Table Manners in the Ottoman Empire - Acem Pilav

Jan 30, 2024

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The Battle of Vienna, September 11, 1683 – Ottoman Empire Movie

'Armenian Genocide': Why Obama Won't Say the Words

President Obama's campaign promise – to refer to 'Armenian genocide' – remains unfulfilled on the 100th anniversary of when the killings started. US-Turkey relations hold sway, but the president also suggested his true feelings.
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: WASHINGTON — As a presidential candidate in 2008, Barack Obama promised to be the first American president to refer to the Turkish mass killing of Armenians that began in 1915 as “genocide.”

But on this anniversary, the 100th, President Obama has once again avoided the word. In a statement released Thursday night, he referred to it only as “the first mass atrocity of the 20th century."

“Beginning in 1915, the Armenian people of the Ottoman Empire were deported, massacred, and marched to their deaths,” Obama said. “Their culture and heritage in their ancient homeland were erased. Amid horrific violence that saw suffering on all sides, one and a half million Armenians perished.”

The reason for Obama’s reticence: Turkey, and its role as a key ally in NATO and in the conflicts of the Middle East. Armenia, a nation of 3 million people in the Caucasus, pales in geostrategic importance. (+ video) » | Linda Feldmann, Staff writer | Friday, April 24, 2015

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: Germany defies Turkey, calls Armenian massacre 'genocide' (+video): Germany abruptly shifted its policy Monday from a steadfast refusal to use the term "genocide" to describe the massacre of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turkish forces 100 years ago. » | Erik Kirschbaum, Reuters | Monday, April 20, 2015

Turkey Anger at Pope Francis Armenian 'Genocide' Claim

BBC AMERICA: Turkey has criticised Pope Francis for using the word "genocide" to describe the mass killing of Armenians under Ottoman rule in World War 1.

Ankara immediately summoned the Vatican's envoy after the Pope made the comments at a service in Rome.

Turkey's Foreign Minister described it as "far from the historical reality".

Armenia and many historians say up to 1.5 million people were killed by Ottoman forces in 1915. Turkey has always disputed the number of dead.

The dispute has continued to sour relations between Armenia and Turkey. (+ BBC video) » | Sunday, April 12, 2015

Pope Francis Calls Armenian Slaughter 'Genocide'

THE GUARDIAN: Pontiff’s comments are likely to anger Turkey, which denies that the killings 100 years ago during the fall of the Ottoman empire constituted genocide


Pope Francis has described the mass killing of Armenians 100 years ago as a genocide, a politically explosive pronouncement that could damage diplomatic relations with Turkey.

During a special mass to mark the centenary of the mass killing, the pontiff referred to “three massive and unprecedented tragedies” of the past century. “The first, which is widely considered the first genocide of the twentieth century, struck your own Armenian people,” he said, quoting a declaration signed in 2001 by Pope John Paul II and Kerekin II, leader of the Armenian church.

“Bishops and priests, religious women and men, the elderly and even defenceless children and the infirm were murdered,” the pope said. » | Rosie Scammell in Rome | Sunday, April 12, 2015

Recep Tayyip Erdogan Vows to Impose 'Arabic' Ottoman Lessons in Schools

Recep Tayyip Erdogan is planning to make Arabic-alphabet
Ottoman language compulsory in high schools

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Turkish premier wants to reintroduce the language of the old empire, comparing its abolition to cutting Turkey's "jugular"

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to make lessons in the Arabic-alphabet Ottoman language compulsory in high schools -- a highly symbolic move which enraged secularists who claim he is persuing [sic] an increasingly Islamist agenda.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, abolished the Ottoman language in 1928, replacing its Arabic alphabet with a Latin one.

He also purged the language of many of its Arabic, Persian and Greek words to create a new "pure" Turkish closer to the language people spoke.

Critics claimed Erdogan's vow to reintroduce teaching of the language "no matter what they say" was another bid to roll back Ataturk's secular reforms, which were based on a strict separation between religion and state.

