Turgut Öker is running for the Green Left Party in the parliamentary elections in Turkey on 14 May in the 4th place on the list in the 1st Istanbul constituency. In an interview with ANF, the Kurdish-Alevi politician spoke about the election campaign, the expectations of the Alevis for the Green Left Party and the view of the ruling party AKP on the Alevi community.

You have been taking on responsibility in Alevi associations for years. What are the expectations of the Alevi community from the Green Left Party?

If we see the Green Left Party as a continuation of the HDP, we expect it to positively discriminate against minorities in Turkey intellectually and programmatically, to privilege all social groups whose existence and teachings are threatened by the official, pro-Turkish, Islamist understanding of the state, and to especially privilege those who have not been seen in any political party so far in the struggle for self-expression and redress of their grievances. Currently, there is no other party in Turkey that has opened such a space for Alevis. There is no other party that has a specific programme and promises to fulfil all the basic demands that Alevis have been fighting for decades if it comes to power.

Thus, it represents hope not only for Alevis but for all minorities in this country. Spaces of expression have opened up for peoples, faiths and different social groups. From this point of view, after living in Europe for 35 years, I chose this party because it is programmatically in line with the most progressive democratic, participatory parties in Europe. After seven years, I see that I did the right thing. At least we have no differences. The Green Left Party does not ask why differences have to be emphasised. Because all the basic problems of Alevis are included in the party programme, and because, for the first time, we were able to establish an Alevi unit within a political party, and because we have the opportunity to work on the basic problems of the Alevis here, the Green Left Party has become the address of people who have been working in Alevi institutions for years.

Among the parties represented in parliament, there is no other party with an Alevi quota. As Alevi organisations, we have preferred the Green Left Party because it provides the space where Alevi organisations can freely carry out activities without seeking the consent and approval of the authorised organs of the party.

What is the perspective of the Green Left Party for Alevis living in Europe or in exile there? How do they see the party?

The HDP and the Confederation of European Alevi Communities (AABK) agreed on a strategic cooperation in 2015. As president of the AABK, I evaluated the HDP's programme with the boards of nearly 300 Alevi community centres (Cemevi) and cultural centres across Europe in 2015, and after our then co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş personally visited our organisation and offered us strategic cooperation, we sided with the HDP with the approval of 98 per cent of the participants. So, our confrontation and strategic cooperation is not limited to the election of MPs. It is not only a solidarity from election to election. In this sense, we see the programme of the HDP and the programme of today's Green Left Party as one and the same. We work together strategically because our view of life, humanity, the world and the Middle East, as well as our programmes to solve the problems of the minorities living in our country, overlap with the programmes of the Green Left Party. This cooperation is based on freedom in all spheres, i.e. the recognition of the right to equal citizenship for all populations and faith communities living in these countries.

Almost five million of our citizens live abroad. A large part of this potential are people who have been in prison for years, arrested and tortured, especially after the military coup of 12 September [1980]. These valuable people cannot live in this country under normal conditions and are therefore in exile abroad. In this sense, the democratisation of this country is inevitable, and one of our main goals is to create the conditions for our canlar [tr. life; Alevi term for people/living beings] who are homesick abroad to come to this country as soon as possible and freely carry out their activities here. In this context, I have lived in Europe for 35 years. From this point of view, we will of course make full use of the Parliament to put the demands and concerns of our people living in Europe and especially our politicians living in exile on the agenda and resolve them.

How do you evaluate the AKP's policy towards the Alevis during its twenty years in government?

The AKP's twenty-year policy towards the Alevi community is no different from the hundred-year policy of the Republic of Turkey. The difference is only in appearance. In a hundred years, it has not succeeded in completely eradicating Alevism and the Alevi community, but today, as in the last century, there is an approach that recognises that you cannot get anywhere by simply ignoring them. This acceptance is as dangerous as the assimilation and massacres of the past. And why? Because we fought for our name for years. In the meantime, the Presidium of Alevi Bektashi Community Houses has been established in the name of the Alevis, but this is a trap. Its aim is to put Alevism in the place of the state, in the place of the religious authority, Diyanet. The Alevi Bektashi organisations are subordinated to the Ministry of Culture in order to keep control over the Alevi community. We have fought for years for Alevism to be recognised as a faith and accepted as a doctrine. Now Alevism is subordinated to the Ministry of Culture as if it were a cultural, folkloric element. The intention behind this is very dangerous.

Their intention is to remove Alevism from its historical roots, position it as a department within the Diyanet, pay the pîr [Alevi clergy] like imams and eliminate its dynamic, modern, oppressed and prominent role in social issues. They seek a mosque-like organisation, and they want the Cemevi to take the place of the state like mosques and be put in the service of the state like salaried civil servants. They want the Cemevi to do the same as mosques do today, no matter what fatwa the Diyanet issues. This is a complete trap.

