Physical and Epistemic Violence against Alevis in Turkey

Introduction

In this presentation, I would like to discuss the physical and epistemic violence experienced by Alevis in the Republic of Turkey. I will argue that these forms of violence are interconnected and can only be understood within the broader context of Turkish nation-building.

I will explain that, but first a few words on who are the Alevis:

Today the term is used mainly for Turkish, Kurmanci and Kırmancki speaking ethnoreligious communities in Turkey and to a minor extent in the neighbouring post-Ottoman Muslim populations, especially in the Balkans. These communities are connected through specific socioreligious structures, such as the ocak-system, and a charismatic and mystical religiosity, the relation of which to Islam has in the course of the last 50 years been contested. In Ottoman times they were mostly called Kızılbaş, “redhead” – a term that carries until today negative connotations of religious and social deviance as well as political disloyalty.

The history of modern Alevism is inseparable from the history of modern Turkey. As the Ottoman Empire became increasingly centralized during the nineteenth century, and later as the Turkish Republic sought to create a unified nation-state, religious and ethnic diversity came to be regarded as a political problem. Among the communities affected by this process were the Kızılbaş-Alevis, whose religious and social distinctiveness placed them in an ambiguous position within the emerging national order. Since the late Young Turk period, Alevism increasingly came to be described as an essentially Turkish religious tradition. This reinterpretation enabled the symbolic incorporation of Alevis into the Turkish nation while simultaneously redefining their religious identity according to the ideological needs of Turkish nationalism: Turkish, Muslim but heterodox, secular.

Many Alevis, particularly Turkish-speaking Alevis, eventually embraced this new interpretation. They developed a strong attachment to Kemalist secularism, viewing the secular state as a safeguard against discrimination by the Sunni Muslim majority. Nevertheless, this identification with the Republic never eliminated anti-Alevi prejudice. 

The position ascribed to the Alevis in the Turkish nation-state remained marked by ambiguity. On the one hand, Alevis occupied an uncertain place within the imagined Turkish nation because of their internal ethnic diversity. On the other hand, their relationship to Islam was equally contested. They were seen as neither fully orthodox Muslims nor as entirely outside Islam. These two ambiguities, with regard to their religion and their ethnicity, have profoundly shaped both state policies and public perceptions of Alevis. Moreover, throughout the Republican period, Alevis were repeatedly targets of exclusion, discrimination, and violent attacks.

Before I get to the topic of anti-Alevi violence, let me first explain what I mean by epistemic violence.

Epistemic Violence

I think that the notion of epistemic violence, which was coined by postcolonial theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, is helpful to understand the nationalist knowledge production on Alevism. While physical violence refers to direct persecution, massacres, and discrimination, epistemic violence concerns the production of knowledge. It describes the ways in which dominant political and cultural discourses define marginalized communities, deny them the authority to represent themselves, and impose identities that serve hegemonic interests. The distinction between epistemic and physical forms of violence helps us to grasp the intrinsic connection between them: Epistemic knowledge builds and reflects power dynamics. It undergirds processes of marginalization and exclusion that can justify violence. 

In our example, this epistemic violence is grounded in a nationalist discourse that portrays Alevis as permanently incomplete subjects of the nation. Depending on political circumstances, they are represented as insufficiently Muslim, insufficiently Turkish, or politically unreliable. In the course of the republic, such shifting representations cast doubt on the Alevis’ legitimacy as equal members of society and justifiy continuing projects of assimilation.

Historical Survey

The historical genealogy of the modern knowledge about the Alevis reaches back to the late Ottoman Empire. Different actors—including American missionaries, Ottoman officials, and later Turkish nationalist intellectuals—produced competing interpretations of Alevism. The historical imagination that emerged from this represented Alevism as a heterodox but fundamentally Turkish form of Islam.

One of the most influential formulations in this regard came from the nationalist historian Fuad Köprülü, who described Alevism as a syncretic and heterodox version of Islam rooted in pre-Islamic and newly Islamized Turkish traditions. This interpretation became highly influential because it reconciled Alevism with the nationalist vision of a culturally unified Turkish nation while simultaneously marginalizing those aspects of the Alevi tradition that did not fit this narrative. Among those excluded aspects belong the fact of the multiethnic composition of Alevi communities on the one hand, and the connections of Alevi practices and beliefs to religious formations outside of Islam and Turkish religious traditions.

The result was a conditional inclusion. Alevis were accepted as part of the Turkish nation, if they accepted the nationalist paradigm that presented Alevism as an essentially Turkish culture, downplaying both its internal ethnic diversity and its distinct religious character. As a result, their religious traditions, historical memories, and internal diversity remained largely invisible.

