The Wrong Kind Of Alevi

I’m Alevi. And I’m not interested in being one of the good Alevis included under the one big Muslim Umbrella.

Given my minority status in Turkey, I have much more in common with Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians than I do with Muslims, and anyway, I don’t want to share an umbrella with people who think killing me is a religious duty. Obviously I’m not speaking for all Muslims, just like I’m not speaking for all Christians when I condemn the Westboro Baptist Church, but a disturbing number of regime-supporting Turkish Muslims say someone who kills seven Alevis is guaranteed a place in heaven. Personally, if I found out that the perpetrators of the Maras Massacre and Sivas Massacre were my neighbours in heaven, I’d be happier in hell.

Assimilation of Alevi beliefs into Islam and assimilation of Kurdish identity into Turkish identity are two sides of the same coin. As someone in the middle of the Venn diagram of Alevi and Kurdish existences, I fail to understand why it is sometimes mildly socially acceptable to stand up for my Kurdish ethnicity but an unspoken taboo to do so for my Alevi faith because “everyone is born Muslim”. Yet this argument implodes upon itself; if everyone is Muslim, then where is all this pressure to convert coming from? If everyone is Muslim, then why am I treated differently, like a heretic, for being Alevi?

Here’s the answer: It’s because being Alevi is different, both from the norm ofIslam and the norm of “recognisable” religion, and I am a heretic for pointing this out. I’m not saying it’s a cult, but plenty of white people think it looks like one. When I was younger, I enjoyed showing pictures of Alevi congregations to those not in the know, asking them rhetorically, “Does this look like Islam to you?” They’d all say no, it looks like a syncretistic esoteric Anatolian guild of the sun and sword. They might laugh, or say “As if!” but they’d never say yes.

Muslims congregate on Fridays, Alevis congregate on Thursdays. Music is mostly forbidden in Islam. Music is a central tenet of worship in Alevism. Mixed gender interaction is forbidden in Islam too, with some going as far as to say that touching a woman’s skin, even by accident, renders a man “dirty”, implying women are dirty. In Alevism, worship is not gender segregated; everyone expresses spirituality together. Islam commands women to cover their bodies to hide their shape — and the closest Alevis will ever get to that is an older woman wearing a scarf out of embarrassment about getting grey hair. Their youngers happily wear shorts and miniskirts. Sure, I had an insufferable classmate who implied I didn’t respect myself because I don’t cover my hair, but she’s probably said that to all manner of Alevis. I believe — we believe, that if God gave us skin, why shouldn’t we show it? Did God make a mistake?

What irks me to no end is when people are assimilated enough to say Alevism is just a different “Mezhep” — school of thought — when all four of Islam’s schools of thought forbid music, mixed gender interaction, and women being unveiled. And how many of them proclaim that God is to be loved, not feared, and found in humans and living things? None, nada, zero and zilch.

My belief system is unique. I want it to be recognised as unique, not turned into something it isn’t just so it can be accepted by the closed-minded. If they can’t accept it for what it is, or accept me for who I am, that’s their problem.

Usually I’m not one to police people’s labels. I’m not going to tell you what to believe, because as long as that’s your decision, that’s your decision. Nonetheless, I think calling oneself an “Alevi Muslim” in the name of an inclusionary approach to inclusive inclusion, where “The Kurds” are turned into a vague and very monolithic political entity who all sing Kumbaya, is as ridiculous as calling oneself a “Hindu Muslim” or a “Buddhist Muslim”.

Maybe I’ll start a movement with these thoughts. More likely, they’ll get lost in the deepest corners of the internet, just another rant never to be seen again. I just think it’s important to point out that I am proud of being Alevi, as an independent belief system, and that I don’t need to turn my spiritual beliefs into something more palatable to the Turkish, Muslim, right-wing gaze.