The voice behind the Maraş massacre

It was April 2019. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who was sometimes implicitly targeted due to his Alevi identity, had come to Çubuk, Ankara, to attend the funeral of contract soldier Yener Kırıkçı. That day, he was almost killed himself; stones were thrown at him, someone who got close to him punched him in the face, and in the end, he had to take refuge in a house. However, they wanted to "burn" the house he took refuge in as well. We all heard that voice: someone was shouting, "burn that house down."

The voice was quite chilling. What was even more terrifying was that this voice was not foreign to the lands of this country. There was a hostility towards Alevis, and this discourse was turning into a hostile rhetoric in some places, and even into a massacre.

The smoke rising to the sky in Sivas on July 2 was one of the examples of this massacre. People who were in Sivas to commemorate Pir Sultan were to be burned alive in the hotel where they had taken refuge. Dozens of souls, including poets and writers, were massacred. Yaşar Kemal had spoken as follows in front of the hotel that day: "What will we say to the face of humanity today? What do we have left in our hands other than shame?" Even feeling shame was a virtue, because the country was full of those who felt no shame. Because the lawyers who defended those who gathered in front of the hotel that day, set it on fire, and watched this massacre with almost pleasure, argued in court that "those who gathered in front of the hotel had no intention of burning it." Yet, there were images, first and foremost. And in those images, while the hotel was burning, someone was saying, "it looks very good from here, it turned out great." Another voice was staining its words with blood: "hellfire, the fire in which the infidels will burn." These voices continued for hours, as if the hands and arms of Sivas and the state were tied, and they were all watching the fire together.

There were still two years left until the September 12 coup. It was December. December 19. That evening, a sound bomb was thrown at the Çiçek Cinema in Kahramanmaraş. Subsequently, a group attacked the CHP building with slogans of "Even if our blood flows, victory is Islam's" and "Muslim Turkey." The next day, a coffeehouse frequented by Alevis was bombed. On December 21, two TÖB-DER member teachers were killed. On December 22, a crowd, incited by the claim that "the funeral prayer of communists and Alevis is not performed," attacked those carrying the funerals of these two teachers. The hours were showing fear and terror in Kahramanmaraş. As the minutes passed, this horror would grow even more. And it was in those minutes that a voice rose again. It was the voice of Mustafa Yıldız, the imam of the Bağlarbaşı Mosque. He was saying:

"Whoever kills an Alevi earns as much merit as if they had gone on pilgrimage five times; all our religious brothers must rise up against the communists and the godless; we will cleanse the Alevis and the CHP-supporting Sunni infidels around us." And so it happened, they did as the imam said. Suddenly, the neighborhoods where Alevis and leftists resided were practically besieged. Hundreds of houses and workplaces were torched. Death smelled from all four corners. The Minister of Health of the time, Mete Tan, would later say: "I examined fifty-two of the dead brought to the hospital. Three of them were killed with clubs, the other dead were with bullets... They said there were those who were strangled. They had shot seventy-year-old elderly people and three-year-old babies. I came from a hellish realm." This hell lasted for a full week. And again, it was as if the country's hands and arms were tied. 

As I have recounted, these events took place in December of '78, as if similar events had not occurred in the Alibaba neighborhood of Sivas in September of the same year. There, too, voices of 'Communists, Qizilbash have killed our brothers', 'Is there no Muslim?', 'Whoever loves their God, come with us!', 'Even if our blood flows, victory is Islam's' had risen, and subsequently, 9 people were killed and hundreds were injured. Similar voices were raised in the events that took place in Çorum between May and July, just before the coup, and dozens of people were killed there as well. 

When we look at the whole picture, we can say that we are not facing an isolated situation. Because behind the massacres that have occurred, there is always a hate speech directed at Alevis. In other words, it is as if the barrels had determined their targets in advance, and the bullets had been loaded into the barrels, only waiting for the appropriate time. Unfortunately, this is the situation.

In this respect, we can state that especially Salafi/jihadist structures encode Alevism into their minds with a hate speech, and that structures located on the periphery of this center are also affected by this. Undoubtedly, this situation also has a historical background and past. Especially the war fought with the Safavids during the reign of Yavuz Sultan Selim and the subsequent processes made Alevis, or in the terminology of the time, the Qizilbash, a specific target, and it was reflected in fatwas that these believers were heretical, and even that it was permissible to kill them. The fatwas written in this direction by names such as Ebu Suud, Ibn Kemal, and Mufti Hamza have long been recorded, and in these records, the term Qizilbash was explicitly used, and their killing was discussed. Therefore, there is a social memory and trace inherited from that day to this. Sociologically, the fact that Alevism as an identity is practically hidden within society, and that even until recently people hesitated to say "I am Alevi," can be read as an indicator of this situation. Let us not forget that even at the point we have reached today, Cemevis are not accepted as places of worship.. 

Again, on a website, the question "Why did Sheikh al-Islam Ebu Suud Efendi issue a fatwa for the killing of Alevis" can be answered as follows: 

"Due to some words and behaviors of Alevis/Qizilbash that outwardly contradict the Quran and Sunnah, Ebusuud's view of them is negative. This perspective stems not so much from a special hostility towards the Qizilbash, but from his strict adherence to what he believed to be contrary to Islamic provisions according to his own understanding."

Here, with two brief reminders, I would like to recall Ebusuud, who is emphasized to be strictly bound to "Islamic law," and share with you the world in his mind. Accordingly, the famous Sheikh al-Islam, who said that Yunus fell into disbelief because of a poem he wrote, is also the owner of the fatwa stating, "Whoever says that Hallaj-i Mansur's case is correct, what was done to Hallaj shall be done to them." So what was done to Hallaj? First, he is whipped, then his nose, arms, and feet are cut off. His body is, so to speak, torn to pieces. Finally, his head is cut off and mounted on the bridge over the Tigris river. His body is burned, and his ashes are scattered into the waters of the river. This is who Ebussud is in one aspect.. 

Returning to Maraş, unraveling the bloody December days of 1978 will of course be possible by reading many factors together. In this respect, this mass slaughter directed at leftists and Alevis in the mentioned city manifested itself after a complicated attack. This situation is a book topic in itself, beyond the limits of an article. 

The Maraş massacre took place around these days 46 years ago. I think that the perception towards Alevis constitutes an important factor in carrying out these slaughters. Because when children poisoned by fatwas, edicts, and meetings behind closed doors since the Ottoman era grow up, when the time and place came, they wanted to burn their artists, writers, and even their neighbors under the influence of that poison, and ultimately massacred them.

I am talking about a voice that whispers to the person next to them with the rhetoric of infidel, communist, Qizilbash, and then turns this into a mass lynching, from Malatya to Çorum, from Maraş to Sivas. This is one of the voices lying behind the Maraş Massacre.