Re-establish the Ottoman Empire?

[Ancyrean]

Originally posted by paiktis22
Merhaba Ancyrean

What I'm saying is:
for example we fought the Bulgarians. Brutally. Are there bad feelings between us? No.

I stay with your point but I must confess after spending three years in Thessaloniki my answer to this one tends to be "yes"...Bulgarian atrocities are not forgotten in Greece and vice versa, as it is my impression from my Bulgarian acquaintenances

Originally posted by paiktis22
We were occupied by the Germans. hundrends of thousands died in that war. Are there bad feelings towards them? No.

You were doing something seriosuly wrong and exceptionally brutal and inhumane to have such a bad image not only in the balkan peoples but also worldwide.

Why this image was made is not folklore but real suffering. I refer you to the lenghty article I posted for this suffering.

I think all you do is simply cover your eyes

Germans stayed only for 4 years...Bulgarians and Greeks never dominated each other conclusively... Whereas the Turks ruled the Balkans for half a millenia. Obviously, the extraordinary length of this time is resentful for countries (national identities?) who would like to see a more glorious national history (with empires, victories and all the jazz that would theoretically have happened were it not for the Turks).

All wars of independence are brutal (even the American revolution), and the wars of independence of the Balkan peoples were certainly brutal too. The trauma of that struggle and the relief of achieving the unthinkable (after 500 years), newly independent states and peoples could not but hate having to go through that...And that brutal experience is transferred to the whole length of the Ottoman rule, as if every single day of every year of "Ottoman yoke" was as bloody and tumultous as the time of revolution...This is the misperception, as testified by the historical account of comparative Ottoman attitude towards Christians...

[Bereta_Eder]

What you say doesn't make sense I'm afraid Ancyrean.

Even the fact that there was a rebelion only points towards that suffering and the will to end it.

[Bereta_Eder]

And I wouldn't call it a misperception but a fact. Wether the suffering was everyday or not is up for debate but doesn't really change much.

Let's take the armenians. You say it was a war, the world says it's genocide. Have you thought that maybe there is some truth to that?

beautifying is not good IMO. taking full responsibility (as the germans did for example) is the way to go.

I can see it is difficult because it affects geopolitics and political aims even now (i.e. Kurds). Maybe later it won't be so hard on all accounts.

Altough I'll concede the lack of tolerance took a heavy twist for the worse after Ataturk and the asia minor disaster (for us), liberation war (for you ) and the emmergance of Turkish nationalism. But saying everything was just peachy before... well it certaintly wasn't That's why it's was called slavery and not "citizenship" or something to that effect.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


You didn't get to be a Janisarry until you converted. .

Garbage. Boys were taken from their (Christian) families between the ages of 7 and 10 to be trained for the Janissary corps. They were not converted first.

Furthermore, I know this story has to be false, as the practice of making eunichs is forbidden in Islam. Eunichs were purchased from Chrisitan states

Garbage. The practice of using eunuchs to serve the Sultan's palace continued up to the 20th century. Non-eunuchs could not be trusted with the Sultan's harem. Which Christian state do you think was selling eunuchs to the Turks throughout the 19th century?

This is not to say they were treated as equals by the Moslems. The difference between how a Christian was treated by the Empire and how a Moslem was treated by the Habsburgs was emense. The Christian lords had to build forts in order to keep peasants from fleeing to the Turks. At the same time, Christian peasants found life under the Turks much easier, as taxes decreased from 50% to 8% when the Latin lords were replaced by Moslem ones.

Really? Could you imagine living in a land where your word was worthless in court against mine? The rules sound very much like good old southern segregation.

Jews, of course, found life in the Empire much better than in Europe (with the exception of the Union of Poland-Lithunania, which was similarly enlightened). Sephardic Jews flocked to the Empire in such numbers that until the Nazis conquest of Greece, Spanish was still spoken in Thessalonika.

Why then did the vast majority of Jews in Europe at the from the 16th to the 20th centuries live in Germany and Russia instead of the Balkans and Turkey?

[Bereta_Eder]

And the paidomazoma (children-snatching) was the most traumatizing torture for the christian mothers of all.

Anyway it was middle ages all around, no point arguing about it. The article I posted uses facts for those stubornly refusing to believe the obvious. They can read it or not.

On a personal note,
I don't know wether to feel sad or laugh about Ancyrean's position (I don't even count che's and molly's, they're for laughs).

I know he's a guy who, if he doesn't pretend, is a very reasonable fellow.

Proving a "european" profile for Turkey is important now so trying to disprove the horrours of the ottoman empire for the christian populations goes nicely in the whole package but I'm afraid it's the wrong road to follow.


Still, I do hope they make it and we can keep arguing with him over a nice greek/turkish cup of coffee wether that is in a nice cafetaria outside agia sophia or the acropolis. And may this be the "baddest incident" between Greece and Turkey to come.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Could you imagine living in a land where your word was worthless in court against mine?

