Augsburger Volkskundliche Nachrichten - OPUS Augsburg ...

ALEVITEN
öffentlichen Bewusstsein präsenten ethnisch-linguistischen Gruppe handelt es sich
um Sprecher einer dem Kurdischen verwandten iranischen Sprache, 37 welche in
der historischen Region Dersim um das heutige Tunceli herum im nördlichen
Kurdistan siedeln - dies ist ziemlich genau auch die Region des schweren
Erdbebens vom Mai 2003 mit dem Epizentrum in der ostanatolischen
Provinzhauptstadt Bingöl. Teile der Zazaki nehmen für sich in Anspruch, eine
eigene Ethnie abseits der Kurden darzustellen 38 - bei extremen Gruppen
verknüpft mit der Forderung nach einer eigenen territorialen Einheit in Form
eines „Alevistans". Die Ambivalenz gleichzeitiger alevitischer, kurdischer und
Zaza-Identitäten soll hier im Folgenden anhand eines längeren Zitats von Ruth
Mandel veranschaulicht werden: 39
„One such claimant with whom I spoke has been active in Kurdish political
organizations, but at times has candidly expressed an ambivalence about his
Kurdish and Alevi identities. ,Yes', he admits, he feels he should support an
independent Kurdistan - but indicates he has reservations. He has felt excluded
and discriminated against while working with some Kurdish (predominantly
Sunni) groups. His wife, lacking his ambivalence, later confided that she believes
that should a self-determining Kurdistan ever be realized, the first action the
majority Sunni Kurds would take would be to annihilate the Alevi minority. Alevi
monolingual Zaza-speakers often refer to Kurmanci-speaking Sunnis as ,KuraV
or »Muslims* and to themselves as , Ale vis*. Yet the same person who makes the
extinction at times might refer to her own language as Kurdish.
Although a one-to-one correlation does not exist between Zaza and Alevi, and
Kurmanci and Sunni (Alevis of some regions speak Kurmanci and some Sunnis
speak Zaza), one Alevi extremist group, publishing a journal entitled Kizil Yol
[sic!], 40 advocates the establishment of an autonomous nation ,Alevistan' with
Zaza, or Dersimce, being the national language. Surely most Alevis would not
support such a nationalist expression or movement - as one informant
explained: ,Alevilik is not millet' (nationality, ethnicity) - and the publishers of
Kizil Yol cannot be considered representative of Alevis in general or particular,
the notion of ,Alevistan' is a powerful one, and carries with it fascinating and
suggestive connotations. Such an expression symbolizes the mergence of a sense
of a discrete Alevi identity undergoing a transformation in the migrant diaspora,
patterning itself on Kurdish seperatism, and influenced by the discourse of
western nationalisms."
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