With general elections looming next year, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is bringing up the sins of the one-party era to corner the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). Last week, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who blames the 1937-38 Dersim massacres not on the state but directly on the CHP, was on a charm offensive to win over Alevi Kurds. During a visit to Tunceli, where the massacres took place, Davutoglu announced a number of gestures that sparked a debate if the initiative was really an “opening” or a deception? Here are the steps the prime minister announced and termed as “very important”:

• Old barracks built for the soldiers who waged the Dersim campaign will become a museum, for which 10 million Turkish lira ($4.5 million) will be allocated. “We’ll have a museum displaying and promoting the Alevi Islamic tradition,” the Anatolia news agency quoted Davutoglu as saying. The proposed Dersim Museum would showcase archaeological artifacts from the Tunceli region currently in other museum collections, as well as maps, photographs and other documents related to the Dersim events, and artifacts of Alevi culture, folklore and the city’s history.
• A budget of 11 million Turkish lira ($5 million) will be allocated to pave roads to Alevi shrines and dervish convents and renovate the sites.
• On the request of its presidency, Tunceli University will be renamed Munzur University after the valley in which the city sits.
• Discrimination against Alevis will not be allowed. Recruitment in public offices will be based on merit only.

Alevi demands

Davutoglu’s speech in Tunceli attracted criticism, for the premier insisted on making his own definition of Alevism to an Alevi audience. Yet, he mentioned revered historical Alevi figures such as Baba Mansur, Sari Saltuk and Haji Bektash Veli, saying that Alevism cannot be imagined without them.

Ali Ekber Yurt, the head of an Alevi association on good terms with the government, said its members were pleased that a prime minister had for the first time visited a cemevi, the Alevi house of worship. He added they had given Davutoglu a list of 12 demands, which included the following: