Community, Ideology and Ethnicity: Narratives and Re-Imagining Alevi Identity in post-1980 Turkey The Alevis, one of the largest communal groups in Turkey, are geographically spread throughout Turkey. The academic and popular literatures on Alevilik have often referred to the period starting from the late 1980s as the “Alevi revival”. This “revival/transformation” has manifested itself in forms of heightened group consciousness, greater ease to express the identity in the public sphere, increased public visibility, and the making political and legal claims over Alevi identity in social and political arenas. There is still an unsettled debate and ongoing competition between different versions of discourses on Alevi identity about the outlines and the core feature of modern, urban Alevi identity. This study investigates the dynamics of Alevi identity negotiation process through the competing narratives, within the context of post 1980 Turkey. The objective of this study is to investigate the role of personal and collective narratives in the negotiation of collective identities. More specifically the study addresses the questions of how the Alevi identity is re-negotiated through personal and collective narratives within the context of post 1980 Turkey? Establishing a coherent Alevi identity within the modern urban context among people who have different, ideological, social, religious orientations, and social and economic backgrounds is an ongoing struggle for activists of the Alevi community. I will argue that there are at least three main contending discourses on Alevi identity. Those discourse positions constitute different visions about the past and the futures of Alevi community as well as the cultural and the political boundaries of Alevi identity. In addition to creating different visions about the Alevi identity, history and future, those contending discourses also constituted Alternative definitions of “Sunni identity”, which is considered as the other of Alevi identity. The features of the competing discourses are comparatively analyzed through life story narratives of Alevis who are actively involved in the process of social and political change. A multiplicity of data sources have been used for this research but the main data is the in depth semi structured interview transcripts of more than 70 Alevi’s that were actively involved, and still getting involved in this process of revival. Transcripts and records of semi-academic discussions are also used to help outline general discussions.

The first Kurdish-language newspaper, Kurdistan, was published in Cairo on 22 April 1898 by two exiled brothers Mikdad Midhat Bedirkhan and Abdurrahman Bedirkhan. Between the years of 1898 and 1902, the editors published thirty-one issues. Kurdistan offered its readers as well as its contributors from various opposition groups a forum for the exchange of ideas. The Bedirkhan brothers’ political involvement with the Committee of Union and Progress was reflected in articles published in Kurdistan, which was at times published in the CUP presses and was read by the CUP members. The newspaper carried harsh critiques of the sultan, his policies, and his “corrupt” institutions (mainly, the Hamidian Cavalry, which was at the forefront of repression against Kurds and Armenians), as well as the actions of his “flattering” officials. These criticisms were also conveyed in the form of petitions and open letters addressed directly to the sultan. These petitions underscored the strategic importance of Kurdistan for the empire as a buffer zone between the two “enemy” states of Russia and Iran, and as the heart of the Ottoman Empire. Over time, the writers increased their harsh criticism against the regime to the point where they started to demand the sultan be deposed and a new legal and socio-political order be created. In the meantime, the space Kurdistan offered was turned into a forum in which the contributors advanced their “nationalist” agendas, criticized the “despotic” Hamidian regime, and at the same time worked to advance their own familial interests which had been harmed with the centralizing policies of the Ottoman state. In this way, in the beginning of the twentieth century, the Bedirkhan brothers’ Kurdistan distinguished itself as an oppositional newspaper with a particular Kurdish perspective. This paper is an attempt to analyze the construction of Kurdish oppositional discourse against the Hamidian regime, with particular reference to Kurdistan. Through comparative analysis of the articles written and published by Kurdish Ottoman intellectuals in Kurdistan and in several CUP publications, and through close-reading of the petitions and open-letters, not merely as a way of direct communication to the sultan but rather as a forum in which corruption under the existing regime and the need for change is revealed, this paper discusses the evolution of political rhetoric that Kurdistan employed in order to create an imagined Kurdish constituency which was composed of Kurdish language, history, folklore, legends and folk songs.

