Sectarianism, or taking one's own sect hostage

In the Syria crisis, the Assad front, unfortunately, in the name of a struggle for survival, throws every card it holds onto the field one by one, and meanwhile does not shrink from throwing its own values onto the defense line too. Sectarianism is a fitna; it is not possible for whoever tries to awaken it to benefit from it in the end. In fact, this fitna is something that will scorch the head of even the one who hopes to benefit from it, something that will make him curse it.

Unfortunately, the ambition to remain in power drags one into the selfishness of "if it is not mine, let it serve no one else" and drives one to use this card recklessly. At some point in this story we may no longer be surprised even if Assad takes his own children hostage against his opponents or uses his own family as an element of blackmail. He has shown sufficiently that he disregards the lives of the people for whose physical security he is responsible and by doing which he gained legitimacy as a state: out of a population of 22 million he has already produced at least a hundred thousand dead and millions of exiles. There is no sign that he feels the slightest concern over these deaths, these exiles or his ruined cities. Naturally, others also worry about the safety of his own children.

In Syria, or anywhere in the world, those who will really suffer from a sectarian conflict are the elements that are minorities. Of course everyone suffers from a Shia-Sunni tension, but it is very clear that the Shias, being a minority in the first degree, will suffer. It is impossible that neither Assad nor Iran sees this. But both are pushing more and more Shiism to the front of the defense line. Either they trust that the axis opposing Assad (which is never a Sunni axis) will look after the Shias' responsibility more, which, though this trust is not unjustified, is a clear picture of their own end. To save Assad they are pushing Shiism in front of the fire like a hostage. Because they too know that those fighting Assad are truly more concerned that Shiism or Nusayrism not be harmed by this war. This too is a requirement of the nature of taking hostages.

Truly, accusing the Syrian opposition, which is waging a struggle of honor against a bloody-handed murderous dictator, of sectarianism is, in a single word, oppression, and moreover an oppression that nobody could commit who is not himself stuck up to his throat in a sectarian swamp. Otherwise both the opposition and Turkey, which supports it, have shown every kind of sensitivity against sectarianism from the start and have been warning the parties.

During his visit to Najaf, Prime Minister Erdoğan, alluding to the Sunni-Shia tension, made a statement of extremely high reference value: "I am not a Sunni, I am a Muslim." Moreover, he said this word knowing the reaction he would receive from the Gulf countries, where anti-Shia sentiment is high. In fact, even if everyone looks from a sectarian perspective, Turkey does not have the luxury of looking sectarian. Whatever profit Iran hopes for in trying to establish a Shia crescent, Turkey is the only actor that knows and acts on what it would cost to counter this with a Sunni crescent and the necessity of producing a higher politics against it.

However, the fact that the opposition axis against Assad does not have a Sunni basis does not show that this axis can sufficiently control an awakened sectarian fitna. The matter is gradually getting out of control, and there is no shortage of those carrying wood to this fire of fitna from every side. The support given to Assad by the CHP and its chairman Kılıçdaroğlu is, in this context, whatever anyone says, understood as a sectarian solidarity. It is understood so, but what happens meanwhile is happening to Alevism and Alevi values. Even those fighting someone like Assad, a murderer, do not link what he does to his Nusayrism or Alevism. Assad could have been a Sunni; indeed Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Gaddafi were all Sunnis, but nobody thought of claiming them as Sunni. The Islamic circles in Turkey who today support the Syrian opposition supported Shia Iran for years in the war it waged against the Sunni Saddam, and in his person against all the Sunni Arab countries. It must be well appreciated that the sensitivities of Turkey's Muslims, who have sufficiently proven that they were not blindly subject to any sectarian motive in this support, on the matter of Syria are extremely well protected against the trap of sectarianism. That is why Kılıçdaroğlu's and some leftist organizations' attempts to claim a bloody-handed dictator in the name of Alevism are, above all, a great injustice to the Alevis. Nobody is opposing Assad as an Alevi or Nusayri. To identify a murderer who is waging the most merciless, most immoral war against his own people, who sends his rapist shabbiha against the civilian population, and his regime with Alevism, which is identified with humanism, heterodoxy and a passion for freedom, is a great irresponsibility.

At the group meeting, Kılıçdaroğlu's statements included that Turkey "should immediately declare its neutrality in the conflicts inside Syria, give up supporting the terrorists fighting against the regime, and support the Geneva process."

Frankly, these statements are exactly Assad's own discourse. To invite to neutrality between a dictator who is committing massacres against his own people with all the means and power of the state and the forces defending themselves against him with the most primitive means clearly means nothing other than supporting the massacres and the killer. There are no equal parties in conflict with one another in Syria. There is a killer dictator whom the whole world now knows to be a criminal, and a people struggling for survival against him.

If Kılıçdaroğlu wants to side with a killer on his own account, let him; his account will be settled anyway, but he has no right to do so with a sectarian motive or by putting Alevism forward as a hostage.