Abstract

In contemporary Turkey, the oppositional socialist BirGun daily newspaper attracts attention with its consequent disagreement with the ruling mildly-Islamist Justice and Development Party (JDP); even if the harshly criticized Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sometimes seems to act in a congenial way through some (anti-nationalist) reforms and symbolic gestures like his historical "apology" for the military operations during the local Dersim uprising in the Ataturk era (Tunceli Incidents, 1937-1938). This region is inhabited by Zaza-speaking and Kurdish Alevis, who are critical of the JDP because of sectarian reasons. This study analyzes BirGun's critical and ambivalent reporting of the JDP government as well as of the Kemalist epoch, when it comes to the current Dersim debate on Erdogan's "apology" in November 2011.