It is this process of defining Alevis from the outside in a subordinating, essentializing and disciplining manner that I describe as epistemic violence. It established the ideological framework within which episodes of physical violence became conceivable and, in many cases, publicly justifiable.

Epistemic and Physical Violence: Historical Examples

I would now like to illustrate this argument with reference to several instances in the history of the Turkish Republic.

The first and most devastating example is the military campaign in Dersim in 1937 and 1938.

Today, the Dersim “operation” is widely recognized as one of the most violent instances of Kemalist nation-building. Official figures report around 13,000 deaths and the forced displacement of approximately 12,000 people. Non-state estimates are considerably higher. The military assault and the political measures that accompanied them and continued afterwards, are today remembered by the local population as well as outside observers as genocide. 

What is important for my argument is not only the scale of the violence but also the language used to justify it. In 1935, the name of Dersim was changed to Tunceli, “bronze hand”. This was part of a series of legal measures to integrate the region, known for its resistance to outside political intervention, into the centralist state. State discourse regarded the population of Dersim as backward in terms of culture and religion, rebellious, and resistant to civilization. The Ottoman derogatory image of the Kızılbaş was mobilized once again to portray the Kurdish Alevi population of Dersim as religiously deviant and politically unreliable. At the same time, official discourse insisted that the Dersim Alevis, mainly Kırmanki and Kurmanci speakers, were essentially Turkish and therefore capable of being assimilated into the nation.

We can see here how epistemic ambiguity can be employed to justify violence. In that period, Alevis were portrayed as essentially Turkish. This made possible their assimilation into the nation. Yet, since they were regarded as culturally and religiously deficient, extensive state intervention appeared necessary. Violence was therefore framed not as repression but as a legitimate instrument of modernization and national integration. In the context of the Dersim campaign, tropes of civilization and national unity were evoked to justify the state violence as a liberating act.

Significantly, this interpretation was accepted by parts of the Alevis themselves, especially those Turkish Alevis from outside of the Dersim region who strongly identified with Kemalist nationalism. Many inscribed themselves in the official narrative that presented the campaign as a necessary response to political rebellion rather than as mass violence directed against a marginalized population.

I now turn to later examples of anti-Alevi violence.

Between 1978 and 1980, assaults on Alevi neighbourhoods in the cities of Kahramanmaraş, Çorum, Malatya, and Sivas claimed more than 180 lives. These attacks unfolded during the intense ideological polarization of the Cold War, when Turkey experienced an escalating conflict between groups that associated with the political left and right, respectively.

In this period, anti-Alevi rhetoric focused mainly on political loyalty. Alevis were increasingly portrayed as communists, Kurds, enemies of the nation. These political accusations remained closely connected to older assumptions about their alleged religious deviance and questionable Turkishness. Political and religious otherness reinforced one another, demonstrating once again how epistemic violence provided a framework through which physical violence could be legitimized.

The massacre in Sivas in 1993 illustrates a significant shift in rhetoric.

Thirty-seven intellectuals, artists, and participants at an Alevi cultural festival lost their lives after the Madımak Hotel was set on fire by a fanaticized mob chanting Islamic slogans. How can we characterize the context of the arson attack?

By the 1990s, questions of religious identity had become increasingly prominent in Turkish public life. Accordingly, anti-Alevi discourse emphasized accusations of heresy far more strongly than during the Cold War period. Analysis of public discourse of that period reveal that the attack in Sivas was driven mainly by religious sectarianism. Alevis were portrayed as fundamentally different from the Sunni-Muslim majority and therefore as objects of suspicion. The changing political context altered the language of exclusion, but not its underlying structure. 

Please note that the examples of anti-Alevi violence that I provided are not exhaustive. They were meant to illustrate my argument about the interconnection of epistemic and physical violence.

Recent Examples of anti-Alevi Epistemic Violence 

Patterns of anti-Alevi epistemic violence continue into the present.

Relations between the Alevi community and AKP governments have frequently been marked by religious tension and sectarian rhetoric. During the Syrian civil war, for example, Alevis were repeatedly accused of sympathizing with Bashar al-Assad, himself from an Arab Alawite family. Sectarian discourse perceived both Syrian Alawites and Alevis of Turkey as somehow connected through their “Alevi” identities. Ignoring the considerable historical and theological differences between these communities, such claims contributed to renewed suspicion against the Alevis of Turkey. 