Turkey's National Education Council, largely made up of members backed by Erdogan's Islamic-rooted government, voted over the weekend to make classes compulsory at religious high schools and an option at regular high schools.

The council also voted to ban bartending classes at tourism training high schools. » | AFP | Monday, December 08, 2014

Documentary: The Ottoman Empire

The U.S. Helps Reconstruct the Ottoman Empire
GATESTONE INSTITUTE: Each of these United States military interventions occurred in an area that had been part of the Ottoman Empire, and where a secular regime was replaced by an Islamist one. So far, the German policy of keeping hidden its leadership role in its attempt to reconstitute the Ottoman Empire has succeeded.

Since the mid-1990s the United States has intervened militarily in several internal armed conflicts in Europe and the Middle East: bombing Serbs and Serbia in support of Izetbegovic's Moslem Regime in Bosnia in 1995, bombing Serbs and Serbia in support of KLA Moslems of Kosovo in 1999, bombing Libya's Gaddafi regime in support of rebels in 2010. Each intervention was justified to Americans as motivated by humanitarian concerns: to protect Bosnian Moslems from genocidal Serbs, to protect Kosovo Moslems from genocidal Serbs, and to protect Libyans from their murderous dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Other reasons for these interventions were also offered: to gain for the United States a strategic foothold in the Balkans, to defeat communism in Yugoslavia, to demonstrate to the world's Moslems that the United States is not anti-Moslem, to redefine the role of NATO in the post-Cold War era, among others.

Each of these United States military interventions occurred in an area that had been part of the Ottoman Empire. In each, a secular regime was ultimately replaced by an Islamist one favoring sharia law and the creation of a world-wide Caliphate. The countries that experienced the "Arab Spring" of the 2010s without the help of American military intervention, Tunisia and Egypt, had also been part of the Ottoman Empire, and also ended up with Islamist regimes. Read on and comment » | Robert E. Kaplan * | Wednesday, May 29, 2013

* Robert E. Kaplan is an historian, doctorate from Cornell University, specializing in modern Europe.

Pope Proclaims First Saints, Says Christians Still Persecuted
REUTERS.COM: (Reuters) – Pope Francis on Sunday proclaimed as saints some 800 Italians killed in the 15th century for refusing to convert to Islam, and said many Christians were still being persecuted for their faith.

The Vatican seemed at pains not to allow the first canonizations of Francis' two-month-old papacy to be interpreted as anti-Islamic, saying the deaths of the 'Otranto Marytrs' [sic] must be understood in their historical context.

The 800 were killed in 1480 in the siege of Otranto, on the southeastern Adriatic, by Ottoman Turks who sacked the city, killed its archbishop and told the citizens to surrender and convert.

When they refused, the Ottoman commanding officer ordered the execution of all men aged 15 or older, most by beheading.

"While we venerate the Otranto Martyrs, we ask God to sustain the many Christians who, today, in many parts of the world, right now, still suffer violence and give them the courage to be faithful and to respond to evil with good," Francis said before more than 70,000 people in St. Peter's Square.

He did not mention any countries, but the Vatican has expressed deep concern recently about the fate of Christians in parts of the Middle East, including Coptic Christians who have been caught up in sectarian strife in Egypt. » | Philip Pullella | Vatican City | Sunday, May 12, 2013

Grandma's Tattoos
A family story that reveals the fate of the Armenian women driven out of Ottoman Turkey during the First World War.

Turkey Threatens to Expel 100,000 Armenians Over 'Genocide' Row
THE TELEGRAPH: Turkey has threatened to expel 100,000 Armenians from the country in response to the US branding the First World War killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as "genocide".

Ottoman soldiers posing in front of Armenians they hung on a public place, image taken in Alep in 1915. Photograph: The Telegraph
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, said the position of the immigrants, many of whom have lived there as refugees for a generation, was being reviewed in the wake of the row.

