Selected Books
Turkey in Europe & Europe in Turkey
Turgut Özal

Image of Turks in the West

"Taken to excess, the most agreeable things become extremely disagreeable." Democritus

"Rather be the maligned than the maligner." Talmud, 499

Before discussing the westernizing reforms, I think it appropriate to examine more closely the image of the Ottomans which existed in the Europe of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century the Ottoman was still thought of essentially as the enemy of Christianity. However, since he represented the `super power' of that time, he inspired respect because of the strength of his armies and also the influence of his civilization.

As Lucette Valensi said in her recent book Venice and the Sublime Porte:

This empire which could reasonably cause `terror to all the princes of the world, and especially to neighboring Christians', was not founded merely on force of numbers nor yet on force alone (Contarini,1583, p. 216). It was based on a political order. And this was the principal object of fascination for Venetian observers: a system where all the parts were subordinated to the centre in fine counterbalance; a structure such that all degrees of the hierarchy were interdependent and all depended on the summit. The Ottoman Empire formed an imposing edifice, the architecture of which appeared to conform to the principles of beauty as defined by Palladio.

Racine's tragedy Bajazet portrayed in the character of Amurat the noble figure of a Turkish prince caught between the calls of duty and love. Turkish melodies and themes, even the drum, began to appear in Western music. A Romantic fashion took the seraglio as its subject.

The Turkish defeats in the eighteenth century resulted in a sudden deterioration in this image, which steadily worsened as our reverses continued. The victorious Ottoman had represented the anger of God at the supposed sins of the West. The vanquished Ottoman had now been punished by the West for the sins that he had committed. Defeat proved his sinful nature and his guilt.

It is generally the case that any cultural difference between peoples tends to create irritation and hostility, but the hostility between the Turk and the Frank was initially based only on superficial differences. Five hundred years of Turkish invincibility had prevented the Westerners from acquiring a feeling of superiority. Repeated defeats, however, by adding the idea of Turkish guilt to the feeling of difference, not only accentuated the difference but also changed its nature.

I am sure that some further explanation is necessary at this point.

The expansion in western Europe set in motion by the Renaissance had prepared the way for the French Revolution. At the start of this revolution, which was to inaugurate the fundamental concepts of freedom, human rights, democracy, and the nation-state, the societies of western Europe were already profoundly different from Ottoman society. Montesquieu used these differences as a weapon on behalf of the evolution of French society.

The efforts made by Louis XIV to limit the privileges and powers of the nobles and strengthen the State were regarded by Montesquieu as a step towards despotism. For him the Ottoman and Persian regimes exemplified the reasons for resisting despotic tendencies. According to Montesquieu, the Ottoman regime had certain distinguishing characteristics. In his view its principal feature was the existence of a despotic Sultan, who treated his subjects as slaves. It was in this respect that a despot differed from a monarch.

The Sultan was all, a superior being, the shadow of God. He alone mattered, other men were nothing. Their lives and their goods depended on his word. The will of the despot was omnipotent, cruel, and arbitrary. Religion and law, far from setting limits on this will, were at his service.

The Palace was the centre of despotic power. Its inhabitants (women, eunuchs, young servants, janissaries) were foreigners, the despot putting trust only in those who were not of the people.

The economic system gathered all wealth into the Palace, thus starving the general economy, preventing the country from developing, and resulting in stagnation. The Palace was a sort of bottomless pit into which wealth disappeared. As neither life nor goods were secure, investment and production were inadequate. That was why Anatolia, previously rich and developed, was in ruins. Only the town of Istanbul had prospered, the rest of the country had become impoverished.

The Islamic religion was cruel, bloody, and expansionist. It was the principal cause of the rise of despotism. It displayed a limitless tolerance of sexuality and established the polygamous family institution. Because polygamy had a negative influence on relationships between men and women, the Ottoman population diminished constantly.

