Fikret Güney wrote this article published on Barış ve Demokrasi Gündemi Blogspot.

The foundation of the project for building a mosque, a cemevi and a public soup-kitchen in a social complex, led by Cem Foundation Chairman İzzettin Doğan and Fethullah Gülen, has been laid in Ankara in recent weeks. The project was introduced as a center of fraternity to enable the Alevi and Sunnite communities to exist together by maintaining their identities. It was however not the project but rather the reactions it drew that was mainly discussed by the public opinion. Components of the Alevi Bektashi Federation, the umbrella organization of the Alevi community, said the project was aimed at the dissolution of Alevism in Sunnism, and declared that they would be staging mass demos in October to protest against the project. The neighborhood of Tuzluçayır, one of the prominent residential areas of Alewis in the capital, has been the center of mass protests since the foundations of the project were laid in the neighborhood. This article will mainly handle the reactions displayed by a substantial part of the Alevi community, in line with the Alevism discourse intended to be formulated in parallel with the AKP government's Alevi initiative process.

The process publicly known as the Alevi initiative was grounded on seven workshops organized between June 2009 and January 2010. The Final Report of Alevi Workshops is a significant document presenting the clues about the official sense of Alevism that has become clearer within the initiative process and is intended to be built from above. The reason why this sense is described as the official Alevism conception is related with the fact that the final report of workshops was a desk work prepared without consultations with Alevi organizations. A look at the workshop reports will reveal that a remarkable part of Alevi organizations left the workshops after some time, and that the report doesn't include the demands of the unions left in the minority in the Alevi organization. This short article will try to handle the final report, objections raised against it, the “Alevism issue” reflected in the report as well as objections to the mosque-cemevi project.

According to the final report, Alevism is a sect or cult in Islam, it is a traditional/religious life form that has institutionalized under rural living conditions and has got its own social networks, and vagueness is the most prominent problem of Alevism. The report often emphasizes that the diversity of interpretations on Alevism and its lacking in discourse holism created further decomposition points and thus hindered the formation of a common grounds for debate. This point of view problematises the Alevism but not its problems, and makes the Alevism itself a matter of debate itself. When it is a matter of Alevism, the solution of the problem depends on not the state but Alevis themselves. According to the report, Alevis should “clearly manifest their belief environment in full competence to disallow any kind of vagueness”.

One other problem Alevism is facing today, besides its vagueness, is the severance of Alevis from their traditions. Alevism, which lacks a systematic holism in itself has failed, indeed for this reason, to resist against the solvent effects of modernization and urbanization. The basic reason for the dissolution of Alevism is the fact that it has a verbal culture which is however not grounded on a holistic doctrine. Besides this structural characteristic feature, Alevis also severed from their traditions because of the law on dervish lodges [with which the newly founded Turkish Republic on 13 December 1925 closed all the tekkes (dervish lodges) and zāwiyas (chief dervish lodges), and the centers of veneration to which pilgrimages (ziyārat) were made]. The law also prohibited the use of mystical names, titles and costumes pertaining to their titles, impounded the Orders' assets, and banned their ceremonies and meetings, thus forcing the structural institutions of Alevism to lose their traditional reference points and to remain defenceless against the solvent effects of modernization and urbanization.

The report alleges that the structural vagueness of Alevism and its further loss of its institutions has two basic consequences. First one is that Alevis ground their public appearance on victimhood narration and “doom themselves to the mythic universe of victimhood” by regarding their experienced pains as sacred. This victimhood narration constitutes an obstacle to Alavis to establish a healthy relationship with a non-Alevi society. The second one is the fact that the debate on Alevism has become not a theological but a political discussion, more clearly, it has led to the politicization of Alevism which is a religious idea. The structural vagueness of Alevism and its  further loss of its institutions drives Alevism to victimhood narration, politicizes it and as a result reflects the political opposition -which Alevism does actually not bear- as its fundamental component.

