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The International Herald Tribune
December 4, 2009 Friday
Turkey revels in its past;
'Ottomania' is uniting secular nationalists and religious Muslims alike
by Dan Bilefsky
ABSTRACT
The latest manifestation of a new "Ottomania" overtaking Turkey is
harking back to an era of conquest, influence and cultural splendor in
which sultans ruled an empire stretching from the Balkans to the
Indian Ocean.
FULL TEXT
More than eight decades after his family was unceremoniously thrown
out of Turkey, thousands of mourners came in September to pay homage
to Ertugrul Osman, the oldest heir to the Ottoman throne, who died at
97 after having lived most of his life in exile in a modest Manhattan
apartment above a bakery.
Mr. Osman, an opera-loving businessman who at one time kept 12 dogs in
his home, was the grandson of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. He was given a
funeral worthy of his royal lineage in the garden of the majestic
Sultanahmet Mosque. Government officials and celebrities competed with
pious Muslims to kiss the hands of surviving dynasty members, who
appeared genuinely shocked at the outpouring of adulation.
Historians said the reverence for the man who might have ruled an
empire marked a seminal moment in the rehabilitation of the Ottoman
era, long demonized in the modern Turkish Republic created by Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk in 1923 because of the empire's decadence and
humiliating defeat and partition by Allied armies in World War I.
Sociologists said Mr. Osman's send-off was just the latest
manifestation of a new ''Ottomania'' overtaking Turkey - a harking
back to an era of conquest, influence and cultural splendor in which
the Ottoman sultans ruled an empire stretching from the Balkans to the
Indian Ocean, claiming spiritual leadership of the Muslim world. At
the apex of their power in the 16th and 17th centuries, they governed
what was then arguably one of the most powerful states on earth.
''Turks are attracted to the heroism and the glory of the Ottoman
period because it belongs to them,'' said the director of Topkapi
Palace, Ilber Ortayli, who, as the keeper of the sumptuous residence
that housed the Ottoman sultans for 400 years, is also the zealous
unofficial gatekeeper of the country's Ottoman legacy. ''The sultans
hold a place in the popular consciousness like Douglas MacArthur or
General Patton have for Americans.''
The current vogue of all things Ottoman, from the proliferation of
historic docudramas to the popularity of porcelain ashtrays adorned
with half-naked harem women, is manifesting itself in different ways,
some of which would surely have made a real sultan blanche.
During Ramadan, Burger King introduced a special ''Like a dream
Sultan'' menu, featuring Ottoman staples like Ayran, a popular Turkish
yogurt drink. In the television commercial promoting the meal, a
turbaned Janissary, or elite Ottoman soldier, exhorts viewers not to
''leave any burgers standing'' - just as Ottoman soldiers had been
ordered not to leave any heads standing on the necks of their enemies.
Ottomania has also infected the nation's youth; twentysomethings at
hip dance clubs here can be seen wearing T-shirts emblazoned with
slogans like ''The Empire Strikes Back'' or ''Terrible Turks'' - the
latter turning the taunt Europeans once used against their Ottoman
invaders into a defiant symbol of self-affirmation.
Kerim Sarc, 42, owner of Ottoman Empire T-Shirts, noted that the
nostalgia for a mighty empire that once reached the gates of Vienna
reflected a backlash by Turks humiliated by Europe's seeming
unwillingness to accept them. ''We Turks are tired,'' he said, ''of
being treated in Europe like poor, backward peasants.''
The Ottoman renaissance is equally prevalent in the nation's highest
political circles, where the Muslim-inspired ruling Justice and
Development government has been aggressively courting former Ottoman
colonies, including Iraq and Syria, in a reorientation of foreign
policy toward the east that some Turkish analysts have labeled as
''Neo-Ottoman.''
That shift has alarmed some in Europe and Washington, where Prime
Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan will meet with President Barack Obama at
the White House on Monday, seeking to reassure him that Turkey has not
abandoned its Western course.
It is a sign of the Ottoman Empire's continuing hold on the popular
imagination that when Mr. Erdogan publicly rebuked the Israeli
president, Shimon Peres, over the war in Gaza, at a debate at Davos,
Switzerland, last January, he was greeted enthusiastically by his
supporters back in Turkey with the chant, ''Our Fatih is back!'' The
allusion was to Fatih Sultan Mehmet II, the towering and heroic sultan
who at age 21 conquered Constantinople, now Istanbul, in 1453.
Pelin Batu, co-host of a popular television history program, argued
that the glorification of the Ottoman era by a government with roots
in political Islam reflected a revolt against the secular cultural
revolution undertaken by Ataturk, who outlawed the wearing of Islamic
head scarves in state institutions and abolished the Ottoman-era
Caliphate, the spiritual head of Sunni Islam.
