I didn't know Jaron writes for the New York Times now! :o
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/weekinreview/29ottoman.html
Quote
Can Turkey Unify the Arabs?
By ANTHONY SHADID
Published: May 28, 2011
LESS than a mile from the Syrian frontier, in the land of Kemal Ataturk, Ahmed Sheikh Said defies the identities that borders inspire.
Mr. Said was born in the Syrian town of Azaz and raised across a line on the map in Kilis, Turkey. A grocer, he speaks Turkish like a native to his customers, while holding an ear open to the Arabic telecasts of Al Jazeera playing in his store. His wife and his mother are Turkish, but Arab blood runs through his veins, he says, "till the end of time."
"The bread of Azaz comes from Kilis, and the bread of Kilis comes from Azaz," said Mr. Said, whose shop sits just off a road that once carried the business of the far-flung Ottoman Empire and now marks Turkey's limits. "We're the same. We're brothers. What really divides us?"
As the Arab world beyond the border struggles with the inspirations and traumas of its revolution — a new notion of citizenship colliding with the smaller claims of piety, sect and clan — something else is percolating along the old routes of that empire, which spanned three continents and lasted six centuries before Ataturk brought it to an end in 1923 with self-conscious revolutionary zeal.
It is probably too early to define identities emerging in those locales. But something bigger than its parts is at work along imperial connections that were bent but never broken by decades of colonialism and the cold war. The links are the stuff of land, culture, history, architecture, memory and imagination that remains the realm of scholarship and daily lives but often eludes the notice of a journalism marching to the cadence of conflict.
Even amid the din of the upheaval in the Arab world, that new sense of belonging represents a more pacific and perhaps more powerful undertow pulling in directions that call into question more parochial notions. The undertow intersects with the Arab revolution's search for a new sense of self; it also builds on economic forces now reconnecting an older imperium, as well as on Turkey's new dynamism and on efforts to bring reality to what has long been nostalgia.
Its echoes are heard in the borderlands like Gaziantep, near Mr. Said's shop, where businessman can haggle in a patois of English, Turkish, Arabic and even Kurdish. It is seen in the blurring of arbitrary lines where the Semitic script of Arabic and Kurdish tangles with the Latin script of Turkish across the borders with Syria and Iraq. It is noticed along the frontiers where Arab and Turkish nationalism, pan-Islamism and a host of secular ideologies never seemed to quite capture the ambitions or demarcate the environments of the diverse peoples who live there.
"The normalization of history," proclaims the Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, whose government has tried to reintegrate the region by lifting visa requirements and promoting a Middle Eastern trade zone, as it deploys its businessmen along the old routes and exports Turkey's pop culture to an eager audience.
"None of the borders of Turkey are natural," he went on. "Almost all of them are artificial. Of course we have to respect them as nation-states, but at the same time we have to understand that there are natural continuities. That's the way it's been for centuries."
There is admittedly a hint of romanticism in it all. The Arab world may in fact be bracing for years of sectarian and internecine strife in places like Yemen, Bahrain, Libya and Syria. And in seeking to be a more prominent, and steadying, influence, Turkey's ambitions may well be greater than its means. Still, economic realities are already restoring old trajectories that joined the Kurdish regions of Turkey and Iraq, tied Batumi in Georgia to Trabzon in Turkey, and knit Aleppo into an axis of cities — Mosul, Diyarbakir, Gaziantep and Iskenderun — in which Damascus, the leading but distant Arab metropole, was an afterthought.
THE DRAWING OF 20TH-CENTURY BORDERS rendered traumas large and small. Sectarian and ethnic cleansing after World War I rid Turkey and Greece of much of their diversity. The horrors of nationalism and the Holocaust made Salonica, a celebrated melting pot, unrecognizable in its modern incarnation. Even history's footnotes were rewritten.
One example is Marjayoun, my family's ancestral hometown in Lebanon, nestled near the Israeli and Syrian borders in the heart of the old Ottoman realm, and little more than an afterthought on maps these days.
