I was born to a Sunni family and now I am curious

I was born into a Sunni family. It was only once, once in his lifetime, that I heard my father say we were “Hanafi.”

For all of my life, I have never heard even once from a member of my family or my elders that we were “Sunnis.” My family was originally from the Balkans. They had immigrated to Turkey. They were pious.
My maternal grandfather and grandmother and my paternal grandmother all went to Mecca for the pilgrimage.

My mother, until recently, only when she was hardly able to walk because of the pain in her legs, did her payers five times a day. She is still trying to perform them.

***
For all of our lives, what sect we belonged to was nothing of curiosity for us. In other words, we never paid attention.

Since our sect, our belonging did not matter to us, naturally, it was nothing to make a point of that our neighbor was an Alevi or had a different belief. It did not matter for us.

We all lived together at the Kahramanlar neighborhood in the Aegean city of Ä°zmir. All throughout my childhood, I never witnessed any religion-based fight or any kind of belief polarization. In Turkey, we grew up as happy children of the neighborhood.

Our friendships from our neighborhood still continue and we are still not curious which sect the other belongs to.

***
However, today I am curious about this. In this geography called the Middle East, where a major part of my country lies, why has “sectarianism” become so important?

I am also curious about this: 

Why is it that those people who act on behalf of “the Sunni sect” in this region somehow cannot come up with a pluralist, tolerant and democratic movement?  

I am looking at...