Until today they slaughtered the Alevis. Today, they slaughter Alevism in this way. We as the Alevi community can never accept this. During the formation of this structure, our MPs in parliament put up very serious resistance. It was legalised, but in the coming parliamentary process this structure should definitely be abolished. Alevi institutions should be treated in a unique way if the state wants to perceive them as interlocutors. Instead of controlling them and assimilating them with a circle of its own making, it should treat them as they are. Therefore, the dissolution of this structure will be one of our most important struggles in the coming period.

How do you interpret the language Erdoğan uses in relation to the Alevi community?

Hostility towards the Alevis is in his genes. The fact that Kılıçdaroğlu is chairman of the CHP does not affect us directly. I am not a member of this party, but for twenty years Erdoğan has been attacking Kılıçdaroğlu because of his Alevi identity. He has Kılıçdaroğlu booed at rallies because of his Alevi identity. Thus, Alevi hostility is embedded in his genes. We see the behaviour of him and his supporters in the course of the presidential elections. What kind of primitive logic is this that an Alevi cannot become president in this country? What kind of outdated logic is this? It is a primitive mentality. We have known Erdoğan's work for twenty years. Maybe the younger generations don't know it today, but when Erdoğan became mayor in 1994, the first thing he did in Istanbul was to try to bulldoze our dervish hut in Karacaahmet. So, he has a very bad record, and no one will be fooled by his current rhetoric. Just like his hostility towards the Alevis, hostility towards the Kurds is in Tayyip Erdoğan's genes.

You are active in the election campaign. What do people ask you, how do they receive you, what is the pulse of the region?

I spent a month campaigning in Europe. There is no country in Europe that I have not travelled to. Austria, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and many big cities in Germany... There, the election campaign is about content. How is the Green Left Party different from other parties? What is its programme on Turkey's main problems? What are their proposed solutions? This is the question that is being asked. This is what politics in Europe is based on. There is no such thing in Turkey. I have been here for a week now, and there is no question about the proposed solutions to Turkey's main problems, such as the economy, health, housing and ecology. On the one hand, there is the persecution and oppression of twenty years, and to get rid of that, people want to vote as soon as possible. This is not yet reflected in a normal election atmosphere on the streets. We don't know what the next few days will bring, but at the moment there is no election atmosphere on the streets.

As for the Green Left Party, with the former co-chairs of the HDP and almost 10,000 of our friends in prisons, and our current colleagues under threat of arrest and repression every day, we obviously cannot run the election campaign we were used to in 2015. There was an attempt to break our arms and wings. That failed, but now the campaign is taking place under difficult conditions. Since the HDP is threatened with a ban, the Green Left Party as a new party has only been known to the public and our people for a few weeks. In this respect, there is uncertainty at the moment. This is an insecurity that I see on the streets. Another point is that people are showing reactions in certain areas, but there is also uncertainty about the direction of this reaction on a healthy channel.

Most importantly, the Green Left Party is contesting elections in this region together with the Workers' Party of Turkey (TIP) as part of the Labour and Freedom Alliance. This also leads to a lot of confusion. As a result, votes will be lost. We have to act without forgetting the danger of Tayyip Erdoğan's rise in Istanbul in the previous processes by eliminating the competition of three parties. We must not forget the danger similar to the danger of the rise of Melih Gökçek in Ankara. In this sense, since the Green Left Party is the address of the forces of democracy and all oppressed peoples today, our voices should be concentrated there.  

WHO IS TURGUT ÖKER?

Turgut Öker was born in Sivas/Yıldızeli. He attended primary school in his village, secondary school in Sivas and high school in Kartal, Istanbul. During his high school years, he spent one year in prison. In prison he met the Kurdish director Yılmaz Güney. His family had moved to Germany in the 1960s, and after his release from prison he went to live there. After training as a teacher, he worked for a long time in youth centres. After the military coup of 12 September 1980, he showed solidarity with the revolutionary struggle in Turkey from abroad. In particular, he sought solidarity with prisoners and with people who had to go abroad for medical treatment. In 1988 he co-founded the Alevi Cultural Centre in Hamburg. After the Sivas pogrom, he was among the pioneers of efforts to unite all Alevis in Europe under one roof. In 1993, he became Secretary General of the Federation of Alevi Communities in Europe. Later, in 1999, he took over the presidency of the Federation of Alevi Communities in Germany (AABF). In 2002, he was among those who succeeded in uniting all European associations under the umbrella of the Confederation of European Alevi Communities (AABK) and served as its founding president. After a short term as an HDP MP in 2015, he has been a member of the HDP Executive Board and spokesperson for the Peoples and Faiths Commission for two terms.