their waist and he became the party
leader as a result of a videotape.66 By saying this, Erdogan was referring to
Baykal, the previous CHP President who was caught in 2010 in a videotape
having sex with one of the female parliamentarians. Klcdaroglu came to power
after Baykals resignation and was not the one who committed the act, but despite
this, he was singled out for criticism based entirely on this one aspect of his identity.
The openings came to a standstill at the time the AKP government criticized the
Assad regime in Syria by highlighting the rule of Alawites. The official discussion of
whether Turkey should be involved in the Syrian civil war made Alawites in Syria an
external threat and Alevis in Turkey an internal threat and possible targets for political
manipulation. By the end of 2012, numerous houses where Alevis lived were marked
with crosses by unknown people and such incidents of obvious racism received very
little criticism by the ruling party members.67 Additionally, negative media coverage
of Alevis in Turkey including allegations that they support the Assad regime in Syria
affected their public image.
When protests started on May 28, 2013, initially to contest the urban development
plan for Istanbuls Taksim Gezi Park, Alevis had already returned to their status as the
Other within society. The Gezi protests soon spread to other suburbs and cities. The
protestors were composed of people from different geographical, ethnic and religious
origins who opposed the AKP government on freedom of expression, rapid urban
transformation projects with little consideration of natural resources and local populations, and more broadly, their top-down policy-making processes. The fact that
seven out of the eight killed people during the protests were Alevis echoed the assertion
that Gezi protestors were predominantly Alevis, thereby rendering the protests as
Alevis affair. However, such statements were based upon neither real evidence,
nor any profound analysis of social exclusion in providing conditions to revolt. The
Gezi protests were not an Alevi upheaval; it was a mixture of people who were concerned about their freedom of expression and their deteriorating social, economic,
environmental conditions. However, Alevis who were brought to the public attention
throughout the opening process, could now be easily politicized as the rioter Other.
Conclusion
Overall, the Alevi openings constituted paradoxical processes. On one hand, through
small but numerous initiatives and news media, they enabled the Alevi issue to be
brought to public attention. The most important outcome was a partial representation.
Alevis who were willing to cooperate with the state institutions were considered legitimate, whereas Alevis who stood against them were not offered a space to represent
themselves. The processes of bringing the Alevi issue into the public realm resulted

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92

D. Ozkul

in its being fragmented further and transformed into a religion whose borders are drawn
by the state. On the other hand, the process of bringing the Alevi issue to public attention primed the Sunni population to reprise their complicated relationship with Alevis.
Once Alevis were more visible in public and in official discourse, non-sympathizers
could variously mobilize their representation for their own ends.
These empirical findings have profound theoretical implications. They show that
tutelary secularism in Turkey, in other words, the management and disciplining of
religious groups, continues under the AKP rule, as it did under the Kemalist administrations. It further demonstrates that this model not only fails, but also produces new
sources of conflict within society. To resolve these encounters, as Rajeev Bhargava
suggests, there is a need for an ethically sensitive negotiated settlement between
diverse groups and divergent values, and for this the state has to be neither exclusivist, nor ignorant toward any single group.68 Bhargava proposes, for instance, what
he calls a principled distance between the state and people by treating each person
and group with equal concern and respect.69 In the Turkish case, the institutions of
democratic government similarly have to make room for the recognition of different
cultural and religious traditions and the differences within them in order to facilitate a
peaceful cohabitation. For this, it is necessary to re-visit the definition and practices of
secularism in Turkey.

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Bora Kusoglu, Rebecca Williamson, Stephen Castles and the
two anonymous reviewers of Turkish Studies, for their insightful critiques and suggestions, which helped me to improve this article. Responsibility with remaining
shortcomings is entirely mine.

Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes
1. amuroglu, Alevi Revivalism in Turkey, 79.
2. See Erdemir, Tradition and Modernity: Alevis Ambiguous Terms and Turkeys Ambivalent Subjects; van Bruinessen, Kurd, Turks, and the Alevi Revival in Turkey; Sahin, The Rise of
Alevism as a Public Religion.
3. See White and Jongerden, Turkeys Alevi Enigma: A Comprehensive Overview.
4. For a more detailed analysis of Alevis relationship with CHP see Ciddi, Kemalism in Turkish Politics,
Chapter 7. It is true that the party representatives have participated in several important events for
Alevis (such as the well-known Hac Bektas- Veli Festival, more precisely the International Hac
Bektas- Veli Memorial Ceremony), but these initiatives happened in parallel to other parties rapprochement with Alevis for their political votes. It is, however, crucial to note here that some CHP municipalities have actively supported cem house building projects, and some parliamentarians have
pursued to take Alevis concerns to the parliament. Nonetheless, CHPs relationship with Alevis

Alevi Openings and Politicization

5.

6.

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7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.

25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.

33.
34.
35.
36.

93

still remains complicated due to their lack of dedication to recognize the past atrocities and to formulate
solutions to Alevis existing demands.
See Watts, Relocating Dersim: Turkish State-Building and Kurdish Resistance, 1931 1938; van
Bruinessen, Genocide in Kurdistan? The Suppression of the Dersim Rebellion in Turkey (1937
38) and the Chemical War against the Iraqi Kurds (1988).
See Soner and Toktas article for AKPs first stages of rapprochement policies towards Alevis: Soner
and Toktas, The Justice and Development Partys Alevi Opening.
See the following works on this issue: Kaya, Europeanization and Tolerance in Turkey; Houston, Kurdistan: The Crafting of National Selves; Oktem, Angry Nation: Turkey since 1989.
See Turner, The State and Freedom of Religion for more on Erastian constitutions.
See Bhargava, Political secularism: what can be learnt from India?, 98 100.
Parekh, Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory, 232.
See Davison, Turkey, a Secular State?: The Challenge of Description. For critiques of secularism in
the Middle Eastern region in general, see Keddie, Secularism & its Discontents.
Kuru, Reinterpretation of Secularism in Turkey: The Case of the Justice and Development Party, 137.
Ibid., 138.
Ibid., 138.
McClay, Two Concepts of Secularism, 60.
Taylor, Modes of Secularism.
Yavuz, Secularism and Muslim Democracy in Turkey, 146.
Ibid., 151.
Ibid., 170.
Kocan and Oncu, Citizen Alevi in Turkey: Beyond Confirmation and Denial, 466; Stepan, The
World Religious Systems of Democracy: Crafting the Twin Tolerations, 245 6.
Ibid., 159.
Yavuz., 163.
Ibid., 159.
These are mainly: (1) Changing the Presidency of Religious Affairs (from hereon, referred to as the
Diyanet) status; (2) Changing the status and the content of compulsory religious courses in
schools, (3) Changing cem houses status as official places of worship, (4) Stopping the building of
mosques in Alevi villages in Turkey, (5) Transferring the administration of Bektasi shrines to Alevi
Bektasi associations, (6) Transforming the Madmak Hotel into a museum or a commemorative monument for the Sivas massacre of 1993. See these demands in detail also in the Alevi Workshop First
Round Meeting of Alevi Organizations: Evaluation, Request and Suggestion Report written by AKD
Headquarter and Hac Bektas- Veli Anatolian Culture Foundation Headquarter in June 2009.
See AKPye Alevi Ofkesi [Alevi Anger against AKP], Radikal, February 4, 2008; Aleviler alstay
icin Umutsuz [Alevis are Hopeless about the Workshop], Milliyet, June 7, 2009.
See for such distinction also Kaya, Europeanization and Tolerance in Turkey.
See TDK, Iftar, 2013. http://tdk.gov.tr/index.php?option=com_gts&arama=gts&guid=TDK.GTS.
526846216e5147.78346241
Oktem, Being Muslim at the Margins. Alevis and the AKP.
See Tartsmal Alevi iftar gerceklesti [The controversial Alevi iftar has materialized], CNNTurk,
January 11, 2008.
Ibid.
The list of participants was not declared in public.
See Alevilerden Abdullah Gul iftarna dava [Alevis lawsuit case against Abdullah Guls iftar],
Aydnlk, July 22, 2012; Ak Alevilerin Abdullah Gul iftarna tepki [Ak Alevis reaction against
Abdullah Guls iftar], Demokrathaber, July 27, 2012.
All translations of personal statements, news and reports in this article are mine.
I take the term from Hobsbawm and Ranger. See their work in The Invention of Tradition.
Boroval and Boyraz, Turkish Secularism and Islam: A Difficult Dialogue with the Alevis, 3.
Alevi Workshop Final Report, Alevi alstaylar Nihai Rapor, 116.

