1869, Ep. 149 with Güneş Murat Tezcür, author of Liminal Minorities

7:06PM May 20, 2024

Speakers:

Jonathan Hall

Güneş Murat Tezcür

Keywords:

violence

people

minorities

groups

book

religion

sense

lots

happened

religious

turkey

ganesh

term

iraq

iraqi kurdistan

resentment

many centuries

perceived

claim

majority

Welcome to 1869 the Cornell University Press Podcast. I'm Jonathan Hall. In this episode we speak with Güneş Murat Tezcür, author of the new book, Liminal Minorities: Religious Difference and Mass Violence in Muslim Societies. Güneş Murat Tezcür is the Director of the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University. He is the author of Muslim Reformers in Iran and Turkey, and the editor of The Oxford Handbook of Turkish Politics. We spoke to Güneş about why some religious minorities provoked the ire of majoritarian groups, and become targets of organized violence; how religious stigmatization and political resentment motivate ordinary people to participate in mass atrocities; and, we hear some of the heartbreaking stories that Güneş documented in his research. Hello, Güneş, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you. Thanks for hosting me.

Of course, of course. Well, I'm excited to talk to you about your new book, Liminal Minorities: Religious Difference and Mass Violence in Muslim Societies. Tell us how this book came to be?

Sure.

Sure. I mean, I have been studying political violence mostly in the Middle East for many years. And my initial question was more about why people risked their lives and join insurgencies. I did lots of work on the Kurdish insurgency primarily based in Turkey, but also other parts of historical Kurdistan. But then, back in 2014, the self-styled Islamic State IS became powerful, they captured large, large chunks of territory in northern Syria and northern Iraq. But then what happened in August of that year was a very big surprise to many people because they attacked a small religious minority, called Yezidis, this could have been living in northwestern corner of Iraq for many generations, for many centuries. And then maybe what was so frightening and macabre of this violence is that it was not just on executions, but then they also end up enslaving 1000s of visible men, children. And I mean, obviously, we live in a world of lots of violence or darkness, but they're just exceptionally brutal. So then, I became interested in this kind of really try to make sense of that violence, that brutality. I met with some years, intellectuals, some members of the diaspora in in the United States and in Germany, I basically listened to their stories, some of them originally from Turkey. And then I became more interested. So I ended up going to Iraqi Kurdistan back in September 2017. Then I became more interested, and I started talking to survivors, people who are living in the camps, and had a couple of more trips to Iraqi Kurdistan where basically, I visited the camps, talked to people who survived violence, talking about the people. And it's basically how this kind of really idea tried to make sense of this real dark side of humanity came into existence, and then it ended up being a much larger book in the last seven years, basically.

Okay,

Okay, okay, that makes sense. Yeah, there is you just have to open up the newspaper or look online to see the darkness of humanity at the moment, unfortunately,

Unfortunately.

Yes. But as you started talking, your book in your research examines the way in which Muslim states target Muslim minorities, whether within their own borders, and you show the conditions under which these religious the majority, the religious majorities commit acts of mass violence against religious minorities, and your, for these minorities is marginalized and persecuting faith groups is liminal minorities tell us more about this term, and how you it cam to be.