No one in Marjayoun would necessarily pine for the days of the Ottoman rulers. Massacres occurred, and Jews and Christians faced discrimination in taxes and commerce. There was no such thing as equality. To this day, the darkest moments of Marjayoun's history remain those last breaths of the empire — the seferberlik. It was the Ottoman name for the draft, but it came to represent the famine, starvation and death that World War I brought to the town, when the famished searched the manure of animals to find an undigested morsel of grain.
Yet more than a few in Marjayoun today might express a nostalgia for the time and place the Ottoman Empire represented, when Marjayoun's traders ventured to Arish on the coast of the Sinai Peninsula and down the Nile to Sudan, by way of Palestine. The town was a way station on the route from the breadbasket of the Houran in southern Syria to Acre, the Levant's greatest port on the coast of Palestine. Beirut was an afterthought. Marjayoun's traders plied the steppe of the Houran, its gentry owned land in the Hula Valley, and its educated ventured to Haifa and Jerusalem to make their reputations.
World War I and the borders that followed augured the demise of this style of life, and not just in Marjayoun. The ideologies that gained prevalence in the town then were about contesting those frontiers — Arab nationalism, pan-Syrian nationalism and Communism, which itself was imagining a broader community. These movements failed as more borders were drawn in wars with Israel in 1948 and 1967. And with those lines on the map came a smaller sense of self. By the time Lebanon's 15-year civil war began in 1975, ideologies had given way to identities, and most people in Marjayoun identified themselves simply as Christian, or perhaps Greek Orthodox, too unique to survive as a community.
A town of thousands is today a town of hundreds, strewn with the abandoned villas of another age. Hajar bala bashar, a friend once told me. "Stones without people."
"A RECREATION OF THE HISTORIC AND NATURAL ENVIRONMENT" is how Mr. Davutoglu describes his vision for the region. And indeed, that vision, which is effectively government policy, has touched in a nerve in Turkey, a country with its own unresolved questions of identity.
Just as Arab nationalism still runs run deep, with the fate of Palestine its axis, so does Turkish nationalism, which includes a sense that the country deserves a role in the region, and beyond that at least echoes of its Ottoman age. The more sophisticated Turks dismiss charges of a new rationale for Turkish imperialism and call the goal instead a peaceful partnership that might look like the free-trade zone that presaged the European Union after World War II.
"It's been almost 100 years that we've been separated by superficial borders, superficial cultural and religious borders, and now with the lifting of visas to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, we're lifting national boundaries," said Yusuf Yerkel, a young academic on Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's staff. "Turkey is challenging the traditional understanding of policy in the Middle East in place since the 20th century."
More than the talk of a salon, the vision comes at an obvious turning point in the Middle East. Though dealt setbacks by the Arab revolution — investments have been lost in Libya and the prospect of chaos stalks Syria — Turkey has stuck to its vision of an integrated region. A railway line linking Turkey, Syria and Iraq reopened last year; a fast train is to operate between Gaziantep and Aleppo. The resources of northern Iraq are strategic for Turkey's plans to diversify its energy sources and to feed a pipeline from Turkey to central Europe. A common free-trade area has already been agreed upon by Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.
Turkish television series are dubbed into Syrian Arabic, and its stars' posters sell by the tens of thousands in Iraq. In Baghdad, portraits of one famous actor are digitally altered to show him in traditional Kurdish or Arab dress.
Across the region, the Arab revolution has inspired a rethinking of identity, even as older notions of self hang like a specter over the revolts' success. In its most pristine, the revolution feels transnational, as demands of justice, freedom and dignity are expressed in a technology-driven globalism. It echoes even in Turkey, where religious and national divides are increasingly blurred. Selcuk Sirin, a professor at New York University who has done extensive polling in Turkey, especially among youth, calls this the emergence of "hybrid identities."
"Young people don't buy into this idea of a clash, and they don't buy into this idea of fixed identity," he said. "They know how to negotiate these so-called polar opposites, and they're looking for something new."
THERE WAS A MOVIE more than a decade ago in Turkey called "Propaganda," a dark comedy about the border drawn between Syria and Turkey, dividing family from family. It was inspired by the reality of relatives heading to the fence there on Muslim holidays — Bayram in Turkish, Id in Arabic — and throwing gifts to the other side.