Forms of epistemic violence can further be detected in patronizing discourses by Turkish state institutions such as the Directorate of Religious Affairs, or leading politicians, when they publicly advocate truths about what Alevism really is. The old and continuing position of the Directorate of Religious Affairs, that the Alevi cem ritual is a cultural practice and not religious worship is one example, the statement “When Alevism is about loving Ali I am an exemplary Alevi”, as it had been uttered by president Erdogan, is another. Such practices take an authoritative stance on what Alevism really is from outside, thereby ignoring Alevi sentiment, delegitimizing Alevi knowledge. Among Alevi communities this creates a sense of extreme vulnerability.

The examples that I presented show that anti-Alevi epistemic violence has taken different forms across different historical periods. Nationalism, anti-communism, and religious sectarianism stand out as its main resources. 

Beyond the changing rhetoric employed against Alevis in the course of the republic, we can detect a remarkable continuity. Across different periods, Alevis have been represented as a community whose loyalty, identity, or religious legitimacy remains open to question. It is precisely this recurring production of the ambiguity of the Alevis’ relation to the majority Turkish Sunni Muslim nation that constitutes epistemic violence and helps explain why episodes of physical violence could repeatedly emerge throughout modern Turkish history.

Subjected to Violence but not devoid of Agency

Before concluding, I would like to emphasize one final point. Focusing on the violence that Alevis have experienced in the republic should not lead us to portray them simply as passive victims of history. Alevis relate in numerous ways to the dominant discourses of ethnic and religious difference that they are subjected to. Some inscribe themselves into aspects of these discourses, such as Alevism’s essentially Turkish character, or by adopting theological discourses that stabilize Sunni Islamic epistemes. Others reject these discourses and engage alternative interpretations of Alevi faith and origins: some Kurmanci and Kırmancki Alevis, for example, stress Kurdish or Persian roots, both with regard to ethnicity and religion. Others confront the episteme of being a Muslim heterodoxy, for example by rejecting any essential connection of Alevism with Islam – or by presenting Alevism as Islam’s essence. Many more examples of such active Alevi renegotiation of Alevism’s roots and essences could be given. 

It is further important not to reduce Alevi history to a history of suffering.

For one, experiences of persecution in Turkey have become a source for collective identity, political mobilization, and transnational solidarity. Since the late 1980s, Alevi organizations have expanded considerably, both within Turkey and throughout the European diaspora. These organizations differ in their political, ethnic, and religious orientations, but despite these differences, they have made Alevism far more visible in the public sphere than at any previous point in history.

In several European countries, Alevis have made remarkable success with regard to institutional recognition. In Germany and Austria, for example, Alevi organizations have obtained varying degrees of official recognition as religious communities, and Alevi religious education has been introduced into public schools. Here, Alevis are accepted as the leading actors in defining and representing their own religious tradition.

In Turkey, however, progress has been limited. The legal status of cemevis, Alevi houses of worship, remains contested, and public debates about the nature of Alevism are still often conducted in a patronizing manner by politicians, state institutions, or Sunni religious authorities. But also in Turkey, Alevis articulate their criticism against patronizing politics openly – even if internal diversity within the Alevi community has made it difficult to establish a strong public voice, capable of effectively challenging dominant narratives.

Conclusion

Let me sum up.

The marginalization of Alevis in contemporary Turkey cannot be explained solely by political Islam or by the policies of any single government. Rather, it reflects a much deeper historical consensus that emerged during the late Ottoman and early Republican periods. Across different political ideologies—including Turkish nationalism, Kemalism, and various forms of political Islam—Alevis have repeatedly been represented as occupying an ambiguous position in relation to both Turkish national identity and Islam.

I argue that the recurring episodes of anti-Alevi violence should not be understood simply as isolated outbursts of intolerance or as the consequence of incomplete national integration. They are better understood as visible manifestations of epistemic violence—articulated through dominant discourses that have continuously defined Alevis as incomplete members of the nation and denied them the authority to speak for themselves. Before instances of physical violence occurred, Alevis had already been constructed as a problematic community whose difference required explanation, correction, or assimilation – in the most extreme cases even eradication.

Recognizing this relationship between epistemic and physical violence has broader implications. It reminds us that violence operates through categories of knowledge, public narratives, and political language that determine who belongs, who remains suspect, and whose voice is considered legitimate.

At last, I would like to mention that the subjugation of Alevism to nationalist regimes, be they of the secularist or of the Islamist kind, and the episodes of violence connected to it, can also be analyzed as internal colonization or Orientalism. As epistemic violence, these concepts inquire into the workings of power through knowledge. This is key for understanding the subject positions of marginalized and minoritized ethnic and religious communities. It is necessary also for destabilizing ahistorical narratives of totalized victimhood that make it difficult to perceive the agency of subordinated populations such as the Alevis of Turkey.

I hope that listening to this talk made you curious to learn more about the Alevis. Thanks for watching and goodbye!