So the book is primarily about the what I would call bottom-up violence, because obviously, violence can come in many different shapes. And I have to say that most violence actually comes by the states, which are always the most organized portion in the entire humanity. But I'm more interested like in understanding how come ordinary people take the mantle of natural law into the hands. And I think they're basically neighbors. So the term liminal came from my study of the years, the history. And it basically is not only about these disorders, it's basically about much like many other different groups. So the term itself is a Latin term, it comes from liman, it basically is like thresholds. But it kind of really symbolizes ambiguity in between us. And it has been used by some anthropologists over the 20th century. So the basic idea is that you're young boy, you need to go through certain rituals to become adults. And then that ritual stage that is called luminous, and then some of the people use in performance studies in theatres, in architecture. So I kind of really borrowed this term adapted to the social science. And what I say is that liminal is basically how I will describe the relationship groups of groups like is this with the domain majority and I primarily focus on the Muslim world, but the term can be applicable to other minorities. For example, I make the argument that it may capture the experience of Jehovah Witnesses in Christian worlds, probably the experience of the Mormons until the mid-20th century, not nowadays, I will not no longer called Mormons liminal, but I think there used to be a liminal minority. So then the question becomes, well, this is what I mean by liminal. So basically, there are two dimensions to this term. The first thing is that when we talk about interreligious relations, we basically say that Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, and they made lots of tensions, they made lots of hostility. certainly, but at the same time, the representatives of those religions, you could plan each other as being proper religions. I mean, nobody's going to question if Judaism is a religion, nobody's going to question Islam is a religion, and so on. But when it comes to these groups, they're all these kind of questions about what they are basically. So it's the kind of uncertainty ambiguity. So there is no theological calculation of those religions by the domain majority. So sometimes they claim that there are some heretical sects, other times their basically saying that they're actually political movements, they're not physically having proper religiouns. So there's kind of this theological uncertainty characterizing their perception by the dominant majority. So this is the first dimension. The second dimension is that there's lots of stigmas. There's lots of epithets, in the sense that members of those religions are perceived to engage in certain practices, which are not proper from the eyes of the dominant majority, just to be specific, for many centuries. I mean, even nowadays, members of the Yezidi are called devil worshipers. And they can ask me, What is the reason for that? Well, because they really worship Peacock Angel. But then from the modern perspective, Peacock Angel is actually devil itself, the evilist. So there's this kind of confrontation that is basically confident false perception. But for generations, for many centuries, this perception become entrenched and that basically how many Muslim claims actually, personally, is this the basic claim that they are devil worshippers. And obviously, if you claim that these people are devil worshipers, you don't basically respect their religion, you don't basically give them dignity, um I mean, or they just claim that whenever they have religious rituals, they engage in adultery, they basically engage in incest, they basically engage in sexual practice, which is obviously completely false. But all this kind of stigmas kind of really transmitted across generations, and how they basically these groups are perceived by the dominant majorities. And I mean, I give the example of these these obviously in the book, but then I talk about the Alevis in Turkey, Baha'is in Iran, Ahmadis in Indonesia, and Pakistan. So I have some like a kind of a brief discussions of these groups, but also claim that the term can be applicable to the groups beyond the Muslim world.

Thanks for explaining that. There's this fascinating graph, it's a world map, figure 5.1, the liminal minorities across the globe. Just amazing. And you had mentioned the groups that might be more well known in the United States, the Jehovah's Witnesses, they have issues in Central and South America, and in Germany, the Scientologists. So, but then, but you have them, it's all over the world, basically, that there are liminal minorities. And so yes, this whole phenomenon of neighbors who one day are getting along fine, and then the next day are trying to kill each other. That's, that's terrifying. And so your book is trying to determine why this may be and extreme approach to understanding this is looking at political power, or economic gain by the state. But you actually go to religious differences as a main component, and that this religious stigmatization that you were mentioning, in fact, does play a central role in inciting violence against limit on minorities. Tell us more about this research?

Sure, I mean, it's it's just mentioned, Jonathan, like there is this kind of a very strong social social science tradition, claiming that, then we basically talk about the conflicts there, in essence, are more about like the politics, their basic, more about economics, their basic, more about the power interests. And if this is, if you look at this, like very strong Marxist tradition, like since Engels or Marx himself, you basically see this kind of approach. I mean, besides that, even if people talk about religion, they don't really care about religion that is used as legitimate instruments. On the other hand, you have people like Richard Dawkins, his famous book on 2006, like The God Delusion, he makes it make the provocative argument that is about religion, because religion can be very violent force in world affairs. So I basically tried to make it more nuanced and actually tried to specify the conditions under which religion may matter. But I really think that religious faith needs to be taken seriously by social science. And my argument is that under certain circumstances, religious faith really shape political action, and actually inside political violence. So what I do is that I mean, typical criticism is that if people hate each other, if they're basically locked for religious have, can you explain that they actually get together for many decades, if not centuries, because I mean, violence is rare. So the timing is basic, something that makes So what I do is that I come up with this theory. And my theory really combines the importance of religious faiths and the stigmas, the kind of pejoratives for the liminal minorities is take as a given. I think that this basically affects people, it doesn't mean that it basically leads people to take violent action immediately. But then I also look at the political circumstances. So more specifically, I mean, I try to understand, let's say, why he is these were targeted after 2003, after the initial work by the United States, but not before 2003. I mean, that was a very violent place under Saddam, many people were killed. There were lots of genocidal campaigns, especially against the Kurds. But the Yezidis were not targeted. So my argument is that, that you had to think about the resentment that national political resentment that many scholars talk about nowadays, and the basic idea is that, from the perspective of the dominant majority, they kind of really despise the liminal minority. But as long as the liminal minority is not being assertive, as long as basically keeps his place being subordinated, it is not perceived as a threat. It's not basically perceived as something that needs to be dealt with. But then after 2003, in the case of Iraq, this was no longer the case. Because what happened is that is these were perceived as being part of the Kurdish power, even if they weren't the main beneficiaries. And this basically led to lots of resentment among the Sunni Arabs and Turks among, who have been neighbors of the Yezidis for many years. So they had this kind of stigmas. But then as long as the Yezidis basically were powerless, and they were basically kind of really subordinated, it didn't lead to mass violence. But whenever this basically combined with positive resentments, which actually happened after 2003, it became a very dangerous combination. And it's basically explain why there was lots of violence, I guess, disease, which basically culminated in the genocidal attacks of 2014 in Iraq, and not like before 2003, even if the stigma and all this this hostility is basically existed against the Yezidis, for many centuries.