Armenia claims more than 500,000 of its countrymen died in bitter in-fighting as the Ottoman Empire disintegrated at the height of the First World War.

Turkey concedes that tens of thousands died in ethnic fighting but vehemently disputes accusations that massacres were systematically planned.

Tensions with Armenia have recently escalated as a well-organised worldwide campaign has persuaded the American Congress and Swedish parliament to adopt resolutions condemning the incidents as "genocide".

An Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day Bill has also been put before the House of Commons and Mr Erdogan has warned Gordon Brown that relations would suffer if parliament passes it.

Turkish law already makes discussion of genocide an offence punishable by imprisonment.

"There are currently 170,000 Armenians living in our country. Only 70,000 of them are Turkish citizens, but we are tolerating the remaining 100,000," said Mr Erdogan.

"If necessary, I may have to tell these 100,000 to go back to their country because they are not my citizens. I don't have to keep them in my country." >>> Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent | Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Related:

SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Turkish EU Minister on the Armenian Genocide Controversy: 'We Are Very Sensitive About This Issue' >>> Interview conducted by Bernhard Zand and Daniel Steinvorth | Tuesday, March 16, 2010

THE GUARDIAN: Turkey Threatens 'Serious Consequences' After US Vote on Armenian Genocide >>> Robert Tait in Istanbul and Ewen MacAskill in Washington | Friday, March 05, 2010

A Bitter Century: Armenian Survivor

Warning! Some Images Are Very Graphic: A Bitter Century: Armenian Survivor

La Turquie saisie par l'«ottomania»
LE FIGARO: L'opposition de pays européens à l'entrée d'Ankara dans l'UE contribue à mythifier l'âge d'or de l'empire perdu.

Les visiteurs, ravis, en prennent plein les yeux et les oreilles. Réglée au volume maximum, la bande-son fait gronder les canons et rouler les tambours. Le sultan Mehmet II le Conquérant chevauche fièrement son destrier blanc, les murailles byzantines cèdent à l'assaut des janissaires. Sur 360° et en trois dimensions, une fresque géante reproduit la conquête de Constanti­nople : c'est l'attraction phare du Musée historique panoramique de 1453. Depuis son inauguration il y a un an par le premier ministre Recep Tayyip Erdogan, il voit défiler toutes les écoles d'Istanbul. «On revit la bataille en direct, c'est incroyable, s'enflamme Mutlu Turkoglu, professeur, aussi enthousiaste que ses élèves. Les jeunes Turcs doivent être fiers de leur histoire, c'est primordial pour leur identité. »

Ce musée, fondé par la municipalité d'Istanbul, est révélateur de l'«ottomania» en vogue en Turquie. Après avoir longtemps méprisé «l'homme malade de l'Europe», les Turcs redécouvrent leur passé ottoman et se penchent avec nostalgie sur un empire qui, au faîte de sa puissance, rayonna des Balkans à la péninsule arabique. «À partir de 1923, tous les efforts ont été concentrés sur la construction de la jeune République et sur son avenir, explique Nilüfer Narli, sociologue. S'en est ensuivie une sorte d'amnésie. Aujourd'hui, on revient à une image plus positive. »

La solennité des derniers honneurs rendus à Ertugrul Osman, le petit-fils du sultan Abdullamid II, en septembre, illustre le retour en grâce de l'Empire ottoman. En 1924, alors enfant, il avait été expulsé de Turquie avec les autres membres de la famille royale. En ordonnant l'exil, Mustafa Kemal, le fondateur de la République turque, liquidait définitivement les restes de l'empire. Pour les funérailles de l'héritier du trône, dix mille personnes et plusieurs ministres se sont massés à la cérémonie organisée à la Mosquée bleue.

L'arrivée au pouvoir en 2002 du Parti de la justice et du développement (AKP), aux racines islamistes, et l'ascension d'une bourgeoisie musulmane, concurrençant l'élite traditionnelle laïque, ont contribué à alléger le joug kémaliste qui pesait sur l'histoire. La nouvelle diplomatie turque, conduite par Ahmet Davutoglu, active au Moyen-Orient comme dans les Balkans, est souvent qualifiée de «néo-ottomane».«La Turquie réintègre des espaces où elle a été présente pendant des siècles», soulignait récemment Suat Kiniklioglu, porte-parole du comité des affaires étrangères au Parlement. >>> Laure Marchand, Istanbul | Jeudi 07 Janvier 2010

History Repeats Itself
DAWN.COM BLOG (Pakistan): Earlier this week, I attended a talk about Islam and homosexuality at a medical school in Karachi. The very fact that medical practitioners, particularly psychiatrists, were gathering to discuss the subject piqued my interest. After all, a variety of psychological and physical ailments have been documented in patients who suppress or conceal their sexual identities in conservative societies.

But I was disappointed to learn that the lecturer was taking a historical perspective and simply tracing the history of homosexuality in Muslim societies. It would have been far more interesting to hear a debate about the prevalence of homosexuality in contemporary Muslim societies and consider ways in which psychiatrists and GPs respond to patients who are gay, and whether approaches differ if patients embrace their sexual identity or consider it an affliction.

Still, it was encouraging to see some acknowledgement within our local medical community that homosexuality is a phenomenon worth keeping in mind when dealing with patients (and what better place to start than at the very beginning). For readers who are now expecting a grand theological debate about whether homosexuality is permitted in Islam, feel free to click elsewhere on this website. That question is still up for debate, with some Muslim groups condemning homosexual acts as a sin and others arguing that it is natural, and therefore created and condoned by the Almighty. This post simply considers how Muslim societies deal with homosexuality in practice.

The fact that Muslim societies are struggling to figure out how to respond to homosexuals in their midst is perfectly illustrated by Iran. A few years ago, the country enraged human rights groups and made headlines when it publicly hung [sic] two young men – one 18, the other a minor – for being gay. Soon after, President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad further irked the global community by flat-out denying that there were any homosexuals in Iran. How then, the world asked, can you hang young men for something doesn’t exist and thus couldn’t have happened? Ahmedinejad’s – and Iran’s – confusion about what to do with homosexuals is widespread in the ummah – should Muslim societies seek out and punish homosexuals? Ignore their very existence? Or acknowledge that they live and – gasp! – worship in Muslim societies and therefore protect their human and constitutional rights?

To help address some of these questions, the lecturer went back in time to the Ottoman and Abbasid empires, during which homosexuality was commonly practiced and socially tolerated, though not explicitly legally protected. Back then, the lecturer explained, there were various reasons for homosexual behaviour (including lesbianism) being widespread.

Firstly, the legal system was multifaceted and did not take a decisive stand on homosexuality. Cases were judged either by the sultan’s law, common law or shariah, of which only the last had an opinion about homosexuality. Homosexuals were rarely taken to court on account of their homosexuality – if they did end up before a judge or qazi, it was for another social transgression (such as disturbing the peace). According to the lecturer, and here I summarise, the thinking at the time was that people’s sexuality was no one’s business unless they made a nuisance of themselves. Qazis who did pass judgement on homosexuals usually did not punish them for their sexuality per se, but for their conduct with regards to social norms (so, if someone abducted a young boy or committed a sexual act near a school, they would be punished for kidnapping or indecency and not for homosexuality).

Legal crackdowns on homosexuals during various Islamic empires were also few and far between because the burden of proof on the accuser was immense. As Brian Whitaker sums it up for The Guardian:

Furthermore, the levels of proof required by Islamic law are so high that if the rules are properly applied no one need ever be convicted unless they do something extremely blatant, like having sex in the street in broad daylight.

