Who were the Ottomans? And what practical significance would the answer to this question have in today’s world?
After all, we are talking of an empire that ended in the most shameful circumstances – the genocide and ethnic cleansing of its Christian citizens, that is the Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks.
Were they even citizens or mere subjects? Don’t we repeatedly hear from right-wing politicians and commentators in Greece that the Ottoman rule for them was “400 years of enslavement”?
Didn’t all the provinces of Levant and Hijaz turn into sovereign states? Is there not an independent state of Armenia now?
Aren’t we being told that the great reformer and westerniser came along in the person of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and swept away the antiquated debris of that empire and created the modern Republic of Turkey?
So why bother with the Ottomans?
A few considerations may help answer why it may be a very useful thing to delve into the subject of Ottomans.
Against the official and right-wing narrative of “400 years of enslavement” in Greece, there is, for example, the thesis of the late Greek and Canadian historian and poet Dimitri Kitsikis, whose view is that the Ottoman Empire belonged to the Greeks as much as it did to any other group (e.g. “Turks”) and that Greeks should be proud of it as a major achievement. He further elaborates that the Ottoman Empire was politically, socially and culturally a continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire (what the Westerners call “Byzantine Empire”, that is another interesting topic and one which Kitsikis has a bone to pick with).
A more collective motivation is the flow of history since to collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Lived, people’s history, like cuisine and body language has a way to preserve the truth against the most dominant of state ideologies without ever having to utter an argument against it.
According to recent economic reports commissioned by trade unions, 60% of Turkey’s population live below the hunger line, that is, their income is less than the cost of a healthy, balanced diet. Another 38% live below the poverty line – they earn less than the cost of a healthy diet, basic clothing, housing, education and healthcare. So, 98% of modern day Turkey cannot afford the basic necessities of life. The inequality in the distribution of wealth in Turkey is the worst in Europe. The state of democracy is poor and ranks in the bottom 25% globally according to the “Global State of Democracy Initiative”, significantly behind countries like Nigeria, Romania, Tunisia, and for the most part also behind Pakistan.
Particularly Iraq but also Libya suffered greatly as a result of Western military aggression towards them. Iraq lost half a million of its population with many more losing homes and suffering injury and abuse. In both Iraq and Libya national infrastructure including health services, water, transport built over decades were decimated. Their sovereignty counted for little. Syria is in a state of chaos and infrastructure collapse after years of internal conflict fuelled and shaped by foreign powers and their international struggle for power. Syrian territory is partially occupied by Turkey in the north, the Zionist regime in the south, with atrocities committed against its Alawite and Druze populations. Then there is Lebanon, subject to continual military aggression from the Zionist state, and in an almost permanent state of political and economic instability.
The worst of all has clearly befallen upon Palestine among the former Ottoman provinces, subject to a ruthless settler colonialist occupation backed by the West and granted virtual impunity. The military aggression against Gaza is recognized as a genocide, and there are charges and arrest warrants against the leaders of the Zionist regime by international courts.
Perhaps Greece faired the best compared to the other former provinces. Even then, they emerged as a small nation and a much easier target than otherwise, for the Nazis in World War II. They put up a formidable resistance, lost one in seven of their population in the process, and emerged triumphant at the end of the war. That did not stop Britain and the US imposing their own design upon post war Greece, leading to a disastrous civil war and subsequent government of former Nazi and fascist collaborators. It was not until 1974 that Greece was able to begin to shake off the effects of their rule. Greece today remains in a stagnant state economically, subject, many feel, to the dictates of Germany at the core of EU, and concerned about its security as a result of the foreign policy and episodic military posturing of Kemalist Turkey.
And finally there is Armenia, probably most vulnerable when it comes to the question of security on account of Azerbaijan and also indirectly Kemalist Turkey, and caught in a corridor of increasing antagonism between two major powers – Russia, and increasingly unpredictable and unravelling US.
It is fair to say then, the post Ottoman history has not delivered for the populations that comprised it. Are we to infer then that Ottoman state itself was not the problem? Or perhaps that the factors that led to the demise of the empire didn’t go away with the Empire? Or perhaps we traded one set of problems for another? A serious study which aims to find answers to these questions and equip us to build a better future would also have to cover the Ottoman experience.
There is also a more positive and hopeful reason to undertake such a study. In amongst the darkness, there were pockets of progressive, civilised brilliance to be discovered among the Ottomans which were decades ahead of their time anywhere on the planet. I would like to leave you with one example.
The person in question is a member of the Ottoman parliament after 1908. He is an accomplished lawyer, as well as being a linguist and a novelist. During a parliamentary debate on the crimes act, he insists on discussing the crime of “adultery”, and argues that women should be given but a symbolic punishment (due to a legal technicality he can’t argue for no punishment):
“we operate in such a parliament that, we (men) are both prosecutor and judge (over women). In this crime the lion’s share of guilt resides within men”. In response to a vocal protest from the other MP’s, he continues: “the intolerance you display is a reflection of your desire to impose your dominion over women… For men, especially according to Islamic law, there is the privilege of polygamy. Meaning men can act on their impulses of lust without resorting to adultery. There is no such allowance for women. When men already have such a privilege, should they still not be content and commit adultery, I should think it would be a bigger trespass (hence deserving more severe punishment) compared to a woman who has a much more limited legal confine. But that is not what happens. Instead, you give a further right to men. Should he discover that his wife or any woman in his legal care should commit adultery, you give him the right to murder her. You do not give this spectacular legal right to women”.
“In the 20th century… I do not understand this notion of “desecrated lineage”. In the Middle Ages, there were claims of aristocratic lineage. There were claims of being fathered by a noble, and its counter-charge, being an illegitimate child, a bastard. For the honour of the 20th Century, for the honour of all humanity, I reject such descriptions. From here on, there are only human-beings on earth, no “illegitimate children” or “bastards”.
“In our Constitution, in one of the articles or clauses, it says that all Ottomans are equal. What would remain of our constitutionality, should you forever taint the honour of an Ottoman who is already disadvantaged for not having a father to look after him, by ascribing his father being unknown to him as an eternal legal blemish? Therefore, do not speak of “desecrated lineage”, an Ottoman with an unknown father would only deserve more protection before the law. In my eyes, a child is entitled to the same rights as any other child from the day he is born.”
This man, this Ottoman and Member of Parliament was the son of a tobacco pipe maker from Akn, Khachadour Efendi, and Eftik Hanim from Malatya. The family got their surname after the village of Zohrabner, and the son they raised was Krikor Zohrab.
The next Ottoman son or daughter you see may well be in one of the mirrors of your house.