''Ottomania is a form of Islamic empowerment for a new Muslim
religious bourgeoisie,'' she said, ''who are reacting against
Ataturk's attempt to relegate religion and Islam to the sidelines.''
While Ottomania has paradoxically united secular nationalists and
religious Muslims alike, not everyone welcomes the phenomenon. Some
critics accuse its proponents of glossing over the empire's decline
and of glorifying an anachronistic system that, at the very least, in
its later years, had been mired by financial ruin, corruption and
infighting. The massacre of Ottoman Armenians in 1915 stands as a
particular dark spot in the history of the empire.
''The religious Muslims now in power are trying to feed the Turkish
people an Ottoman poison,'' said Sada Kural, 45, a housewife and
staunch supporter of Ataturk. ''The Ottoman era wasn't a good period -
we were the Sick Man of Europe, rights were suppressed and women only
got the vote after Ataturk came to power.''
Mr. Ortayli, the director of Topkapi Palace, argued that the attempt
by some religious Muslims to appropriate the Ottoman period for
political ends smacked of revisionism. The empire, he said, had
combined both Islamic law and a civil code, had granted autonomy to
religious minorities and had looked West as well as East. ''Those who
are trying to misuse the Ottoman period are little more than parvenus
and poseurs,'' he said.
Murat Ergin, a sociologist at Koc University in Istanbul, noted that
those buying Ottoman history books or hanging $5 fake Ottoman
miniatures in their homes were not actually reading the books.
''Ottomania,'' he said, ''is turning the Ottoman era into a theme
park.''
While some bemoan what they consider the crude commercialization of a
nation's history, others like Cenan Sarc, 97, who was 10 years old at
the time of the empire's collapse in 1922 and is the descendant of an
Ottoman pasha, cautioned against idealizing an era of dictatorship.
Mrs. Sarc recalled her idyllic childhood in an old Ottoman mansion on
the Bosphorus, a poetic time, she said, when fathers ruled, mothers
stayed at home and Islam held sway. But, she insisted, ''we can never
go back to that time.''
Ertugrul Osman, the Ottoman heir, himself had accepted obscurity. When
he visited Turkey in 1992, for the first time in 53 years, and went to
see the 285-room Dolmabahce Palace, which had been his grandfather's
home, he insisted on joining a public tour group.
Asked if he dreamed about restoring the empire, he emphatically
answered no. ''Democracy,'' he once said, ''works well in Turkey.''
December 4, 2009 Friday
Turkey revels in its past;
'Ottomania' is uniting secular nationalists and religious Muslims alike
by Dan Bilefsky
ABSTRACT
The latest manifestation of a new "Ottomania" overtaking Turkey is
harking back to an era of conquest, influence and cultural splendor in
which sultans ruled an empire stretching from the Balkans to the
Indian Ocean.
FULL TEXT
More than eight decades after his family was unceremoniously thrown
out of Turkey, thousands of mourners came in September to pay homage
to Ertugrul Osman, the oldest heir to the Ottoman throne, who died at
97 after having lived most of his life in exile in a modest Manhattan
apartment above a bakery.
Mr. Osman, an opera-loving businessman who at one time kept 12 dogs in
his home, was the grandson of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. He was given a
funeral worthy of his royal lineage in the garden of the majestic
Sultanahmet Mosque. Government officials and celebrities competed with
pious Muslims to kiss the hands of surviving dynasty members, who
appeared genuinely shocked at the outpouring of adulation.
Historians said the reverence for the man who might have ruled an
empire marked a seminal moment in the rehabilitation of the Ottoman
era, long demonized in the modern Turkish Republic created by Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk in 1923 because of the empire's decadence and
humiliating defeat and partition by Allied armies in World War I.
Sociologists said Mr. Osman's send-off was just the latest
manifestation of a new ''Ottomania'' overtaking Turkey - a harking
back to an era of conquest, influence and cultural splendor in which
the Ottoman sultans ruled an empire stretching from the Balkans to the
Indian Ocean, claiming spiritual leadership of the Muslim world. At
the apex of their power in the 16th and 17th centuries, they governed
what was then arguably one of the most powerful states on earth.
''Turks are attracted to the heroism and the glory of the Ottoman
period because it belongs to them,'' said the director of Topkapi
Palace, Ilber Ortayli, who, as the keeper of the sumptuous residence
that housed the Ottoman sultans for 400 years, is also the zealous
unofficial gatekeeper of the country's Ottoman legacy. ''The sultans
hold a place in the popular consciousness like Douglas MacArthur or
General Patton have for Americans.''
The current vogue of all things Ottoman, from the proliferation of
historic docudramas to the popularity of porcelain ashtrays adorned
with half-naked harem women, is manifesting itself in different ways,
some of which would surely have made a real sultan blanche.