The final report firstly problematizes Alevism, then formulates the most significant problem of Alevism as its severance from its traditions. It grounds the solution of Alevis on meeting on a common ground with Sunnis; Islam. The prescription the report puts forward for the solution of the problems of Alevism suggests the re-definition of Alevism on the basis of religious references and its return to its position in Islam.
The Alevi initiative process in this way presents a new definition of Alevism, aiming to build a new hegemony through Alevism by re-describing and monopolizing it. The mosque-cemevi process should also be analyzed in consideration of this new hegemony that is intended to be constructed basing on Alevism. The mosque-cemevi project is a support “civil society” is providing for Alevism that is being intended to re-defined on the basis of Islam at the official level. It is not surprising that this support has been provided as a result of a cooperation by the Gülen sect which has a determining role on Turkey's politics and the Cem Foundation which interprets Alevism as Turkish Islam since 1990's. This project is the incarnated shape of the religious fellowship rhetoric that is claimed to be an emotional separation between Alevis and Sunnis and suggests the resolution of Alevis through a religious sharing with Sunnis. In other words, it is the generation of grassroots consent for the formation of the hegemony intended to be constructed basing on Alevism.

The reaction of Alevis against the project should be seen as an objection against this new definition and the efforts for the hegemony building. Now, let's make a short return to the final report. The recognition of cemevi as Alevi places of worship was one of the main subjects discussed during the workshops. The granting of cemevis with the status of house of worship    is the only point that many of the Alevi unions with different points of views have reached consensus on. The final report which highlights that it is Alevis themselves who can make the clearest definition of Alevism refers the debate to religious functionaries when it comes to the recognition of cemevi as Alevi places of worship. It says that Alevis will not decide on their own about the status of Alevi worship places, and that their recognition can happen if is allowed by religious functionaries. The directorate of religious affairs has an explicit attitude in this respect; there is only one place of worship in Islam, and that is mosque. According to theologists, the recognition of Alevi worship places means defining Alevism as a new religion and making Alevis a religious minority.

The reaction against the mosque-cemevi project should be treated in line with the new sense of Alevism intended to be formulated in the Alevi initiative process and the debates about the status of cemevis, because of the fact that this project is the incarnated form of these debates. Subjoining a cemevi to a mosque without the recognition of its status wold mean making cemevis an outbuilding of mosques. Denying the legitimacy of cemevis means legitimating them only when built near mosques, it further means looking around to see a mosque near a cemevi to be built in an Alevi residential area. From a broader point of view, it means impossibility of discussing Alevism as distinguished from Islam. Each cemevi to be built in the shadow of a mosque would mean the inclusion of Alevism under the umbrella of Sunnism. If the platform that brings mosque and cemevi together lacks equality, it will end up in not fellowship but assimilation.  The coexistence of Alevis and Sunnis by maintaining their identity is an absolute must for the achievement of democratisation in Turkey. The political mindset behind the mosque-cemevi project sees

Alevis as a community troubled with Sunnis and assumes that the Alevism issue could be resolved through a religious fellowship to unite Alevis and Sunnis. This mindset is in conformity with the aforementioned Alevism rhetoric that has become clearer within the Alevi initiative process. Alevis on the other hand do not consider religious peace with Sunnis necessary for they have no problem with Sunnis anyway. The Alevis living in Turkey have a problem with the state, not with the Sunnis. They demand the state grant them with their rights to enable their participation in the social life on equal footing. A fellowship project, which fails to present a perspective siding with equal citizenship and to grant Alevis with the same rights with Sunnis, and is grounded on “reconciling Alevis and Sunnis with each other by mixing them” in their places of worship, will serve not a living granting equal conditions but the dissolution of Alevism in Sunnism.

Turkey is in need of the coexistence of Alevis and Sunnis but this can be achieved by a mindset siding with equal citizenship for every single person living on these lands not rhetoric of Islam fellowship.