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ABSTRACT
This paper analyses the construction of an Alevi political identity in terms of cultural, social and religious values at a time when the role of religion is increasing in the political life of Turkey. It indicates the emergence of a new form of conflict and hegemonic articulation between Sunnism and Alevism that offers an alternative means of conflict resolution by the Alevi political agents within a radical pluralism and agonistic democracy. It also argues that the social construction of Alevi political identity is both a political project and an ontological question as this identity focuses on religious discourses in establishing a counter-hegemonic culture through mobilizing political ‘collective passion’.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Mehmet Asutay and Oguzhan Goksel for their comments and criticism and I convey my special thanks to the editors of this issue, Celia Jenkins and Umit Cetin, for their valuable input and to Derrick Wright for his insightful suggestions on previous drafts of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Omer Tekdemir is a visiting lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Westminster. He is also a visiting research fellow at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University, after having completed a visiting academic position at Durham University where he is gained his Ph.D. in Politics and International Relations. He is currently working on a book provisionally called The Political Economy of Kurdish Political Identity.
Notes
1. The AKP has only accepted the religious side of Alevism by locating it under the superstructure of Islamic culture. However, it is not this paper’s aim to discuss and decide whether Alevism lies ‘inside’ or ‘outside’ of Islam nor to define Alevi religious beliefs.
2. Mouffe (Citation2000, p. 101) explains the crucial reason for the division between politics and the political:
By ‘the political’, I refer to the dimension of antagonism that is inherent in human relations, an antagonism that can take many forms and emerge in different types of social relations. ‘Politics’, on the other side, indicates the ensemble of practices, discourses, and institutions which seek to establish a certain order and organize human coexistence in conditions that are always potentially conflictual because they are affected by the dimension of ‘the political’. I consider that it is only when we acknowledge the dimension of ‘the political’ and understand that ‘politics’ consists in domesticating hostility and in trying to defuse the potential antagonism that exists in human relations, that we can pose what I take to be the central question for democratic politics.
3. ‘White Turks’ refers to the secular, Kemalist and economically advantaged groups in Turkish society. Retrieved from http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/default.aspx?pageid=438&n=the-search-for-steps-of-wasps-around-anatolia-2010-11-22.
4. Anatolian Alevis are different from Arab Alawis/Alwaites, who are also known as Nusayris.
5. The collective memory involves figures and events such as Ali, the Battle of Karbala, Muharam, Yezit, and the 12 Imams as well as the many Alevi massacres.
6. The Kızılbaş were followers of the Safavi Sufi order, whose charismatic leader Ismail established the Safavid Empire in 1501, and thus founded the Safavid dynasty. Some of the Anatolian proto-Alevis began to recognize dervishes of the Bektashi as their religious mentors (Dressler, Citation2008, p. 284). Moreover, Bozket (Citation1998, p. 100) argues the:
true name of Alevism is Kızılbaşizm. Alevism would appear to be the name which the Kızılbaş adopted or were given in the process of their transition to Islam. Although the Alevi claim that the name Kızılbaş originated in the Islamic religion, there is actually no connection between the name and Islam.
7. The dede is a person who is believed to be descended from the prophet Mohammad (sayyid) and plays an important role in Alevism. Dedelik as an institution that represents their social, cultural and religious functions and services. Dergah and tekke are a dervish lodge. Tarikat/Tariqah is a religious order or cult.
8. The Diyanet was founded as a modern religious state institution that replaced the Caliphate and its institutions and was influenced by a strong Ottoman Sunni tradition. It tried to force Alevis (and similarly Shafis) to adopt a Sunni-Hanafi interpretation of Islam.
9. The state still controls religion by establishing an institution responsible for Islamic religious affairs that promotes a certain interpretation of Islam; hence, the state is not entirely separated from religion affairs.
10. The standardization of Alevi rituals, like the cem, by educating dedes under this new leadership can be seen as an example. Cem Vakfı and the Council of Alevis in Germany started to practise this newer form of the cem ritual.
