Sharing the morsel

Prof. Dr. Mehmet Görmez, the head of the Presidency of Religious Affairs, by doing something unprecedented in the history of the Republic of Turkey, visited the Erikli Baba Cemevi, and as expected the visit constituted one of yesterday's most important agenda items.

Görmez hoca had conveyed his visit request to the Cemevi officials with the purpose of "visiting them and sharing their meal (lokma)." Association president Metin Tarhan said he found the language of this visit request very "delicate" and "honoring." For "sharing a morsel" was perceived, in Turkey, where the Sunni majority lives, as a direct and very positive intervention, a gesture, against a cultural prejudice toward Alevism.

With this gesture, Prof. Görmez declares that this cultural prejudice against eating the Alevis' food has no religious basis, but undoubtedly the effect and results of the visit will not remain limited to this alone. When one listens to the two red lines he stated in response to questions put to him about the Alevi opening, and listens carefully to their demands and statements, it is understood that the great majority of Alevis too have these red lines. "The Alevis being deemed outside Islam and being turned into a minority, or avoiding approaches that would produce these results" constitute the red lines the president expressed.

Görmez hoca, who implied that they would meet the cemevi demands raised during the visit within this framework, naturally tried not to enter this debate during his visit. But he made it known that the sensitivities he expressed as red lines form the basis of his known reservations. In return, he gave the message very clearly that, in light of these sensitivities, he could offer every kind of help in giving the Alevis' cemevis a legal status and in removing all kinds of problems related to their upkeep, from the allocation of land and the holding of activities inside to water bills and electricity bills.

Truly, in the end only the Alevis can decide what they are and what they will be; even if they wanted to be outside Islam, nobody has any right to object. The fact is that the Alevis have no such general will; on the contrary, the exactly opposite will is much stronger.

The positive attitude shown by Erikli Baba Association president Metin Tarhan in response to Görmez hoca's visit produced a very elegant image of a meeting. We hope this meeting will be the occasion for very beneficial developments for Turkey and for Islam. Truly, we must also remind that the cemevi headed by Tarhan has a very special history in the history of Turkey since the Ottomans. The constructive stance of the Cemevi, whose active contribution to the War of Independence is also known, in resolving the problems related to Alevism must also be underlined.

When we recall what Prof. Görmez said earlier about the Kurdish question, we can say that he has created a new line with the special and constructive role Turkey has assumed in the process of democratization and the development of human rights and freedoms. With his scholarly accumulation, his acquis and his approach, Görmez hoca can activate religion's soothing potential regarding many debates on the agenda. He does not see religion as the legitimizing ideology of unjust compromises in which people give up their own rights. On the contrary, if it is to play a unifying role, he understands it above all as a body of principles and values that must be remembered with the measure of justice. That is why his words on the Kurdish question, "The Kurdish question cannot be solved with the rhetoric of brotherhood," very well reflect the basic approach by which Islam establishes the balance of justice and peace. And this balance also contains the actual formula of the role religion will play for a possible social peace. In that speech Görmez hoca had reminded us that every language is one of God's signs (ayat), and therefore that denying a language (here Kurdish) means denying one of God's signs.

According to him, "a number of problems and prejudices can be solved by bringing the 'law of brotherhood' to the fore instead of delivering 'brotherhood speeches.'"

What do you say? Is this approach that foregrounds law and justice more unifying, or is the use of religion as a legitimizing ideology for people to give up their rights?

We must congratulate Görmez hoca for these approaches, but I think we will keep following him with his original moves that leave a mark every time.