The Workshop was perfectly accomplished at Kızılcahamam

The last of the Alevi Workshops ended at a much better point than where it began, after three days of intense discussion. State Minister Faruk Çelik summarized the points of consensus that emerged from the workshop, repeated them, and obtained everyone's approval.

According to this summary, it was agreed that the matter of demolishing Madımak but building a park, or a monument within a park, in its place would be clarified as a result of work to be done by certain dialogue groups. Madımak was the result of a series of provocations staged to create a feeling of hatred between the Alevi and Sunni segments, continuing at Başbağlar and Gaziosmanpaşa. It can be expected to receive the support of the people of Sivas as well, as something to be remembered not as an attack by Sunnis on Alevis but as an effort at provocation, and as a message of friendship expressing that the people did not fall for this game.

On religious education too, the focus was on a curriculum that, as in contemporary countries that take Alevism more into account, is not a course in which a certain understanding of religion is forcibly instilled and taught, but one containing information about Alevism, Sunnism, and other religions and beliefs in Turkey and the world. It was agreed that it is important to develop an elective structure for religious teaching, provided everyone can take as much as they wish. Indeed, given the risks of different religious groups growing up without knowing one another at all and without acquiring any knowledge of the reality of religion, the better-quality citizenship dimension of the matter is an entirely separate issue.

The state's recognition of the status of cemevis and the allocation to the Alevi segment of a share of the budget to meet their faith services was also among the matters agreed upon. This subject also requires a package of work that includes the allocation of dede or service posts to cemevis and the payment of their salaries from this budget. One of the subjects that created debate was whether or not the cemevi should be considered a house of worship. That a religion has a single house of worship, and that a separate status as a house of worship could sociologically feed religious separation, even if the Alevis have no such demand, was a subject emphasized by those from the Sunni segment.

Let whoever wishes see a more reasonable solution however they like, but essentially it was expressed that the status of the cemevi as a cemevi is sufficient, and that adding another attribute to it is unnecessary. A cemevi is a cemevi, a mosque is a mosque in its own right; there is in any case no meaning in the state's accepting a place as a house of worship.

As I noted in my previous article, the prevalence in all the discussions of an outlook focused on understanding one another and on a solution made it much easier to arrive at this point. In the meantime, some prejudices and rote pieces of knowledge were corrected directly by those concerned. In response to the claim, repeated many times, that the Diyanet is constantly having mosques built everywhere with state money, former Diyanet president Tayyar Altıkulaç took the floor and once again shared the definitive information he had: The state has not had any mosque built, Kocatepe Mosque included. All the mosques built were built by the people (perhaps leaving a margin of caution for one or two exceptions), and their plots were donated by the people.

In fact, this situation can also be understood as the people's direct response to the Diyanet-centered religious services in Turkey. Rather than taking the Diyanet as the state's preference for the Sunni understanding or as a gratuity to the Sunnis, seeing it as a result or stage of democratic participation is far more explanatory.

Meanwhile, the revelation that Prof. Dr. İrfan Aycan, who has been the target of the most criticism for being at the head of compulsory religious education, is the author of a book that can be regarded as a break in the Sunni tradition in Turkey, "Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan on the Road to Monarchy in the Islamic World" (Fecir Yayınları, 1990), created a bridge-building surprise. With this book, Prof. Aycan criticized Muawiya from the viewpoint of Hz. Ali and had an effect that radically changed the perception of Muawiya in Turkey.

I mentioned Arif Sağ's jokes and the effect of the evening conversation gatherings in my last article. The final surprise of the meeting was the ghazal that Prof. Dr. Hüseyin Hatemi, who took the floor for the thank-you speech, built on a joke he told with reference to Kızılcahamam and wrote on the spot. No one could have anything to say over that ghazal; they simply applauded enthusiastically.

THE ANECDOTE FROM NASREDDIN HOCA

The hoca, who admired his own voice while singing in the bathhouse, wanted to try this voice by reciting the call to prayer as well, and got up and recited the call to prayer from the minaret out of time. But the voice that sounded so beautiful in the bathhouse did not sound at all beautiful to the people from the minaret. The people grumbled and shouted at the hoca: "Aren't you ashamed, reciting the call to prayer out of time, and with this bad voice of yours?" The hoca shot back with the answer: "Truly, my voice may not sound good to you from the minaret, but if some benefactor had built a bathhouse on top of this minaret, you would have seen what a beautiful voice is."

THE GHAZAL FROM HATEMİ HOCA

A gathering whose place is Kızılcahamam

In that place the pleasure of conversation and companionship is complete

On one side the dedes sit with love and ardor

On the other an imam, one of the people of piety and righteousness

One day the colt of the workshop becomes a noble steed

There is zeal to bring about peace and wellbeing

While love, affection, justice and tranquility are in place

A greeting descends to us from the Merciful Lord

O Hâtemî! Leave a pleasant echo under this dome!

Since the pleasure of singing folk songs in the bathhouse is complete