It was the same in Christian countries. Non-christian testimony could not even be OFFERED against Christians.

Though in the whole, che, molly, and Ancyrean are totally correct. The Ottoman Empire was definetly more tolerant of other cultures than the Christian empires of the day. Compare the treatment of Muslims in the West with the Christians in the Ottoman Empire. I'd much rather be a Christian under the Turks, anyday.

[Saras]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Jews, of course, found life in the Empire much better than in Europe (with the exception of the Union of Poland-Lithunania, which was similarly enlightened).

LIETUVA!

[Saras]

Btw, playing tolerant Lithuanians in EU2 sucks arse.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by paiktis22
saying everything was just peachy before... well it certaintly wasn't That's why it's was called slavery and not "citizenship" or something to that effect.

Who's saying everything was just peachy?

Oh, wah, wah, children were snatched from their mothers by the mean old Turks. Ever hear of a little Italian town called Bari? It was the Byzatine's principle slave trading port. From here, the Orthodox Greeks sold millions of Slavs into slavery for hundreds of years (this is why the Slavs are called Slavs, btw), until the Norman, Robert Guiscard, took Southern Italy from the Greeks.

On the Byzantine-Seljik fronteer, the Greeks had their own version of the Gazi, whose name I cannot remember.

As for the horrible "child-snatching," please explain why families bribed officials to take their sons.

Why did the Greeks revolt? You say there must have been oppression. Look at the United States. Why did we revolt from Great Britain? Were we oppressed? We certainly said so, but compared to how the Brits treated their own, we were priveleged people. Also consider that until WWI, the Americans did not look upon the British kindly. Did the Brits do anything horrible to us to deserve how we felt about them? No, not really. But they were our former masters, so we hated them.

The truth is, until Catherine the Great decided she wanted to put her son on the throne of a resurrected Romania with its capital in Constantinople, the Greeks preffered Turkish rule to the rule of Christian states. How else can you explain the Greek revolt in the Morea against the Venetians when the Turks invaded in 1718? How can you explain the Cypriots and Cretens not only not lifting a finger to help the Venetians fight the Turks, but giving the Turks supplies. How do you think a Turkish army could have survived a 20 year naval blockade of Crete without the aid of Greeks. Why did so many Cretens willing convert to Islam to help fight the Venetians?

As for being recognized as villains worldwide, the truth is rather the opposite, pattycakes. The tolerance of the Ottomans wasn't for a "brief" moment, but from its founding in 1288 through the 18th Century.

Does that mean that the Ottomans were perfect? Hell no. Was anyone else better? No. Was anyone else equal? No. Was anyone else even close? Maybe the Dutch.

Dr.S I am aware that the Janisaries were taken as children. However, one didn't get to become a Janisary until one converted to Islam. You remained a low-level slave-boy, kapikulu, a page. Janisaries were the elite of the elite.

While I don't know how the Sultans got their eunichs in the 20th Century, I do know that the practice of making a eunich is forbidden in Islam, and that their eunichs were purchased from Christian states. Black eunichs came from Ethiopia. White eunichs were pruchased from Italy.

As for being a second class citizen, that is how it was back then. Could an Italian testify in court against a Englishman? Could a Jew testify against a Christian? No. No one is saying the Ottomans are a model of how to run an enlightened society. We are saying that compared to other Christian states of the period, with the exception of the last 100 years), they were more enlightened.

Finally, as to the Jews, I think you are incorrect. Most Jews in Europe at this time lived in Poland-Lithunania. Most Jews in the world lived in the Ottoman Empire. Bahdad had the largest Jewish population in the world. Yemen also had a large Jewish population.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Saras
Btw, playing tolerant Lithuanians in EU2 sucks arse.

Playing tolerant anything in EU2 sucks.

[GePap]

I think that Che, Ancyrean and Molly most defnitelly have provided the better proof and evidence of their contention.

The worse treatment of others in the Ottoman empire came when the Ottoman empire was weak and saw all its non-muslim communities as internal fifth columns threatening it as the aggressive European powers sought to take their lands.

[Lancer]

"He's a one trick pony"

Hey Paiktis! Making troll threads and wiggleing my ears. That's TWO tricks bub. Count em, TWO!

[Ramo]

What che, molly, and Ancyrean have said.

[Az]

Originally posted by paiktis22
.

nice gazabas.

[chequita guevara]

Let us consider Elizibethan England. We look back on this period as one in which England was coming in to its own. It valientaly fought off the mighty Spanish Armada. Elizibethan masquerades are popular, period pieces are popular. It was when Shakespear began writing.

It was also a time of fierce anti-Catholic repression. You could be totured and burned alive for being suspected of Catholicism. People had specially built secret rooms to hide priests from the Queen's men. The penalty for theft was hanging. It was a miserable, nasty, scary place.

I don't hear anyone complaining about the brutality of England (except the Irish).