The courage of the Turk was due to the fact that he was a slave. He marched to his death not for an ideal but because the despot had given the order; such was not courage.

The Ottoman State had thus become the example of everything a State should not be.

According to Montesquieu, it was clear that France must follow a course opposite to that of Ottoman despotism. She must be governed by a monarch with limited powers, who stayed close to his people. Society and individuals must be free, and enjoy inviolable individual rights within an economy founded on the right to property, on the basic family group of husband and wife, and on Christian principles.

This image of `oriental despotism', which to some extent was the product of Montesquieu's imagination, but which found its way into works of social science, was judged by Voltaire to be exaggerated when Protestant theologians defended the Islamic religion. Rousseau, however, aligned himself with the ideas of Montesquieu.

What is relevant to us is that the dynamic forces in France, which were struggling for a capitalist economic development and a democratic political regime, defined the model of the State and society which they wished to adopt for their country as the antithesis, the negation, the inverse of the Ottoman model.

These protagonists considered that several Ottoman characteristics still existed in the French regime, although to different degrees. It was necessary therefore to purify the French regime by the suppression of these characteristics and tendencies, and so give France a new identity. The reverse of this positive identity was clearly that of the Ottoman Turks.

Thus all the old institutions, attitudes, and values that western Europe was preparing to abandon were transferred to the Turks, so creating their 'negative identity'.

The Ottoman image, removed from its own context, was used in the internal political and economic interests of France. One might even say that the struggle for democracy, liberty, and economic development in France took place, though partially, at the expense of the Ottoman image.

The idea of Turkish `sacrilege' was reinforced during the wars of independence of the Balkan Christian communities, and the westernizing reforms were perceived as an attempt by the Turk to correct and rid himself of a character he had recognized as being guilty.

The merciless struggle undertaken by western Europe against the `cruelty' and `despotism' of the Ottoman, `the incarnation of all evils', thus becomes more understandable. The fact that Ottoman efforts to westernize did not in any way manage to satisfy Europe can perhaps be explained by the European's inability to conceive that the negative identity could ever become positive and Western.

Indeed, this negative identity might well have much deeper roots. It gives an impression that it has some similarities with the hostile attitude of the West towards Turks during the crusades. The speech of Pope Urban II, made on the occasion of the Council of 1095 held to organize the campaign, is interesting from this point of view.

Oh Christians! Put an end to your crimes and let concord reign amongst you. Perpetual security will reward you for the trifling task of defeating the Turks. Compare the pains you have experienced in practicing your wickedness. . .

Hence, criminals were permitted to expiate their earthly sins by devoting themselves to the service of God (in the crusades). All those burdened by debt were allowed to put forward as a pretext for non-payment the belief that the commands of Heaven had priority over obligations to one's fellowmen. As 1'abbé Fleury wrote:

The crusade served as a pretext by which. . . wrong-doers could avoid punishment for their crimes, undisciplined ecclesiastics could shake off their yoke, rebellious monks could escape from the cloisters, and fallen women could continue more freely with their immoral way of life.

The murderers, adulterers, thieves, pirates, and brigands to whom Urban II referred in his address all declared themselves eager to wash away their crimes in the blood of the Turks.

The psychic mechanism which motivated the crusades was three-pronged. Firstly, Western Christians, for reasons of their own, felt deeply sinful with respect to the high moral standards of Christian faith. Secondly, the Turks were accused of being `the enemies of God'. Finally, they took part in a series of campaigns in order to wash away their sins in the blood of Turks either by killing them or-this is significant-by getting killed by them, on the ground that `human existence (was) a misfortune and happiness (was) to be found in death!'

This basic pattern, once firmly established, reappeared on several occasions in history, especially when an increase in the feelings of sin had occurred in the West. During the Balkan nations' struggle for independence, what we call `the crusader spirit' was revived almost in its original form, as we can see in Western novels of the time.so Killing or expelling Turks from Europe, rather than getting killed by them, has become the third prong, reflecting the change in the correlation of forces in favour of Europe. In the field of realpolitik, this spirit found satisfaction only in liberating the `Christian' territories under the hegemony of this `Antichrist' in order ultimately to eliminate its earthly dominion.