Interesting. So as long as the liminal minority stays under the radar to use that term, or don't pose a threat, then they can live with them. But as soon as they gain any type of political or religious power, then they can be seen as a threat, and then they're potentially attacked.

Yes, I mean, and also, there's a threat than just the person who's very more important. I mean, the actuality is Yezidis remain very weak after 2003. But they became more assertive, they basically became perceived as being Kurdish, like part of Kurdish powers. So like, in a sense, I'm able to use as a hierarchy. And if the hierarchies basically remains intact, which basically means that the weaker and subordinate groups basically remain at the bottom, they are not basically really targeted by the dominant majorities, because they're kind of really, like, kept under check. But whenever that hierarchy, basically being changed, altered, as happened in Iraq after 2003, then this is because a lot of potential for mass violence. And I also think about some other countries, not nice about limited minorities, but then these changes in the social hierarchies typically there is a kind, it creates lots of political instability, and also creates lots of potential for mass violence. And I can give you even more specific examples from other regions of the world about that.

Sure, sure. So yeah, if you could mean, your book starts off with some harrowing interviews with some refugees from Iraq. Are there any stories that have been seared into your mind? I mean, they all sound very painful. But is there a couple of stories that you could share with our listeners of what has happened to some of these liminal minorities?

Let me just share two stories very quickly. And as you just mentioned, talking to survivors of physical experience is also ethically challenging. I mean, you busy, it's almost like, you have to have all that self reflection about kind of really what you are doing in the fields. I didn't talk to perpetrators. Unlike some of the colleagues of mine studying other episodes of mass violence, I will talk to survivors because perpetrators were not enabled. But let me just share two stories. The first story is that, I mean, there was this kind of a group of women, they were not talking about themselves, but they were talking about the experiences and the woman so that what happened is that in the Eastern tradition, they tried to make peace with their neighbors, most of Sunni Arabs. And what they do is that they invite a Sunni man to their house during the circumcision circumcision ceremony. So let's say if he is the boys being circumcised, then the the Sunni managed to put the boy on his lap. And the boys blood basically, is spilled to the cloth, but basically almost like establishing rapport and trust. And then this woman, what happened to the woman is that that person, who basically was in the ceremony of her boy, came back on August 3 2014, but this time, not as a friend, but basically as a enslavers. And this was kind of like a huge sense of betrayal by those woman and I basically listened to it from a different woman, in the sense that the man or the woman that says, "I saw you for the first time in my life, I always want to basically get you,", and then yeah, then that basically happened. So this is kind of this deep, deep sense of betrayal because again, these are the people you interact with. These are your neighbors, they come to your ceremonies. But then again, when that day comes, they completely change their behavior. I also talked to a person, which is basically the beginning of the book. He was an older man, I was in this like camp in Iraqi Kurdistan back in May 2018. I was about to exit the camp because it was getting late. But then the are like, the guy basically told us that there's this like old gentleman who wants to talk to us either these containers, they were basically living in containers. And then he was basically arrested because he had oppression. But then when he started telling me his story, that I basically realized that he barely survived extraction sites, while they took him to the extraction site with like dozens of other people. And then I mean, they basically shot at them, but then just be almost like a small miracle, he survived. He basically played dead and he kind of managed to survive. But he told me that he lost more than 60 members of his family, like on that particular dates, and he looked very resilient. But then again, when you talk to a person like him, you basically understand, have, like, how painful, theire experiences have been,, I mean, like, how much people suffered as a result of that. And I kind of talk about some of this experience in my book so. So yeah,

So tragic. so tragic. So so we know that this, you've done a deep dive and a deep exploration of these particular groups, but you also expand out to look at the world as we were mentioning before. What can we do about this?