During Ramadan, Burger King introduced a special ''Like a dream
Sultan'' menu, featuring Ottoman staples like Ayran, a popular Turkish
yogurt drink. In the television commercial promoting the meal, a
turbaned Janissary, or elite Ottoman soldier, exhorts viewers not to
''leave any burgers standing'' - just as Ottoman soldiers had been
ordered not to leave any heads standing on the necks of their enemies.
Ottomania has also infected the nation's youth; twentysomethings at
hip dance clubs here can be seen wearing T-shirts emblazoned with
slogans like ''The Empire Strikes Back'' or ''Terrible Turks'' - the
latter turning the taunt Europeans once used against their Ottoman
invaders into a defiant symbol of self-affirmation.
Kerim Sarc, 42, owner of Ottoman Empire T-Shirts, noted that the
nostalgia for a mighty empire that once reached the gates of Vienna
reflected a backlash by Turks humiliated by Europe's seeming
unwillingness to accept them. ''We Turks are tired,'' he said, ''of
being treated in Europe like poor, backward peasants.''
The Ottoman renaissance is equally prevalent in the nation's highest
political circles, where the Muslim-inspired ruling Justice and
Development government has been aggressively courting former Ottoman
colonies, including Iraq and Syria, in a reorientation of foreign
policy toward the east that some Turkish analysts have labeled as
''Neo-Ottoman.''
That shift has alarmed some in Europe and Washington, where Prime
Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan will meet with President Barack Obama at
the White House on Monday, seeking to reassure him that Turkey has not
abandoned its Western course.
It is a sign of the Ottoman Empire's continuing hold on the popular
imagination that when Mr. Erdogan publicly rebuked the Israeli
president, Shimon Peres, over the war in Gaza, at a debate at Davos,
Switzerland, last January, he was greeted enthusiastically by his
supporters back in Turkey with the chant, ''Our Fatih is back!'' The
allusion was to Fatih Sultan Mehmet II, the towering and heroic sultan
who at age 21 conquered Constantinople, now Istanbul, in 1453.
Pelin Batu, co-host of a popular television history program, argued
that the glorification of the Ottoman era by a government with roots
in political Islam reflected a revolt against the secular cultural
revolution undertaken by Ataturk, who outlawed the wearing of Islamic
head scarves in state institutions and abolished the Ottoman-era
Caliphate, the spiritual head of Sunni Islam.
''Ottomania is a form of Islamic empowerment for a new Muslim
religious bourgeoisie,'' she said, ''who are reacting against
Ataturk's attempt to relegate religion and Islam to the sidelines.''
While Ottomania has paradoxically united secular nationalists and
religious Muslims alike, not everyone welcomes the phenomenon. Some
critics accuse its proponents of glossing over the empire's decline
and of glorifying an anachronistic system that, at the very least, in
its later years, had been mired by financial ruin, corruption and
infighting. The massacre of Ottoman Armenians in 1915 stands as a
particular dark spot in the history of the empire.
''The religious Muslims now in power are trying to feed the Turkish
people an Ottoman poison,'' said Sada Kural, 45, a housewife and
staunch supporter of Ataturk. ''The Ottoman era wasn't a good period -
we were the Sick Man of Europe, rights were suppressed and women only
got the vote after Ataturk came to power.''
Mr. Ortayli, the director of Topkapi Palace, argued that the attempt
by some religious Muslims to appropriate the Ottoman period for
political ends smacked of revisionism. The empire, he said, had
combined both Islamic law and a civil code, had granted autonomy to
religious minorities and had looked West as well as East. ''Those who
are trying to misuse the Ottoman period are little more than parvenus
and poseurs,'' he said.
Murat Ergin, a sociologist at Koc University in Istanbul, noted that
those buying Ottoman history books or hanging $5 fake Ottoman
miniatures in their homes were not actually reading the books.
''Ottomania,'' he said, ''is turning the Ottoman era into a theme
park.''
While some bemoan what they consider the crude commercialization of a
nation's history, others like Cenan Sarc, 97, who was 10 years old at
the time of the empire's collapse in 1922 and is the descendant of an
Ottoman pasha, cautioned against idealizing an era of dictatorship.
Mrs. Sarc recalled her idyllic childhood in an old Ottoman mansion on
the Bosphorus, a poetic time, she said, when fathers ruled, mothers
stayed at home and Islam held sway. But, she insisted, ''we can never
go back to that time.''
Ertugrul Osman, the Ottoman heir, himself had accepted obscurity. When
he visited Turkey in 1992, for the first time in 53 years, and went to
see the 285-room Dolmabahce Palace, which had been his grandfather's
home, he insisted on joining a public tour group.
Asked if he dreamed about restoring the empire, he emphatically
answered no. ''Democracy,'' he once said, ''works well in Turkey.''