11. This term is offered by the author, which means adapting to the EU’s institutional values, such as democracy, human rights, liberalism, secularism, etc. rather than becoming European or culturally Europeanized. This transformation is a product of the EU enlargement/accession process that promotes identity that is constructed politically.
12. In particular, the Alevi Federation in Germany has been fighting to have Alevi identity recognized and has succeeded in gaining official recognition as a religious group and having education about Alevism in state schools. It is paralleled in Britain, especially by the Alevi Working Group that is led by this edition’s editors and contributors, Jenkins and Cetin (Citation2014), who are working with the Alevi cemevi in London and have been instrumental in providing Alevi religion lessons in local public schools.
13. Respectively: traditional and local institutions like the dedelik, tarikat, ocaklık, etc.; modern organisations and individuals who are mostly urbanized; members of radical organizations such as the TKP-ML, TIKKO, Dev Sol or the TIP legal party; those in the Kurdish/Zaza national(ist) struggle, the PKK or in the Turkish ultra-nationalist MHP.
14. Alevis share religious rituals such as mourning for the prophet Muhammad’s grandsons Hassan and Husain, fasting for between 10 and 14 days, as well as cultural items such the saz (lute), ozans (folk singers) and Zulfikar (Imam Ali’s sword).
15. Author’s translation. See Hakki Ozdal interview (May 20, 2015) with HDP diaspora MP candidate Turgut Oker (now MP), who is a representative of the Confederation of the Alevi Union of Europe and is a well-known and respected figure in the Alevi community. Retrieved from http://www.radikal.com.tr/politika/hdp_adayi_turgut_oker_alevilik_sadece_aliyi_sevmek_degil_yezide_ve_zorbaya_da_lanet_etmektir-1361721.
16. A stringed musical instrument, which has far-reaching significance for leftist and Kurdish political culture.
17. Such as the HacıBektaş-ı Veli Kültür ve Tanıtma, Pir Sultan Abdal Kültür, Alevi-Bektaşi Eğitim ve Kültür Vakfı, Alevi Dernekleri Federasyonu, Cem Vakfı or diaspora Avrupa Alevi Dernekleri Federasyonu and Britanya Alevi Federasyonu.
18. The concept of hemshehri (i.e. people that come from the same place) is an example of this new identification process in the big cities like Istanbul, Izmir, and Ankara (White & Jongerden, Citation2003).
19. The creation of a ‘we’ as opposed to a ‘them’.
Politics, as the attempt to domesticate the political, to keep at bay the forces of destruction and to establish order, always has to do with conflicts and antagonisms. It requires an understanding that every consensus is, by necessity, based on acts of exclusion and that there can never be a fully inclusive “rational” consensus (Mouffe, Citation1993, p. 141).
20. Examples of these demands are
(1) cemhouses must be granted legal status as places of worship [and the state needs to classify the cem as a worship not as folklore]; (2) a portion of Diyanet’s budget must be allocated for supporting cemhouses; (3) Diyanet must offer training services to Alevi religious leaders as it does to Sunni imams; (4) Diyanet must represent Alevis within its bureaucracy or Diyanet should be abolished altogether; (5) religious courses must include information on Alevis and such courses should be made optional for students; and (6) the Madimak hotel, site of the Sivas massacre, should be memorialized and turned into a museum (Pinar, Citation2013, p. 511).
21. The term ‘non-otherizing democracy’ addresses a democratic system that refers to a multi-identity and radical pluralist superstructure and embraces all excluded citizens of the country who cannot find any opportunity spaces in the public sphere, such as Kurds, radical Islamists, Alevis, non-Muslims, radical socialists and LGBTs.
22. There are many Alevis elected as MPs under the HDP leadership. For instance, the founder of the Alevi Bektashi Federation, Ali Kenanoglu, and a representative of the Confederation of Alevi Unions of Europe, Turgut Oker, who are important figures in Alevi society, became MPs on the HDP ticket.