These days, with the border effectively open, Syrians fill the hotels on weekends in Gaziantep, which is famous for its pistachios. Some merchants here talk about their trade growing tenfold since visa requirements were lifted. Debates rage over whether the kebab of Gaziantep is better than the kibbe in Aleppo.
Turks may still call a mess "Arab hair." But they also judge a gift by the standards of "apricots in Damascus." And the old notions of Ottoman tyranny (from the Arab point of view) and Arab betrayal in World War I (as Turks see it) have given way somewhat to the promise of profit in a market still booming even amid the uprising across the border.
Hakan Cinkilic, foreign trade manager of a plastics company called Sun Pet, is reaping the benefits. Nearly 80 percent of its products go to Iraq, and the company set up a factory in Jordan last year. Its exports have more than doubled since 2008. This year he has already traveled to Libya, the United States, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
As he spoke, his cellphone rang. It was a customer in Kirkuk, Iraq, who spoke to him in Turkish. A few minutes later, a businessman called from the West Bank. The conversation unfolded in English, punctuated by Arabic expressions inflected by the vowels of his native tongue. You wouldn't call him neo-Ottoman, given the term's suggestion of a resurgent imperialism. He's not really Levantine, an identity whose borders hug the Mediterranean coast. He seemed post-Ottoman, reinterpreting the past.
"It's natural," he said simply.
FFS I wont even read it: they tried it for centuries. They failed. Move the fuck on, Turkey!
Not even Arabs managed to unify the Arabs for long.
It takes more than assfucking Peter O'Toole to unify the Arabs.
Why would they want to?
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on May 30, 2011, 09:56:27 AM
Why would they want to?
Nationalists are funny creatures to whom logic and reason has little meaning
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on May 30, 2011, 09:56:27 AM
Why would they want to?
Why?
We have to unify Earth, and the Arabs are the last unglobalized society/culture.
They need to learn tolerance, and that can only be learnt through war and suffering.
They need their 30 years war, and for that they need the hunger for unification.
What a crock of shit. :lol:
One Turkey does not a Spring make.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on May 30, 2011, 02:57:56 PM
What a crock of shit. :lol:
You do realize trhe alternative, right?
Kill all the muslims!
You wanna know the truth?
There is no room for Islam in a globalized society/planet.
Islam have to go.
Islam will never modernize, they will never tolerate tolerance.
Muslims will either become atheist or join a diferent, modernized, tolerant, religion.
Tolerance doesn't spring from war, or it would have happened in prehistoric times. Also the Muslims with their Twitter-fueled revolutions are easily more globalized and modern than sub-Saharan Africa.
I think tolerance can spring from war. Europeans learned to be much more tolerant after the peace of Westphalia. The ghastly racial intolerance of the Nazis made a major impact on Europe and the US. The US Civil Rights campaigns may not have been as strong with out the specter of Hitler reminding everyone what intolerance can do. It wasn't instantaneous, but I think it made an impact.
The secret to creating tolerant societies has never been difficult to figure out: educate the women. I think you will find that every society with well-educated* women is a tolerant one with sustainable birth rates; every one without well-educated women is an intolerant society with unsustainable birth rates. And the transition comes with equal female education.
As someone said, this isn't rocket science.
*i.e. women who get primary education through professional degrees on a par with men.
Quote from: grumbler on May 31, 2011, 08:41:31 PM
The secret to creating tolerant societies has never been difficult to figure out: educate the women. I think you will find that every society with well-educated* women is a tolerant one with sustainable birth rates; every one without well-educated women is an intolerant society with unsustainable birth rates. And the transition comes with equal female education.
As someone said, this isn't rocket science.
*i.e. women who get primary education through professional degrees on a par with men.
But does women getting educated make society more tolerant, or is a more tolerant society more likely to allow/provide women to pursue higher education?
And not that I necessarily disagree with grumbles, but are there any examples of societies that educate their women (through professional degrees on par with men) other than western Europe/NAm/Australia?
Quote from: Barrister on June 01, 2011, 12:18:59 AM
And not that I necessarily disagree with grumbles, but are there any examples of societies that educate their women (through professional degrees on par with men) other than western Europe/NAm/Australia?
South American countries supposedly have a pretty good reputation for educating women but that might just have been by 3rd world standards. Professional degrees on par with men is a pretty high standard.
