Also, the fact that some Alevi organizations boycotted the dinner and went so far as announcing that those attending the dinner would be shunned by the community has made it inevitable to analyze the background of their reactions, considering the fact that values such as tolerance, hospitality, love and respect for all people are said to be the pillars of Alevism.Bugün’s Mehmet Metiner harshly criticizes the reaction of the Alevi organizations boycotting the iftar and their attempts to intimidate their fellow Alevis into not attending the dinner by imposing sanctions. “Can one be so afraid of dialogue? Immediately designating some as ‘shunned’ and threatening to cut off any and all communication with them, how can this be attributed to Alevis, whose most striking feature is their emphasis on tolerance,” he asks. Metiner accuses those who threatened attendees of the iftar with being shunned for betraying the principles of their belief, stressing that those who boycotted the dinner have also overshadowed their understanding of democracy. “No one has to be the kind of Alevi defined by someone else. Everyone has the right to act in line with what s/he understands from Alevism,” he says. In addition, he thinks that Alevis who have for many years complained about the state’s efforts to define Alevism according to its own understanding are doing the same thing now by setting criteria for Alevism and accusing those attending the iftar of deviating from Alevism. “No one has the right to claim his Alevism is the original one and the others’ fake. This inhuman and anti-democratic approach ruins the environment that allows us to live together. It should be avoided,” he warns.
Analyzing the reaction of some Alevi organizations boycotting the iftar out of doubt at the government’s sincerity, Star’s Mustafa Karaalioğlu associates their resistance with the fact that they have lived in isolation for years because the state has ignored their problems. “It has become a reflex among Alevis to feel suspicious about a new step or plan regarding them from outside. If, all of a sudden, the Religious Affairs Directorate launched an initiative to settle the Alevis’ problems, they would still have similar suspicions. They would question why the directorate felt the need to come up with such a plan all of a sudden,” he says. Yet, he suggests that there are other reasons which urge Alevis to evince such a reaction on a simple issue like attending an iftar with the prime minister, explaining that the fragmented structure of Alevis and many Alevi organizations’ claiming authority over the Alevis in a heated competition make the issue even more intricate. According to Karaalioğlu, problems that are worse than those experienced by the state are experienced within the Alevi community itself, mainly problems of representation and the religious standards of that representation. “Such problems experienced among the Alevis themselves are the reason for their boycotting the iftar, which completely contradicts their traditional understanding of hospitality,” he says.
Yeni Şafak’s Yasin Aktay does not think that all Alevis who chose not to attend the dinner with Prime Minister Erdoğan wished to boycott it or thought those attending the dinner had betrayed their cause. He believes that most Alevis made such a choice free of any political connotations just because they thought it would be inappropriate to commemorate the martyrs of Karbala at a pompous iftar at a luxury hotel. “This is a very reasonable attitude that needs to be respected,” he adds.
