Alevi Archives

Serial Monitor Kurdish, Alevi and Armenian does not like

October 24, 2016 by administrator

ASULİS Language, Dialogue, organized by the Democracy Lab ‘story Difficult Status: Native Arrays in Turkey and Discrimination’ main issues discussed at the panel how the widespread discrimination known in the number of subject and minorities, was how the place where you can find the number of conflictual other and the Turkey issue .

people from various sectors of society in its native range in Turkey are struggling to find a place for themselves. The difficulties encountered in the scriptwriting process, passing in front of a sector that enables communication of different sounds. In the series, different ethnic and religious groups and the judiciary produced about sexual identity, relationships with common forms of discrimination in society, popular culture, the most important issues to be discussed. ASULİS Language, Dialogue, organized by the Democracy Lab ‘story Difficult Status: Native Arrays in Turkey and discrimination titled’ interview, a leading figure tomris giritlioğlu sector, Gaye Boralıoğl and Nilgun the Ones participation was discussed discrimination and representation issues in popular culture. The panel was moderated by the Bosphorus University, his Feyza Akınerdem video recording, Hrant Dink Foundation can be viewed from the YouTube channel.

tragic situation

The main issues discussed at the panel, how the subject of widespread discrimination and minorities known in the series, was how to find a place in the series of conflicting and other issues in Turkey. share their personal experiences in this regard from the screenwriter was asked.

“Discrimination and the number of sectors in the count we have to say in the middle is a tragedy,” said Gaye Boralıoğl of groups such as minorities in the wall told us that power many of introducing into this structure. Boralıoğl Referring to the Turkish-Kurdish conflict, for example, said: “it was never reflected in this series, but the biggest issue. Dine like … religious conflicts, we can not get into sectarian conflict. For example, ‘Bazaar’ We are writing the series; Alevis are a lover of one of the characters will be introduced to the girl come to the boy’s mother. the boy says to the girl, ‘the wrong way, but in the first meeting that I not tell you the flame.’ This publication they stopped two hours ago. “Nilgun Ones,” in relation to the other, “the subject in range of described as a group,” until a certain time, the ‘other’ when he is called minorities make fun way to use, not a problem to make a satirical material . When they entered their job seriously bindirip turns out the problem areas, “he said. The tomris giritlioğlu, the same issue, “Sometimes I think, have things we did in the past madness. I saw that the Kurds do not like this country does not like Alevis, Armenians do not like at all, “he said.

“You can not tell Tours”

Nilgun Referring to represent the native range of sexual identities Ones, “For example, gay characters, always wave remained as factors that will pass, the audience in a way that would impose, were shown it will make the joke” that was found in the review, Boralıoğl also, “unless you have a cartoonish have no problem, but you humanize you naturalize you face obstacles, “he said. “I see it as a matter of basic discouragement” if he continued to tomris giritlioğlu he said: “A self-censorship works wonderfully for producers and channels. Maybe they care about this issue a little more. Channel, to be more courageous filmmakers, they have to be people who are faced with making the rebellion that society also deserved. For example, I would love to tell the trip but you can not tell, on the edge of, you can not switch from the end. “

Source: Agos

Thousands commemorate 1993 Turk massacre of 33 Alevi artists and intellectuals

July 2, 2015 by administrator

A large group marched through Sivas and ended at the site of the infamous Madımak Hotel, where they laid carnations and gave speeches in memory of the victims. (Photo: DHA)

More than 10,000 people gathered in front of the Madımak Hotel in Sivas and marched, amid strict security precautions taken by the police, to commemorate the 22nd anniversary of the 1993 massacre of 33 Alevi artists and intellectuals who were killed when an angry mob set fire to the hotel.

A number of representatives from various nationwide Alevi associations, 60 deputies from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) — including Zeynep Altıok, daughter of poet Metin Altıok who was killed in the tragedy and CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s spouse, Selvi Kılıçdaroğlu — joined the memorial service. Joining them were Sivas Governor Alim Barut, acting Sivas Mayor Erdal Karaca, Cumhuriyet University rector Prof. Faruk Kocacık and the head of the Cem Foundation, Ali Dağ.

Those public figures who participated in the commemoration demanded that the hotel be converted into “museum of shame” and penalization of the perpetrators of the attack in order to see justice served.

In July 1993, an angry mob broke through police barricades after Friday prayers and set fire to the hotel — where Alevi artists, musicians and authors had assembled to participate in the festival of Pir Sultan Abdal, a 16th-century Alevi poet — causing most of them to be killed.

Remembering the victims of the massacre, in which 33 Alevis, two hotel workers and two of the assailants died, those who took part in the march and the memorial service held placards with the demands for the improvement of the Alevi rights.

Prior to the ceremony, police set up checkpoints to search participants entering the site and all intercity buses coming in were stopped and searched in an effort to ensure security.

After the delegation laid carnations in front of the photos of the victims in the hotel, Governor Barut made a statement, saying that the tragic incident has been imprinted on the memories as a dark day full of pain and added: “Those provocateurs achieved their goals by creating divisions in our society. Our unity [between Sunnis and Alevis] was targeted. It will go down in history as one of our darkest days since it helped undermine the unity people who have lived in peace for centuries. The fire set in the hotel also set Sivas’ future on fire. The grief caused by the tragedy continues to tear our hearts out. However, living in the past is an obstacle to improvement. For sure, we will not forget the pain but we will turn to the future to prevent similar tragedies and to maintain brotherhood between the various segments of the society.”

Source: ZAMAN

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The massacre Turkey hopes Alevis will forget

December 24, 2014 by administrator

By Fehim Taştekin

Alevi demonstrators shout anti-government slogans during a protest against violence in Okmeydani, a working-class district in the center of Istanbul, May 25, 2014. (photo by REUTERS/Murad Sezer)

Tragedies from Turkey’s recent past are returning to the agenda like a recurring nightmare. One such disaster that cannot be swept away is the massacre at Maras, a southeast city from which almost 80% of its Alevi residents were forced to flee to major cities and abroad. The more the state tries to forget such incidents, the more interest they arouse.

This year a major observance was planned to commemorate the Maras killings, but the government brought in 2,200 police and gendarmes from neighboring cities to try to prevent people from accessing Maras. Those who came in buses were not allowed to enter the city. Those who managed to get in individually organized a small observance. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which profusely discusses the Dersim massacres, for which it blames the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), cannot tolerate even the mention of incidents like Maras, which implicate nationalists and conservatives.

In Maras during Dec. 19-26, 1978, explosives and gun fire — amid provocations of “Communists are burning mosques” and “Our religion is at stake” — resulted in the deaths of 111 people, according to official sources, or 150, according to civil society sources. Most of the victims were Alevis. More than 200 Alevi houses were set on fire, and at least a hundred businesses were destroyed.

In the aftermath, 804 people were tried in court. Some were punished, but the real culprits and planners were never unmasked. What happened in Maras was one of the factors behind the Sept. 12, 1980, military coup. Many believe the deep state blamed the killings on nationalists and religious people to justify the September coup.

Where are the graves?

So why is the memory of Maras still a bleeding wound? According to Selin Yalincakoglu, a representative of the Yalincaksultan Alevi Cultural Association, “It has been 36 years, and we still don’t know where the victims are buried. People at least want to know where their relatives and friends are buried. They don’t have a grave to recite their lament.”

Popular narrative says that while the Alevis were fleeing to save their lives, the bodies left behind were buried in a mass grave. Yalincakoglu said, “The state knows where they are buried. But it keeps silent and closes the doors on us when we ask. Moreover, the state continues to commit crimes by erasing the traces of the massacre.” Angry at the state, she added, “The municipality is scratching the houses set on fire and thus covering up the traces of the massacre. There was only one such house left, but now they knocked that down also.”

