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August 4, 2002
REVIEW: The Turkish dilemma
TURKEY is a fascinating country for Europe and an enigma for the Muslim world. Since the Ataturk revolution of the 1920s there has been a tug of war which has ensued between the Euro-centric Turks who claim to be secularized Muslims, and those who consider the Islamic faith as an integral part of their daily life. The army insists on retaining Ataturkism as its functioning model.
Turkey’s European neighbours shift to from one side of the spectrum to the other for geopolitical reasons. Turkey is a NATO partner and has been involved in war games, side by side with the Europeans. But, it has been refused membership of the European Union because the Turks are perceived as belonging to another civilization.
The book under review is based on the doctoral thesis of Asli Cirakman, a Turkish student who did her post-graduate work in Canada. She is concerned about the European images of Turkey and avoids any discussion on Islam or the Muslim identity of the Ottoman Empire. She spells out the parameters of her thesis in these words: “My concern is to delineate the range of European ideas regarding the Turkish character, society and government.”
The author is perturbed by the European opinion makers’ perception of the Ottomans as barbarian and despotic at a time the rest of Europe was experiencing the Enlightenment. European intellectuals had the habit of comparing their own social and political life with that of the Ottomans, at first in envy during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and later with contempt from the eighteenth century onwards.
The Turkish dilemma is a legacy of the colonial age. After their military conquest of Asia and Africa — direct or indirect — the colonial powers set themselves the task of moulding the mind of the younger generation. The Europeans, especially the British, turned the educated elites into “brown sahibs” whose looks were oriental but thinking was European. But they were not accepted as Europeans; at best they became WOGS — Westernized Oriental Gentlemen. The Ottomans remained beyond the pale of European civilization, and stigmatized as the ‘terror’ of Europe.
There are two key chapters in which Cirakman displays her skill in the Western methodology of analyzing and criticizing ‘other’ societies. She becomes the ‘other’ of her own society. She claims that ‘orientalism’ or Islamphobia of the West did not touch the Ottomans. She makes out these to be prejudices of only a few ill-informed news makers, not representing the entire European opinions.
Orientalism, as outlined by Edward Said, is attacked as ‘misperception’ in the European diagnosis. For Cirakman “Ottomans” were distinct, and did not represent, Said’s Arabs.
Interpreting Said, the author points out that orientalism is a ‘discourse’ which is internally consistent through an immense variety of texts and centuries of human history. This discourse embodies a ‘power relation’ that stems form the assumed hegemonic position of the West over the East. She rejects this thesis on orientalism on the ground that the Ottomans were above it.
Edward Said is marginalized. She writes, “Contrary to what Said claims, I shall argue that there is an objective reality that can — in principle — be known, at least with high probability, and that one can distinguish perception from misperception.” The Western academics have trained her to be objective and see the reality, which is misconceived by Said.
Then the author asserts with great emphasis that the supposed uniformity of Western attitudes and intentions towards the East is also questionable. According to her, one can demonstrate that the Western perception of the East represents a series of ideas, prejudices, opinions and judgments which were likely to fade, fluctuate, change or endure depending on how convincing or popular they are in the eyes of European observers. Cirakman can be reminded that such perceptions have not vanished, but turned into scholarly discourses projected as the “clash of civilizations”.
The chapter on “Prejudice rationalized: images of the Turks in the age of reason” is distressful. Ottomans were perceived as barbarians and despotic. By the eighteenth century, they had suffered considerable loss of territory on the European frontiers. Paradoxically, these defeats created great fervour in the Turkish nobles for Europe. According to the author, the early eighteenth century was often referred to as the ‘tulip era’ in Ottoman history signifying not only an awakening interest in the arts, sciences, cultural development and European ways, but also an increase in corruption, indulgence and luxury at the court.
To her surprise, the Europeans did not notice or accept such changes, and created a stereotypical image of the Ottomans as a stagnant, backward and corrupt people, governed by an arbitrary regime. In the earlier centuries, the Ottomans were competitors for empires, but by the eighteenth century, they turned into a post-imperial decadent people. This image is still alive for the post-colonial societies, where the so-called Westernized elite complains in the same fashion, as Asli Cirakman, that the Americans do not accept cosmetic modernism, and they are mixed-up about the ‘religious fundamentalist’.
In the Ottoman Turks, she discovers that the oriental games were very much alive in the eighteenth century. She notes that the images of the Ottomans and the various judgments on the Turks were such as to project them as the most incorrigible and detestable people of the Orient. She moans that Oriental despotism was coined for the Ottoman rulers with Turkish blood.
The enlightened Europeans were not gracious in accepting the Ottomans who were capable of embracing changes. Cirakman points out: “Although the Enlightenment thinkers were writing against the prejudices arising from ignorance, superstition and intolerance, they showed similar biases in understanding other cultures. In other words, the prejudice they had against prejudice was as dogmatic as the ones that they were attacking.”
Finally, the term terror in the title of the book is intriguing, but has a historical context. In spite of their great scientific progress, the Europeans of the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries found the political success of the Ottoman empire terrifying. With their enlightened prejudice, the author finds it distressing that the others were described as people of ‘terror’, when the Europeans were the ones who nursed the ambition of conquering new lands.
By the nineteenth century the Ottoman empire was being described as “the sick man of Europe”. Later it was rescued by the Young Turks under the guidance of Ataturk. In the late twentieth century, Turkey became the military partner of the Americans and their European allies to fight their wars around the world. How successful they are in entering the European Union remains to be seen.
Writer’s email: Jamilrashid@yahoo.com
From the “Terror of the world” to the “Sick man of Europe: European images of the Ottoman empire and society from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth
By Asli Cirakman
Peter Lang, NY
236pp. $56.95
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