Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro
de la Prensa-Basm Özeti
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RELIGION
Carrying the Flame
After centuries in the shadows of the Sunni majority,
Turkey's Alevi community finds its voice in Europe
By STEVE ZWICK
BERLIN
ON THE TOP FLOOR OF A DECONsECRAted
Evangelical church in Berlin's
Kreuzberg area, Ismet Dertli puts
the finishing touches on the curriculum
for a new subject being offered in the
city's public schools. It's a course that hasn't
previously been taught in any government-sanctioned
school, at least not for a
few centuries: Turkish Alevism.
This mystic brand of Islam is
practiced by 25% of the more than
2.5 million Turks in Germany and up
to 30% of Turkey's 66 million' people-though
you won't find 'them in , ,
any census. That's because Turkey,
mindful of its fractious past, forbids
large minorities from formally iden-' ,;,
tifying themselves as anything other ' '"
than Turkish Muslim. "As a result,"
says Dertli, "most Europeans don't
even know we exist."
The building is Berlin's Anatolian
Alevi Culture Center, one of
, nearly 300 such facilities scattered
across Europe. Delegates from 165
centers Converged on Brussels this
summer to form a pan-European
Alevi Union, something unheard of
'The older generation get really choked
up when they see these Aleviculture centers
popping up all over the place, and the school
thing is big news back in Turkey," says Iraz
Karan, 27,a Berlin-born Aleviwhose parents
come from Turkey. 'The traditions that became
Turkish Alevism exist all over the Arab
world and are very diverse." Alevis follow
the Shi'ite path laid down by Muhammad's
cousin and son-in-law Ali, but with a twist.
Turkey and began putting their oral traditions
on paper. "The core of Alevism is simple
and humanistic," Küçük says. "That
means we don't bog down in matters of
dogma concerning this verse or that one. So
we've found it easier to become somewhat
unified in Europe, as well as to integrate
into European society." That humanism is
personified in Haji Bektash, a 13th century
Aleviholy man who, according to Alevi lore,
encouraged people to turn the other cheek
and love their neighbors. Alevis generally
embraced Kemal Ataturk's separation of
church and state in the 1930s, but their outsider
status drew many to leftist politics.
The Alevis in Germany started organizing
politically in July 1993, after a mob in
the Turkish city of Sivas torched a hotel
, where satirist Aziz Nesin, known for lam-
"L--J",.
,.j
back home. Turgut Öker, who
heads the union, hopes the organization's
existence will
speed the process of reform and help bring
Turkey into the European Union.
Non-Muslims enjoy religious freedom
in Turkey, but the 98% of the population
who are Muslims must study a Sunni-based
Islamic curriculum designed by Turkey's
Department of Religion. In Germany, however,
public schools provide religious instruction
in' accordance with the country's
"religious cominunities." That once meant
Catholic or Protestant, but most German
school districts have introduced Islamic
studies as well. In Berlin, parents can choose
from curricula offered by several recognized
religious communities. Result: 10 schools
with Alevi'classes and 20 for Sunnis.
"Orthodox Shi'ites say the entire Koran is the
word of God," says Metin Küçük, director of
the Berlin center. "But we differentiate between
Muhammad's inspired verse and the
rules he came up with later on, when hI; was
an administrator and warrior."
That means no mosques, no five daily
prayers, no separate worship for men and
women, and no facing Mecca. Instead, Alevis
pray in a circle,facing each other. In
plâce of Islamic law, they have a 40-step
process for achieving the mystical sense of
oneness preached by Muhammad in the
Koran's early verses. To create a single curriculum
for Germany, the Alevis recruited a
panel of people drawn from various parts of
pooning religious extremism,
was entertaining at an Alevi
function. Thirty-seven people
died, and images of the "Sivas Martyrs"
quickly appeared on the walls of Alevi culture
centers across Europe. Says Karan:
"Those of us who were born in Germany
began to wonder about our identity, and
young parents began to realize they wanted
to pass something on to their kids."
The Sivas incident remains a sore point
in Germany, where a man convicted of instigating
the attack has been granted political
asylum and the applications of two others
are pending. Alevi leaders are usingtheir
newfound political muscle to fight for the
perpetrators' extradition to Turkey. But
many of the younger Alevis have raised the
question: What would Haji Bektash say? •
TIME, OerOBER 14, 2002
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