In addition to legal laxity, homosexuality was prevalent in the Islamic empires because the cultures prescribed to a ‘one sex model’ in which conceptions of beauty were the same for men and women. The lecturer showed several miniature paintings from the Abbasid era in which men and women were indistinguishable (check out this famous illustration of Shah Abbas with a wine boy). Men would wear make up and drape themselves in gowns and jewels while women with downy mustaches were considered the most attractive (apparently, women would paint on mustaches to seem more comely!) Youth – rather than femininity or masculinity – was idealised, thereby eliminating the taboo around homosexual relationships.

Given the permissive attitudes of previous Muslim societies, how then did we get to a point where minors can be hung for being gay? The lecturer argued (convincingly, I might add) that present-day homophobia in Muslim societies is a fallout of the colonial encounter. Her logic relied on several premises. Comments welcome >>> Posted by Huma | Friday, August 07, 2009

Memo from Istanbul: Nearly a Million Genocide Victims, Covered in a Cloak of Amnesia
THE NEW YORK TIMES: ISTANBUL — For Turkey, the number should have been a bombshell.

According to a long-hidden document that belonged to the interior minister of the Ottoman Empire, 972,000 Ottoman Armenians disappeared from official population records from 1915 through 1916.

Ottoman Armenians are marched to a prison by armed Turkish soldiers in April 1915. Photo courtesy of The New York Times
In Turkey, any discussion of what happened to the Ottoman Armenians can bring a storm of public outrage. But since its publication in a book in January, the number — and its Ottoman source — has gone virtually unmentioned. Newspapers hardly wrote about it. Television shows have not discussed it.

“Nothing,” said Murat Bardakci, the Turkish author and columnist who compiled the book.

The silence can mean only one thing, he said: “My numbers are too high for ordinary people. Maybe people aren’t ready to talk about it yet.”

For generations, most Turks knew nothing of the details of the Armenian genocide of 1915 to 1918, when more than a million Armenians were killed as the Ottoman Turk government purged the population. Turkey locked the ugliest parts of its past out of sight, Soviet-style, keeping any mention of the events out of schoolbooks and official narratives in an aggressive campaign of forgetting.

But in the past 10 years, as civil society has flourished here, some parts of Turkish society are now openly questioning the state’s version of events. In December, a group of intellectuals circulated a petition that apologized for the denial of the massacres. Some 29,000 people have signed it.

With his book, “The Remaining Documents of Talat Pasha,” Mr. Bardakci (pronounced bard-AK-chuh) has become, rather unwillingly, part of this ferment. The book is a collection of documents and records that once belonged to Mehmed Talat, known as Talat Pasha, the primary architect of the Armenian deportations. >>> By Sabrina Tavernise | Sunday, March 8, 2009

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – USA)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardcover – USA)

Turkish Academics in Apology to Armenians
THE INDEPENDENT: Intellectuals break taboo to acknowledge genocide by Ottoman Turks

Around 200 Turkish intellectuals and academics are to apologise on the internet today for the ethnic cleansing of Armenians during the First World War, in the most public sign yet that Turkey's most sensitive taboo is slowly melting away.

"My conscience does not accept the denial of the great catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915," the text prepared by the group reads. "I reject this injustice and ... empathise with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers. I apologise to them."

Turkey accepts that many Armenians were killed during the collapse of the Ottoman empire, but insists they were victims of civil strife and that Muslim Turks also died. Most Western historians agree that the ethnic cleansing that killed roughly 700,000 Armenians amounted to genocide. >>> By Nicholas Birch in Istanbul | December 15, 2008

BBC: Turkish PM Scorns Armenia Apology

Turkey's prime minister has criticised a Turkish internet petition which apologises for the "great catastrophe" of 1915 when Armenians were massacred.

The petition was launched by more than 200 Turkish academics and newspaper columnists earlier this week.

Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan said: "I find it unreasonable to apologise when there is no reason".

Hundreds of thousands of Armenians died at the hands of Ottoman Turks in 1915. Turkey denies that it was "genocide". >>> | December 17, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback & Hardback) – Free delivery >>>

A Continuing Problem for Greeks: Islam
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Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)