Prime Minister Erdoğan slams CHP's Öymen over anti-Alevi remarks

Speaking at the 3rd Grand Congress of his Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) Expanded Provincial Chairmen meeting, Erdoğan quoted Seyit Rıza, the Alevi leader who led the 1937 Dersim revolt in the Alevi town of Tunceli, which was violently suppressed by the government of the time using a military campaign that resulted in the deaths of some 90,000 people. In speech he gave two weeks ago, CHP's Öymen gave this revolt as an example of an anti-terror campaign, greatly offending and angering the country's Alevi community with his statement. Erdoğan, quoting Seyit Rıza's words, said: “We are the children of Karbala. We are innocent. It is wrong, it is cruel and it is a sin.” In criticism of Öymen and the CHP, he also said, “How can you associate approving treating people who repeat [Seyit Rıza's words] in the same way as those in Karbala were treated with love of the nation and of humanity?”

Karbala is the site of a massacre in which the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Husain and his supporters were brutally beheaded. He said he hoped that the country's Alevis, who have traditionally always voted for the CHP, will finally see the CHP for what it really is.

They accused the CHP of using Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the nation’s founder, to block their backward mentality. “I believe that my Alevi brothers and sisters will see the real face of these exploiters.” He said he had no doubt that Öymen’s words were not a slip of the tongue or a mistake, but rather a conscious and deliberate reflection of the CHP’s true mentality.

He also criticized CHP Tunceli-born deputy Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who was initially silent on Öymen’s words but who later called on him to resign when the Alevi community’s outrage failed to subside, only to backpedal from his demand when CHP leader Deniz Baykal showed that he stood by Öymen.

He also accused leaders of the CHP and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) of using coarse language in their addresses. “Please keep your children away from the television when these leaders are speaking,” Erdoğan said.

In yesterday’s speech, the prime minister highlighted that his party’s commitment to serve distant villages, districts and precincts had remained firmly in place along with the country’s will to grow further. Erdoğan said his party was the only party that garnered votes in every part of the country. Recalling that Nov. 18 is the seventh anniversary of the AK Party’s coming to power, he said the party was working to provide Turkey with a new language in politics. He said the party did not employ discriminatory language or one that might cause tension.

He criticized his opponents by using a couplet from Sheik Edebali, an 11th century religious preacher who inspired the founders of the Ottoman state. “Rage is for them and meekness is for us; being offended is for them and apologizing is for us; accusation is for them, bearing it is for us; weakness is for them, tolerance for us; discordance is for them, justice is for us; injustice is for them, forgiveness is for us,” he said. Erdoğan also said the government’s democratic initiative, which seeks to end terror by expanding the rights of Kurdish citizens, would greatly benefit the country. He said the government has to solve the problem of terrorism in the country as well as solve the Kurdish and Alevi problems and problems faced by other minorities in order to strengthen the feelings of belonging felt by all of the country’s citizens.

He said the Kurdish question has been debated for years, but despite this, it has turned into and remains a chronic problem with the mentality of “let things be as they have always been.” However, he said maintaining the status quo would come at a high price and would mean more dead soldiers, more bloodshed and more grieving mothers. “I say this openly: Defending the continuation of the status quo is condoning and even being an accomplice in deaths, conflicts, destruction, injustice, illegality and unfairness.”