Alevis under the AKP rule

Date

2024-1

Author

Aydın, Ozan

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The structural inequalities and asymmetrical power relations between Alevis and the Turkish state have resurfaced with three recent developments: the presidential candidacy of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu as an Alevi, the Resolutions on the public provisions to cemevis, and the establishment of the Presidency of Alevi-Bektashi Culture and Cemevi. The recent debates on the positionality of the Alevi identity have crystallized the frontiers of the AKP’s visions on Alevism in Turkey. Within this regard, this thesis study aims to explain how the AKP governments have approached to Alevis in the twenty-one years of their service at the office. The public political discourses, the governmental and party documents, the representations of Alevi organizations in the media are analyzed critically to identify primary Alevi identity objective of the AKP. This thesis argues that the AKP governments have attempted to reconstruct the Alevi identity in line with the visions on political compliance, melting in the totalizing one Sunni Islam, and culturally belonging to the Turkic Sufi tradition. Although these does not categorically diverge from the previous Alevi-state relations, Alevis under the AKP rule have witnessed more interventionist approach through the attempts to penetrate the core Alevi institutions. Alevi Question stands as one intricate subject matter to understand the relationship between the forces of secularism and nationalism in the history of Turkey. While explaining the making of the Alevi Question in the second chapter contextualizes the contemporary Alevi, Turk, nation, secular, state imageries, the subsequent chapter investigates the crucial Alevi-AKP encounters with chronologic subheadings.

Subject Keywords

AKP, Alevism, Secularism, Nation

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/107755

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis