The AKP, sectarianism, and the Alevis' struggle for equal rights in Turkey

The Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has been ruling Turkey since 2002, was founded by a splinter group from within the Islamist Virtue Party (FP). The most obvious difference between the old guard of the FP and the younger, reformist cadres who established the AKP was the latter's deliberate and efficacious implementation of the discourse of democracy and human rights in articulating their political agenda. This discursive shift not only increased the AKP's votes, but also gained them many supporters among liberal intellectuals in Turkey and abroad, who saw in them a potential to reconcile Islam with democracy. So much was invested in this hopeful vision that pro-AKP liberals for a long time turned a blind eye to many contrary developments in the country or tried to diminish their significance. One such major blind spot has been the Alevis, who after nearly 14 years of AKP rule continue to face formal and informal discrimination on a daily basis. Despite their alleged commitment to religious freedom, and notwithstanding an ephemeral 'Alevi opening' in 2007-2008, the disenfranchisement of the Alevis has only deepened under the AKP with its accelerated top-down Islamization of broader Turkish society and the corollary intensification of sectarian discourse both in domestic and foreign policy.