Fundamental changes are underway in contemporary Turkish politics as attested by the recent reconfiguration of the Kemalist discourses within the leadership of Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) that traditionally identified itself as the guardian of the Republic and its secular-nationalist values. One of the central debates within the political and public discourse today revolves around the deconstruction of the framework of Turkishness and Turkish nationalism. In the post-Ottoman Republican era, the military-bureaucratic elite implemented a project of state and nation-building through marginalizing Islam under the control of the state (secularism) and through assimilating different ethnic groups into newly constructed Turkish identity (nationalism). However, this alleged new social glue of secular-modern Turkishness has never had strong cultural, economic, and political grounds because of the nature of "revolution-from-above" trait of the Republic. Although any religious or religio-ethnic oppositions were relatively suppressed until the 1950s, the inevitable outcome of the revival of alternative identities based on religion and ethnicity against the official identity of the Republic was under way after the 1960s. One of the strongest challenges to the official identity has been the politicization of Kurdish identity which has transformed into a strong Kurdish nationalism against its Turkish variant. Today, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, with its Islamic roots and the widespread Kurdish identity consciousness, forces the Kemalist discourse for serious changes in identifying Turkishness. Besides, debates on religion and its place in public life and the interaction between Kurdish nationalism and Turkish nationalism have an important aspect of rethinking a new social contract in Turkey. Despite the roots of Kurdish nationalism within the Kemalist project, today, there exists a vicious cycle of stimulating extremist polarizations between Turkish and Kurdish identities within this interaction of dual nationalism in Turkey. Then, the research question, here, first deals with the possible direction of Kurdish and Turkish nationalism through looking at the contemporary discourses of both sections. The second goal is to project the possibilities on how to moderate both nationalisms in order to create a new "us" from the established lines "us" (Turks) vs. "them" (Kurds) under "the nationalism of Turkey" rather than exclusive Turkish or Kurdish nationalism. With that regards, I will observe the recent historical discourses of Kurdish nationalism and Turkish nationalism in order to see if there is a space for moderation and combination within the clamped vicious cycle of these two conflicting nationalisms.

Scholarship on the official historiography of the Ottoman Empire in modern Turkey assumes two fixed reference points: the early Republic, when the Ottoman legacy was firmly rejected, and the present, when it is eagerly embraced. It is accepted that Ataturk and his compatriots rejected Turkey’s Ottoman past, denigrating the Ottomans to promote their own vision of secular Westernization. Now Turkey is “coming to terms with” its Ottoman past as part of the country’s larger transformation into a regional power. Yet between these two points of comparison lies the largely untold story of how Turkish politicians and intellectuals gradually transformed the Ottoman Empire from Turkey’s foil into its source of inspiration. This paper examines popular perceptions of the Ottoman Empire during the 1950s, specifically in reference to Turkey’s new relationship with America and NATO. Evidence from Turkish newspapers from the time shows that during the 1950s many among the Turkish elite had accepted the fundamentally Turkish character of the Ottoman Empire and begun using it as a source of national pride. In doing so, they tailored their image of the Ottomans to fit their political needs, glorifying the Empire’s military valor in the face of Greek and Russian hostility, while also depicting it as secular, tolerant, revolutionary and pro-Western in its heyday. At the same time, they were faced with a public whose enthusiasm for Ottoman history was far greater than their own, as demonstrated by films and fiction of the day. Thus the 1950s saw ongoing tension between the official history taught in schools and the images that pervaded the popular consciousness. The United States, for its part, was distinctly aware of the question of Ottoman legacy as it sought to create an anti-communist alliance between Turkey and its formerly Ottoman neighbors in the Middle East. At the same time, US policymakers realized that Greece was likely to take offense to public glorifications of the Ottomans, which could undermine NATO unity. In exploring the way these tensions were managed, my work contributes to debates about the relationship between foreign policy and ideology as well scholarship on the contestation of historical memory. It also complicates an often simplistic narrative about Turkey’s relationship to its past by showing that the country’s embrace of its Ottoman legacy is by no means a new phenomenon.