Çapar and others appeared to retain a soft spot for the Syrian regime. “Bashar doesn’t kill people, they are the ones killing people, the jihadists,” she said. A young man, Mehmet Dağ, chimed in. “Before the war, everyone was living comfortably in Syria. Then the Americans came, along with the Turks, with their so-called Middle East democracy projects, and made war,” he said. “I used to go to Syria all the time. The kind of democracy they had there, you could hardly find in most other places.

To many Alevis and Alawites, Erdoğan’s newfound hostility towards Syria’s ruling regime, combined with its indulgence of Sunni extremists fighting Assad, is yet more evidence of the AKP’s alleged desire to foist a sectarian, Sunni agenda upon the whole Middle East, beginning with Turkey itself. Although Erdoğan’s government has acknowledged past wrongs, including a 1937-38 massacre of rebellious Alevis by government troops, reached out to community leaders, and plans to unveil a "democratization package" to address some of their main concerns later this month, many Alevis argue that this is mere window dressing, and that they remain second-class citizens. According to a July poll, as many as 87 percent believe they face discrimination. To this day, they point out, the state refuses to recognize their gathering places, cemevis, as places of worship on equal footing with mosques and gives their children no choice but to attend mandatory religion -- Sunni Islam -- classes in public schools. In Antakya itself, accusations abound that the AKP has resorted to gerrymandering in order to split the city along sectarian and ethnic lines.

In Armutlu, evidence that Turkey’s role in Syria was fueling a new wave of Alawite resentment towards Erdoğan’s government was everywhere. On my way back from Atakan’s funeral, and en route to a protest that would end with yet more clashes with police, tear gas, burning barricades and even reports of gunshots, I stopped at a teahouse on the edge of the neighborhood.

One of the local men, on recognizing a foreigner, asked me where I was from. Poland, I answered. “You look Al Qaeda,” he said, deadpan. (The cargo pants must have been a clear giveaway.) “That's because I'm Polish Al Qaeda,” I explained, winking. “I see,” he said. I looked for some trace of a smile on his face. There was none.

“Leave while you can,” a younger man sitting next to him yelled. “War’s coming.” At least he, to judge by a good-natured grin and a subsequent invitation to tea, appeared to be joking.

But only to some extent. The man, Aytaç Bağcı, a sports instructor, was convinced that the U.S. would attack Syria at any moment, and that this would play right into Erdoğan’s hands. “Every day they’re sending Islamist terrorists across the border,” he said, referring to reports that extremist groups were transiting Turkey en route to Syria. He and his friends had had enough of seeing bearded foreigners on the streets of Antakya, Bağcı said. “Wherever they go, people die,” he said. The chemical weapons attack in Ghouta, he was persuaded, had been staged by the rebels, not Syrian regime forces, in order to goad the U.S. into military action against Assad.

Erdoğan, he believed, wanted to “Sunnify” both Syria and Turkey. “They want political Islam here, and they want political Islam there, too,” he said. “They want people to stop drinking alcohol, women to stop having abortions.” Alevis, he said, wanted the government to stop sticking its nose into their private lives. “We want a secular country.”

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