Quote from: grumbler on May 31, 2011, 08:41:31 PM
The secret to creating tolerant societies has never been difficult to figure out: educate the women. I think you will find that every society with well-educated* women is a tolerant one with sustainable birth rates; every one without well-educated women is an intolerant society with unsustainable birth rates. And the transition comes with equal female education.
As someone said, this isn't rocket science.
*i.e. women who get primary education through professional degrees on a par with men.
I think you may have stumbled upon the solution for those Western countries that are experiencing too much of a decline in birth rate. Keep the girls out of school! :smarty:
Quote from: Barrister on June 01, 2011, 12:18:59 AM
And not that I necessarily disagree with grumbles, but are there any examples of societies that educate their women (through professional degrees on par with men) other than western Europe/NAm/Australia?
Former Soviet Union. Not exactly a place known for it's tolerance.
Quote from: Valmy on June 01, 2011, 08:56:16 AM
Quote from: Barrister on June 01, 2011, 12:18:59 AM
And not that I necessarily disagree with grumbles, but are there any examples of societies that educate their women (through professional degrees on par with men) other than western Europe/NAm/Australia?
South American countries supposedly have a pretty good reputation for educating women but that might just have been by 3rd world standards. Professional degrees on par with men is a pretty high standard.
I think educational opportunities are pretty good for women in most of South America, but one might say that professional opportunities might be somewhat more limited for them than they are for women in the US & Europe. At the very least, there seems to be a lot less of an obsession with pushing women into non-traditional professions.
But that may well say more about us than them. The "OMG we gotta get more women into engineering!" thing always makes me laugh-- couldn't it just be that an engineering career just doesn't appeal to as many women?
Another refreshing thing about South Americans is that they don't pretend to like women's sports. I tried explaining Title IX to my mother in law & I don't think she even believed me that it exists.
Title IX is an abomination.
We need to force women to have 85 scholarship football programs. That will fix their little equality wagon.
I don't know wether a turkey sandwich is tasty enough to unite arabs. Maybe if it's made fro jewish turkey?
Quote from: Valmy on June 01, 2011, 09:33:51 AM
We need to force women to have 85 scholarship football programs. That will fix their little equality wagon.
Yeah, but then ESPN would feel compelled to waste valuable airtime with women's football, just like they do with women's basketball.
Having said that, I'd probably watch women's football under the right circumstances :ph34r:
Quote from: derspiess on June 01, 2011, 02:24:37 PM
Having said that, I'd probably watch women's football under the right circumstances :ph34r:
niece of my mayor (also a counselor's daughter. Brother in politics) is close to being in the lingerie league.
Quote from: Barrister on June 01, 2011, 12:18:59 AM
And not that I necessarily disagree with grumbles, but are there any examples of societies that educate their women (through professional degrees on par with men) other than western Europe/NAm/Australia?
Japan, Israel, Korea, Russia, and some of the Caribbean states like Barbados all spring to mind.
Quote from: HisMajestyBOB on May 31, 2011, 10:19:42 PM
But does women getting educated make society more tolerant, or is a more tolerant society more likely to allow/provide women to pursue higher education?
That's a good question. It pretty much started in Revolutionary France, though, and we saw the development of tolerant France and educated-female-France almost simultaneously. It would be interesting to see a study of how France's laws against female inheritance may have played into this, though.
Quote from: derspiess on June 01, 2011, 09:23:56 AM
But that may well say more about us than them. The "OMG we gotta get more women into engineering!" thing always makes me laugh-- couldn't it just be that an engineering career just doesn't appeal to as many women?
Not surprising that you would laugh at something complex.
You know, now that I'm reflecting on it, I don't think turkey can unify the Arabs. It is tasty, but I don't think any genuine peace can be built on lunch meats.
Quote from: HVC on June 01, 2011, 02:29:49 PM
niece of my mayor (also a counselor's daughter. Brother in politics) is close to being in the lingerie league.
pics plx
Quote from: garbon on June 02, 2011, 02:12:37 PM
Quote from: derspiess on June 01, 2011, 09:23:56 AM
But that may well say more about us than them. The "OMG we gotta get more women into engineering!" thing always makes me laugh-- couldn't it just be that an engineering career just doesn't appeal to as many women?