Well. I mean, I get this question all the time. And that's not surprising, because we always tend to be optimistic, and we try to always find solutions. I actually have a cynical response and an optimistic response. response. And this will basically go back to my original arguments, because my argument is that I mean, as long as liberal groups are subordinated, they're kind of safe from mass violence. I mean, it doesn't mean that they have any rights. I mean, now I think about the Baha'is in Iran, I also describe the Baha'is in Iran as a liminal minority. And anybody's familiar with the history, Iran will basically know that they're always discriminated against, they are basically really are not given any rights. But at the same time, they are not subject to the bottom-up violence, because the idea is that as long as the state really keeps these groups under control, and basically make them subordinated, there is no motivation for the masses to kind of level them down. So my secret is that as long as the hierarchy remains, and as long as these groups are basically being subordinated well, it also means that there's less potential for violence. And I know that is basically not the response you're looking for. So let me try to give you a more optimistic response. So, so, again, coming back to the example of the Yezidis so just last November of 2023., they established this genocidal memorial in Sinjar, which is basically the Yezidi homelands, but it is basically kind of empty, it's the old buildings are in ruins. But it is kind of a interesting place where people who lost their loved ones in that massacre, could now come back there, pay their respects, almost like at this attempt at symbol justice, and kind of give you a more combative perspective, I was visiting Montgomery, Alabama, and I think some of the audience will know that there is an important memory of dedicated victims of lynching of African Americans, during the segregation era, more than 4000 people and that memory was established back in spring of 2018. So almost like made me think about that, because in a sense, there's also still like racial injustice is the loss of still like segregation going on, but at the same time you had a symbol of justice died is that people know that what happened in the past is wrong. So they try reconnecting with the past, and it basically at least give the hope that once you basically have this coming to cognition of the victim of the victimhood of the people, then it can actually prevent more atrocities from taking place. So this more kind of optimistic way of thinking about that. And again, the Yezidis were persecuted, there probably only 500,000 Yezidis in the world. Like around 10,000 of them were either killed or captured back in August 2014. Think about that ratio like one in every 50 cases were either killed or captured and half of the entire population was displaced but at the same time the people now know about the Yezidi - there are a couple of very, like influential and visible is this like including the Nobel Peace winner from 2018 Nadia Murad, she's a survivor herself. So that's basically more recognition of the suffering of these these people now think that they basically deserve dignity, recognition and so on. So this can be maybe one positive spin on this like treasure that because again, like there's basically more potential for recognizing Yezidi that this is a proper real religion and kind of transcending their liminality and through the symbol justice, like I will say, so yeah.

That's optimistic. I mean, that's that's obviously, a light switch can't happen, and it's all going to disappear. But as you were saying, at the very least having some type of memorial, that would be a good reminder of maybe we shouldn't do that again. So that's good. And the more cynical approach, yes, through this, probably this, this type of behavior is going to continue on for a while, unfortunately. But you had mentioned that you had been speaking in Montgomery, Alabama, and you've been speaking about your book. Are there any questions...you had mentioned that the question that I had, as far as what can we do about this? Are there other questions that have come up that have either surprised you, or you've noticed a pattern of questions?

So my main disadvantage of liminal minorities is that since they're small, and they don't basically have much power and real politics, they don't still get much attention. And this may be one reason I kind of want to write this book. Because I, this as a scholar, I felt it's my responsibility to tell their stories. Now, obviously, I still come up with my own interpretation. But I tried to give it as much as possible to the people in the book, it literally is this and I have talked about the alleles in Turkey. But I use thesedifferent kind of sources, because the massacres took place back in the 20th century. So at least I kind of felt more maybe, like, vindicated that I managed to write a book about those groups. And maybe we're kind of small service to the global cognition. So this kind of really wasn't my motivation. Because you asked me at the beginning, I mean, what motivates you to write this book, but I basically witness this tragedy, and I tried to make sense of it. And I think now I have a response. But I also want to kind of really give more space and platform to these groups, at least in scholars' circles, I mean, just like doing more, my modest share of what we should be doing as scholars as a kind of sense of responsibility.

That's great. That's great. Have you ever had any feedback from the groups about the book?

I mean, the book was early. Yeah, yeah. The book is published only just like, last month in April of 2004. I'm hoping it will be translated into different languages, hopefully into the Turkish, Kurdish, and maybe Arabic. And yeah, maybe to help people to make sense of what happened in those countries during this fatal time. So yeah, but typically, I think people really appreciate it. It's in the scope of audiences that I mean, just like writing and thinking about these issues are so important. And as you just mentioned earlier, that unfortunately we live in a very unstable world with lots of potential for violence. And so at any attempt to kind of really make sense of that violence, I think it's valuable.

Oh my gosh, yes. I'm so grateful that you've written the book. And the more we understand, hopefully, the less these types of atrocities will occur. But I want to thank you for writing this book. We're proud to be publishing it. And we encourage anyone that's listening to this podcast to take a look at Güneş's new book, Liminal Minorities: Religious Difference and Mass Violence in Muslim Societies. Thank you so much for coming on to the podcast.

I really appreciate it. Thank you, Jonathan.

That was Güneş Murat Tezcür, author of the new book, Liminal Minorities: Religious Difference and Mass Violence in Muslim Societies. You can purchase this new book as an affordable paperback at our website, cornellpress.cornell.edu and use the promo code 09POD to save 30% off. If you live in the UK, use the discount code CSANNOUNCE and visit the website combined.academic.co.uk. Thank you for listening to 1869 the Cornell University Press podcast.