Comment on Yup, another Ottoman Empire classic
PugJesus@piefed.social 1 day agoNo, Britain’s “Divide and rule” policy was largely implemented after WW1 and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, when Britain thought it could hold onto those regions themselves (de facto, if not de jure). Before that, the Brits (and French) actually went through pains to ensure that the Ottoman Empire didn’t fall apart, because it would damage the balance of power in Europe.
The crackdowns of the Ottoman Empire had two essential causes, basically relying on which period one is looking at. For most of the Empire, it was the same cause that every empire cracks down on regions and cultures for - insufficient loyalty to the central government. And very often, this was dependent on the relationship of central government officials with local magnates. Essentially clientistic relationships more than anything - questions of “You are taxing too much” or “You are offering too little.”
In the last few decades of the Ottoman Empire, both the rise of 19th century nationalism and the increasing realization of the Ottomans that the former despotic-clientistic structure could not compete with modern states caused the Ottomans to reform considerably. Unfortunately, these reforms, while nominally in-line with the ideals of the European Enlightenment and French Revolution, also were accompanied by notions of a Turkish nation, and increased distrust of minorities in the Ottoman Empire (who, to be fair, were themselves adopting 19th century notions of nationalism and getting ‘dangerous’ ideas about independence).
As the Ottoman Empire weakened, losing control over several minority Christian populations either to outright separatism (thus reducing the role and influence of Christians in the empire) or ‘safeguarding’ from European colonial empires claiming to be the ‘protector’ of Christians in a region (thus creating distrust towards Christians, even in the occasions when the safeguarding was legitimate), the Muslim character (always strong, mind you) of the Ottoman Empire intensified even as the formal legal position of Islam became less supported.
So in the late Ottoman Empire, you have a multiethnic, multifaith empire that essentially has adopted notions of being a Turkish, Muslim empire, and all the… unrest that comes with that level of cultural-religious chauvinism.
tetris11@feddit.uk 21 hours ago
Huh, I always thought Divide+Rule was a day 1 British Empire policy.
I wonder if Ataturk tried to overcome the failure of the Ottoman nationalistic ideals by (ineffectually, and selectively) putting forward the idea of an “anatolian identity”
PugJesus@piefed.social 21 hours ago
Sure, but, you know, day 1 of when the British Empire starts to actually rule the territory.
Well, the thing about the very late Ottoman nationalism just before WW1 was that it was… very much Turkish nationalism. Enver Pasha and many of his fellows in the CUP were outright ‘scientific’ racists of the European sort, only with the Turkish people on top and all others as half-cultured barbarians. Funny enough, the idea of an Ottoman identity was arguably stronger (and more effective) before the rise of 19th century nationalism, as the Ottoman Empire, like the Roman Empire before it, previously allowed and accepted a broad range of ethnicities and religions as common (and high-ranking) participants in the government.
Ataturk’s attempts to make an ‘inclusive’ Turkish identity was almost certainly influenced by the genocide-mad failures of the CUP. “Ne mutlu Türküm diyene” became so central precisely because of what it implied: “How happy is he who calls himself a Turk.” A civic nationalism that welcomed all who were willing to claim to be a part of the national community. Ataturk, funny enough, would be part of the CUP coup (if only a minor one) in 1908, but his loud blathering about “democracy” ended getting him reassigned to
AntarcticaLibya while the coup worked out their political assignments, to prevent him from interfering.Of course, Ataturk still had some ethnonationalist leanings - particularly the insistence on the Turkish language - but he cast off the biological essentialism and most of the pan-Turkic ideals (especially in emphasizing the supposed antiquity and continuity of Anatolian Turkiye, instead of the shared nomadic roots) of the CUP.
I would argue that Ataturk’s nationalism was actually extremely effective - Ataturk’s conception of Turkishness was the conception up into the modern day. The issue is that his own conflicts* and contradictory policies with the Kurds meant that that particular wound never healed itself.
*Ataturk was MUCH less hostile towards the Kurds than later Turkish governments - but the Kurds were, at the time, largely conservative and traditionalist, and Ataturk was busy, you know, banning clothing for being too feudal and trying to sort out a government that WOULDN’T be filled with Islamist or Ottoman throwbacks. So there was a certain level of expedience there in being willing to shift policy on them as-needed - rarely a recipe for lasting solutions, or trust between government and governed.
tetris11@feddit.uk 19 hours ago
Thank you for this really comprehensive discussion!
PugJesus@piefed.social 18 hours ago
Always happy to oblige!