Not surprising that you would laugh at something complex.
Go on.
Quote from: derspiess on June 02, 2011, 02:18:58 PM
Quote from: garbon on June 02, 2011, 02:12:37 PM
Quote from: derspiess on June 01, 2011, 09:23:56 AM
But that may well say more about us than them. The "OMG we gotta get more women into engineering!" thing always makes me laugh-- couldn't it just be that an engineering career just doesn't appeal to as many women?
Not surprising that you would laugh at something complex.
Go on.
I took that as a compliment. It's clear that Garbon believes you have a sophisticated sense of humor.
Quote from: grumbler on May 31, 2011, 08:41:31 PM
The secret to creating tolerant societies has never been difficult to figure out: educate the women. I think you will find that every society with well-educated* women is a tolerant one with sustainable birth rates; every one without well-educated women is an intolerant society with unsustainable birth rates. And the transition comes with equal female education.
As someone said, this isn't rocket science.
*i.e. women who get primary education through professional degrees on a par with men.
Where does Russia lie on your tolerance scale?
If the Arabs ever unite nothing will be able to stand against them.
In some way it does make sense for Turkey to unify the Arabs. Geographically they're a right fit. There might be some problems that are cultural in nature, though. :hmm:
Quote from: DGuller on June 02, 2011, 02:26:22 PM
Where does Russia lie on your tolerance scale?
Somewhere between Slargos and a swarm of angry killer bees.
Quote from: HisMajestyBOB on May 31, 2011, 10:19:42 PM
But does women getting educated make society more tolerant, or is a more tolerant society more likely to allow/provide women to pursue higher education?
I have heard it said that the admission of women in large numbers into law school signficantly changed the way law was taught. Prior to them law was taught in a rather abusive manner - think the paperchase prof on steriods. When women were introduced to the classroom that kind of conduct was moderated.
Quote from: DGuller on June 02, 2011, 02:26:22 PM
Where does Russia lie on your tolerance scale?
Above South Africa or Ukraine, below Sweden or Switzerland.
Quote from: The Brain on June 02, 2011, 02:27:02 PM
If the Arabs ever unite nothing will be able to stand against them.
A united West?
Quote from: Siege on June 05, 2011, 01:34:21 PM
Quote from: The Brain on June 02, 2011, 02:27:02 PM
If the Arabs ever unite nothing will be able to stand against them.
A united West?
I was joking. A crippled pygmy could stand against them. They are incredibly backwards.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 02, 2011, 02:33:30 PM
Quote from: DGuller on June 02, 2011, 02:26:22 PM
Where does Russia lie on your tolerance scale?
Somewhere between Slargos and a swarm of angry killer bees.
Pffft. Surely it's easier to handle Russia than killer bees.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on June 05, 2011, 02:25:58 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 02, 2011, 02:33:30 PM
Quote from: DGuller on June 02, 2011, 02:26:22 PM
Where does Russia lie on your tolerance scale?
Somewhere between Slargos and a swarm of angry killer bees.
Pffft. Surely it's easier to handle Russia than killer bees.
Easier still to handle the cabinet salesmen.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 05, 2011, 03:14:18 PM
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on June 05, 2011, 02:25:58 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 02, 2011, 02:33:30 PM
Quote from: DGuller on June 02, 2011, 02:26:22 PM
Where does Russia lie on your tolerance scale?
Somewhere between Slargos and a swarm of angry killer bees.
Pffft. Surely it's easier to handle Russia than killer bees.
Easier still to handle the cabinet salesmen.
:lol:
Oh, Raz. At least you are trying.
I'll buy you a beer sometime. Regale you with stories of the wonders of cabinetry and the sales thereof.
You've been out of the cabinet for quite some time.
Quote from: derspiess on June 01, 2011, 02:24:37 PM
Yeah, but then ESPN would feel compelled to waste valuable airtime with women's football, just like they do with women's basketball.
ESPN has what, 6 channels now? They're "compelled" to air women's basketball like they're compelled to air bass fishing and rodeo.
That said, I agree Title IX is a travesty.