Nevertheless, the time that had elapsed since the crusades had an inevitable civilizing effect on this pattern. But Turks, having historically experienced the `crusader spirit', can recognize its return immediately, no matter how protean it is capable of being.

Influenced by the West, the élite of the Balkan nations has developed similar symptoms. It may be useful for our purposes to reproduce some paragraphs from the book entitled Report to Greco by N. Kazantzakis, an extraordinary author with deep insight. Referring to the memories of the struggle between Crete and Turkey in his childhood, he writes:

in my imagination, not only in my imagination but in my flesh as well, everything became a symbol reminding me of the terrible contest. . . The Virgin is Crete, I told myself, the black devil is the Turk....

.....this was the seed. From this seed the entire tree of my life germinated, budded, flowered and bore fruit. To gain freedom first of all from the Turk, that was the initial step, after that, later, this new struggle began: to gain freedom from the inner Turk-from ignorance, malice and envy, from fear and laziness, from dazzling false ideas, and finally from idols, all of them, even the most revered and beloved. . . Overflowing the bounds of Crete and Greece, it (the struggle) raged in all eras and locales and invaded the history of mankind. Battling now were not Crete and Turkey but good and evil, light and darkness, God and the devil. It was always the same battle, the eternal one, and standing always behind the good, behind the light and God, was Crete; behind evil, behind darkness, and the devil, Turkey.

I think these passages are self-explanatory. Many Westerners might have felt the same, if not so vividly. It is not easy, however, to understand how and why Turks have been made to embody the whole of evil in the world and beyond. I wonder whether he wrote retrospectively what he felt about Turkey. Anyway, if read together with the following passage on the death of his father, certain psychoanalytical clues become manifest.

I felt an untellable, profane sense of relief (upon his father's death). A weight, a shadow, had been lifted from me. The mysterious, invisible string tying me to submission and fear had been cut. . . I was free now, emancipated. . . I had feared only one man in my life: my father. . . Towering in front of me, he blocked my share of the sun. . . There is much darkness in me, much of my father. All my life I have fought desperately to transubstantiate this darkness and turn it into light. . .

From the comparison of these paragraphs one can infer that `the most revered and beloved. . . idol(s)' mentioned in the passage relating to Turkey is his father, while the `darkness' as his father in him, as related in the passage on the death of his father, is Turkey. In other words, the author unconsciously identifies his father with Turkey, his struggle against Turkey with the inner struggle against the darkness represented by his father in his psyche, and freedom from Turkey with the death of his father.

I wonder whether this mental attitude is the secularized version of the historical religious hatred towards Turks which seems to exist even today among Western and Eastern Christian countries. If the answer is in the affirmative, I ought to say that it is utterly unfair towards us that we be made to suffer from our involuntary involvement in an infantile psychopathology of others with terrible (temporal and metaphysical) consequences.

In modern times, however, the preoccupation with the `final solution' of the Jewish problem seems to have given Turks a respite. The devastating moral effect of the Second World War banished the crusader spirit into the wilderness. 'The blackest agents of Satan' in the guise of `the Soldiers of God' (in the words of Thomas Fuller) seem to sneak back into our world once again in such a devious way that it is now difficult even for Turks to recognize it. Once again, we are accused of committing inhuman acts like those which we allegedly did at the beginning of the century. The present antagonists of Turkey, however, are civilized enough not to wash away their sins in our blood, but will be content with excluding us from Europe while trying to dismember us, a well-known scenario according to which the heroes of Greek tragedy, who carry the sins of others, are crippled and banished from the city.

All this can be interpreted as being a sacrifice and an expiation, in the same sense in which these terms are employed by some perceptive scholars.

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