94
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.

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43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.

62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.

D. Ozkul
Ibid., 120.
Ibid., 1256.
Ibid., 142.
Ibid., 144.
Ibid., 1723.
See Alevi Federasyonu: alstay Raporu Asimilasyon Belgesi [Alevi Federation: Workshop Report
[is an] Assimilation Document], Bianet, February 12, 2010; Izzettin Dogandan Alevi Raporu elestirisi [Critique from Izzettin Dogan against the Alevi Report], April 5, 2011.
Alevi Workshop Final Report, Alevi alstaylar Nihai Rapor.
Turkmen, A Transformed Kemalist Islam or a New Islamic Civic Morality?; Eligur, The Mobilization of Political Islam in Turkey.
Toprak et al., Being Different in Turkey; US Department of State, International Religious Freedom
Report 2010: Turkey, 6.
Akbulut and Usal, Parental Religious Rights vs. Compulsory Religious Education in Turkey.
See Case of Hasan and Eylem Zengin vs. Turkey (Application no. 1448/04) Judgment Strasbourg 9
October 2007 Final 09/01/2008.
ERG (Platform for Educational Reform), Turkiyede Din ve Egitim; Gozaydn, Turkiyede Din
Kulturu ve Ahlak Bilgisi Ders Kitaplarna Insan Haklar Mercegiyle Bir Baks.
Alevi Workshop Final Report, Alevi alstaylar Nihai Rapor, 141.
ERG (Platform for Educational Reform), Turkiyede Din ve Egitim.
See Alevilik ders kitaplarna girdi [Alevism is in curriculum], Radikal, September 8, 2011.
Toprak et al. Being Different in Turkey, 53 5.
See Cami ile cemevi ayn bahcede olacak [The cem house and the mosque will be in the same
garden], Hurriyet, April 3, 2013.
See Alevilerden Metinere tepki yagyor [Great reaction from Alevis against Metiner], Cumhuriyet,
October 9, 2013.
See Erdogan Dersim icin ozur diledi [Erdogan apologized for Dersim], Milliyet, November 23, 2011.
See Michael Humphrey, Commissioning Truth for National Reconciliation.
See Dersim srlar Mecliste [Dersim secrets are in Parliament], Milliyet, March 12, 2012.
Soner and Toktas, The Justice and Development Partys Alevi Opening, 428.
Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, 38.
See in particular the classical work of Mauss, Techniques of the Body.
See Sivas Katliamnn Anlmas Yasaklanyor [Commemorating the Sivas Massacre is Being Forbidden], Bianet, October 11, 2011; Sivas katliam anmasna yasak [Ban Against the Commemoration of the Sivas Massacre], Radikal, June 20, 2011.
Alevi Workshop Final Report, Alevi alstaylar Nihai Rapor, 17985.
See their website at: http://www.sivasbilimmerkezi.gov.tr/index.htm
See US Department of State, International Religious Freedom Report 2012: Turkey, 6 12, available
at: http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/religiousfreedom/index.htm#wrapper
See Alevi orgutlerinden ortak acklama: Cami-cemevi projesi kabul edilemez [Joint declaration from
Alevi organizations: The project of mosque-cem house cannot be accepted], SolPortal, September 10, 2013.
AleviRAPOR. Hak Ihlalleri Raporu, 4.
See Hubyar Sultan Alevi Kultur Dernegi, 2012 yl Alevi hak ihlalleri izleme raporu.
Rajeev Bhargava, Political Secularism: What Can Be Learnt from India?, 107.
Ibid., 104.

Notes on contributor
Derya Ozkul is a PhD Candidate in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Sydney.
Her doctoral research explores the transformation of the Alevi diaspora in Germany and Australia. She is also
involved in the project of Social Transformation and International Migration in the 21st Century with

Alevi Openings and Politicization

95

fieldwork carried out in four countries including Turkey. She teaches courses of Sociology of Terror and of
Human Rights and Social Protest.

Downloaded by [Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi] at 10:53 18 December 2015

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