Adding salt to the wound is the state’s refusal to allow any remembrance of the victims. For Yalincakoglu, the state’s warnings against the alleged threat of provocation is merely an excuse. “If there is provocation, then the state should take action against the provocateurs, not us. They haven’t allowed us into Maras for the past five years. They tell us to go to Narli to hold the observation although the massacre didn’t happen there. Anyhow, if we go as a group, they won’t let us go to Narli either. This year they brought in 15 times more police than participants. They had identity checks at five checkpoints. All we want is to be told where the graves are and to be allowed to remember. But the state is doing all it can to make us forget.”

Alevis’ unequal status and AKP ideology

The question most asked today is why the state is comfortable discussing the 1937-38 Dersim massacre but bans everything to do with the Maras killings. Yalincakoglu believes the AKP is reacting reflexively as the state. She said, “These massacres couldn’t have been carried out without the blessing of the state. The AKP doesn’t want the state to emerge as the perpetrator after serious investigations. It is easy to commemorate Dersim, because there are no witnesses left. Witnesses to Maras are alive. The state doesn’t want people to understand that it committed massacres to prepare ground for a coup.”

Sebahat Tuncel, a member of parliament from the pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HDP), said a commission of inquiry has been proposed in parliament, but the government objects to it. Tuncel told Al-Monitor, “The local administration was inclined to allow the observance this year, but it was banned by firm instructions of the AKP. They harp on Dersim just to use it as political leverage against the CHP. Our request was to face up to all the massacres. The state is still not ready for equal citizenship for Alevis.”

The historian Ayse Hur told Al-Monitor that the state is evading investigations because the victims have only a feeble voice and because it was a plot by the deep state: “The massacre was quickly buried in social memories. In 1977, 231 people were killed in political violence and 2,800 in 1980. On average, 20 people were being killed daily. Therefore Maras was not unique. We had a long stretch of amnesia after the Sept. 12 coup. Asking to deal with the past is something new in this country. It came with the strong pressure against the state by Kurdish victims’ groups domestically and Armenians in the international arena. In Maras, it was the leftists and subdued Alevis who were the victims. Don’t expect the perpetrators to remember it. Nobody remembers the 1934 Thrace incidents against Jews, the 1942 Wealth Tax. The deep state lobby is still functioning. We still don’t know the background of the Sept. 6-7, 1955 pillages [against Greeks]. The AKP, out of its instinct for self-preservation, feels the need to use legal and illegal instruments of the state.”

Hur also noted, however, that if there is strong public demand, or if the AKP feels the need for a revised agenda, it could bring Maras down from the shelf in a way unrevealing of the deep state.

The journalist Ali Topuz made the following assessment about the Maras situation: “Maras was a pogrom. Paramilitary bodies used by the deep state and their armed units, that is, the ultranationalist militants, were involved. For the state to face up to this reality means facing up to its own crimes. Those involved in such affairs won’t volunteer to settle accounts unless pressed hard politically. The state’s homogenous, Turkish Sunni society project was the real cause of frequent similar incidents. The Sept. 6-7 looting, 1974 Cyprus operation, cleansing Greeks from Bozcada and Gokceada were all done the same way. Soldiers who couldn’t stop the Maras massacre showed that they had the power to cope with all other armed groups. The AKP’s determination to avoid settling the accounts arises from its close affiliation with religious ideology. The AKP’s narrative doesn’t change: ‘Traitor provocateurs plotted these incidents to blame the innocent people and to blame Sunni Islam.’ Such a mindset will not agree that the state is responsible. Otherwise it wouldn’t ignore legality to prevent the Maras observance and wouldn’t invite the number one suspect of the Maras massacre, Okkes Kenger, to an Alevi workshop.”

There is long list of incidents the state refuses to discuss. As long as that list remains in the dark, a robust and peace-loving society will remain a distant dream.

Fehim Taştekin is a columnist and chief editor of foreign news at the Turkish newspaper Radikal, based in Istanbul. He is the host of a fortnightly program called “Dogu Divanı” on IMC TV. He is an analyst specializing in Turkish foreign policy and Caucasus, Middle East and EU affairs. He was founding editor of Agency Caucasus.