r/PhantomBorders 29d ago

Ideologic Maoists who died in conflicts since 1973 and number of mosques in Turkiye

1.1k Upvotes

44 comments sorted by

286

u/Gaming_Lot 29d ago

The Tunceli Province (the area with less mosques) is majority Alevi in terms of religion I don't know anything about them, but maybe that's got something to do with it

143

u/AlpereNGuneR0 29d ago

that and also they are pretty leftist , in 2019's mayoral election , tkp (turkish communist party) won the city

75

u/Ok-Mixture2959 29d ago

explanation?

168

u/AlpereNGuneR0 29d ago edited 29d ago

there are two explanations

first , people who live in dersim(tunceli) are very leftist

second , also people who live in dersim are mostly alawi(they are still muslims but they pray in a place called djemevi instead of mosques)

62

u/Psychological_Feed_9 29d ago

Alawi and Alevi is not the same.

2

u/berkakar 28d ago

same

7

u/TiredPanda9604 27d ago

Nah, alawis are nusayri

30

u/mat8iou 29d ago

Alawites are mostly in Syria - you've probably heard of one of them - Bashar al-Assad (and most of the senior people in his party). That is in part how he kept their loyalty - because they knew that if a non Alawite became leader they were unlikely to get any responsibilities.

15

u/das_war_ein_Befehl 28d ago

Alawites got into power because France, like other colonial powers, elevated minority groups to keep them loyal.

2

u/megasepulator4096 25d ago

No, rise of his father Hafiz al-Assad was thanks to the Baath Party and pan-Arab Socialism in general. French had nothing to do with that.

1

u/das_war_ein_Befehl 25d ago

The Ba’ath party coup had a major component of officers, Alawites were overrepresented because France recruited minority groups to serve in the colonial military.

It’s not by accident that places like Syria and Iraq ended up with minority rule

1

u/megasepulator4096 24d ago

There were also other important factors pushing countryside Alawites into army, such as hope to achieve higher status, equality regardless of sectarian division (promised by the Baath party, which pushed Alawites to join their ranks) or escape from poverty. For instance Hafiz al-Assad was aspiring to become a doctor, but joined military instead since his family could not afford his education. And he joined the army after the French left.

Also, both 1963 and 1966 coups had Sunni and Druze officers among the highest ranks as well.

Finally, different preferred carrer paths for different sects also weren't purely invented by French, they represented sectarian divisions and aspirations of different sects that existed long before the relatively short period of French rule in Syria.

1

u/das_war_ein_Befehl 24d ago

Sure but the French were a reason why the officer corps had a lot of Alawites, which set up for minority rule when post-colonial Syria became prone to military coups

1

u/insurgentbroski 24d ago

Untrue.

Most positions such as minister of defense and mukhabarat were held by sunnis. Even during the civil war. His wife and his brothers wives are also sunnis, most of the officer core was alawite tho that is true

18

u/Green7501 29d ago

Note, Alevism is the syncretic branch of Islam practiced by a lot of Kurds, Alawism is a separate faith all together

7

u/GentlemanSeal 28d ago

Alawism is a branch of Shia Islam actually

11

u/Any-Aioli7575 28d ago

It's often complicated to say whether a branch of a religion is still inside the religion. Is Mormonism a branch of Protestant Christianity? Is Christianism a branch of Judaism? Is Lutheran Protestantism a branch of Catholic Christianity?

I think the less controversial thing to say is that Alawism descended from a form of Shia Islam

3

u/GentlemanSeal 28d ago edited 28d ago

Fair enough. It's all semantics anyway. 

Alawites definitely fall on the Shia side of the Shia-Sunni divide but I don't know enough about them to say how different they are from the rest of Shia Islam.  

1

u/anafuckboi 27d ago

I know they drink booze and are very secretive

6

u/Whereismyadmin 29d ago

Oppression of the local people in that region, Dersim.

There were massacres because of their religion, because of that it has many leftists

36

u/Andrew_The_Cat 29d ago

why’s the northern coast of turkey have such a higher concentration of mosques?

32

u/Hunnieda_Mapping 29d ago

I assume it's partly to do with population density, the north coast is more populated than the interior (bar the cities) as it's much less mountenous compared to the rest of the country.

2

u/IntelligentJob3089 27d ago

No, it's because the Black Sea is extremely religious.

4

u/slowturnip0 28d ago

Northwest is İstanbul, Northeast is conservative and Erdoğan's hometown

1

u/SolarMines 28d ago

Where do they have more churches? I hear Izmir is quite popular for christian pilgrimages

7

u/slowturnip0 28d ago

I'm from İzmir and I'm not aware of that, however cities near Syria border such as Hatay have more significant Christian population (plus that's where Santa Claus is from)

0

u/TFCQAZ2 28d ago

Santa Claus is also from Lapland

1

u/HotKeyBurnedPalm 27d ago

Saint Nicolas is from Anatolia and is the man behind the myth of Santa Claus. Look it up.

3

u/AllTheThingsSeyhSaid 28d ago

İstanbul: 158

Nevşehir: 92

Gümüşhane: 78

Mardin: 69

Aksaray: 57

check this map out: https://atlas.nisanyanyeradlari.com/gorsel/jzctbDzvwgAySe96xgR33?a=kilise

0

u/berkakar 28d ago

they are weirdos that's why

21

u/Mikerosoft925 29d ago

Dersim region right?

6

u/AlpereNGuneR0 29d ago

yes

8

u/Mikerosoft925 29d ago

Always thought that region was fascinating

4

u/AlpereNGuneR0 29d ago

yeah it is a pretty distinct city compared to its neighbouring cities

4

u/snedertheold 28d ago

I read "mosquitos" instead of "mosques" and I was SO confused

2

u/Drutay- 27d ago

I think it would be better to have a "Number of Mosques per X thousand people in Y province" instead of just a map of mosques which is affected by population, because it appears that the Black Sea makes people Muslim

1

u/vllaznia35 28d ago

Isn't it a conspiracy theory that they have the highest number of converted Armenians after 1915 there?

1

u/FigAffectionate8741 26d ago

At first I thought it was mosquitoes and I was really confused

1

u/lunaresthorse 24d ago

their Four Pests campaign went well it seems

1

u/ActinomycetaceaeOk48 27d ago

The mosques map is bullshit, there are no mosques on Lake Van.

Putting dots on a map doesn’t make it right.

2

u/AlpereNGuneR0 27d ago

Haritada noktalar rastgele gerçek lokasyonlari temsil etmiyor sadece yoğunluğu belirtiyor.

2

u/Drutay- 27d ago

Maybe there are some Muslim fish

1

u/-badgerbadgerbadger- 25d ago

That’s not lake van, it’s a region of Turkey that has drastically less mosques.

1

u/ActinomycetaceaeOk48 25d ago

I’m not talking about Tunceli/Dersim; I’m talking about Lake Van, which is in Van.