Organization: Penn State University
Date: Friday, 17 Apr 1992 06:21:56 EDT
From: <PXP111@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.turkish
Subject: Response on Ottomans-Greeks was OK.






*   This Text is written by   * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
*      Andronikos Romanos and is                                        *
*           directed primarily to Ahmet                                 *
*               Parlakbilek making some final                           *
*                    remarks and thanking him for                       *
*                        eventually saying the KEY-WORDS                *
* 1.INTRODUCTION             in the dispute they had about a            *
* 2.THE OBJECTIVE                 policy of the Ottoman Empire:         *
* 3.FINALLY THE ANSWER                Turkification of young Greeks.    *
* 4.EPILOQUE                                                            *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *



1)      I  N  T  R  O  D  U  C  T  I  O  N
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Ahmet, I responded to your comments over my text in good faith. Yet,read-
ing your most recent response in the network,  I could not help  feeling
-that this time- you were trying to avoid the point:  So many words & ex-
pressions!  With all the long accounts, you sounded as Mr.Mutlu whenever
he becomes by far irrelevant...

                          Ahmet:
This was THE ARGUMENT    >The Ottomans never took  "the 1 to 2 youngs of
you  directed towards    >every family",if you had the chance to read so-
me when we started to    >me unbiased sources,  you would see that those
correspond...            >kids were the ones without parents and they we-
                         >re raised by the state.

I USED SUCH SOURCES Ahmet. Non-Greek as you told me and namely:
--> The American scholar A.H.Lybyer:"The Government of the Ottoman Empire
    in the Time of Suleiman the Magnificent" and thank you for the corre-
    ction in the pages. They are:  36,45-46,57-58.
--> A.J.Toynbee "Study of History" pp 175-176, 575 (which was issued un-
    der the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs  and
    later by the Oxford University Press, Inc in some 11 editions in USA
    from 1946 until 1951..only).
--> R.H.Davison (prof.of history in G.Washington Univers.): "Turkey"(Pre-
    ntice-Hall 1968, Inc pp 39-40).
                                      Ahmet:
I do NOT think you should DISMISS    >You can find lots of such "scholar"
Toynbee as irrelevant for he act-    >works,explaining how cruel and bar-
ually reiterates the very extract    >bars the Turks were,how bad the Ot-
of Lybyer.  If you don't know him    >tomans and Islam was etc. etc. You
as a scientist... then don't make    >know the usual propaganda under the
judgments of the type:               >the cover of history science..."

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE Ahmet?
You would not accept Greek sources as biased propaganda! Now these texts!
Tell me then: Why did you ever ask for a response?


                                  * * *

2)      T  H  E     O  B  J  E  C  T  I  V  E
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

DID THE OTTOMANS TAKE THE CHRISTIAN KIDS: "YES" OR "NO" ?  This should be
                                         the Objective of the discussion.
The answers is obvious: A sound YES according to the historians I mentio-
ned above. No matter how you see it, you can no longer say "It never hap-
pened" as easily as you claimed it in the beginning.  Serious people say
it. Check it yourself.

Lybyer & Toynbee:  "...Grandly disregarding the fabric of fundamental cu-
                   stoms which is called "human nature",  and those reli-
gious & social prejudices which are thought to be almost as deep as  life
itself, the Ottoman system  TOOK CHILDREN (capital letters are mine)  for
ever from parents,  discouraged  family  cares among its  members through
their most active years, allowed them NO CERTAIN HOLD upon property, gave
them NO definite promise.. raised and lowered them with no regard for an-
cestry or previous distinction, taught them a strange law, ethics and re-
ligion, and ever kept them conscious of a SWORD RAISED ABOVE THEIR HEADS
which might put an end at any moment to a brilliant career along a match-
less path of human glory..."

Toynbee adds to the description:  "The Osmanlis so...solved their problem
        by treating their new subjects as human flocks and herbs..."

Davison:   "...a system of levying  a tribute of boys from Christian sub-
           jects was organized. This  (refering to the Christian boys and
not to the first Yanissaries)  may have started under Murad I, though the
origin is not clear; under Murad II the conscripting system known as dev-
shirme (collecting) seems to have become institutionalized.  About every
five years boys in their teens or younger were taken from Christian fami-
lies,screened,tested,trained in various schools, and then enrolled in the
Janissary corps...Though it is often stated that the levy applied only to
Balkan Christians  -and certainly the bulk were  Balkan Greeks, Slavs, or
Albanians-  it is now clear that the levy was also applied to Anatolia at
least from the mid-fifteenth century. Janissaries were required to remain
unmarried, though in Suleyman's time this rule was broken. They constitu-
ted a very effective fighting force and were  feared by  opponents of the
Ottomans;  in battles they were often held in  reserve until the  crucial
moment..."
                                         Ahmet:
Remember Ahmet: It was YOU and NOT ME   >...The Ottomans were  no angels,
that used the following words:          >but they were not definitely the
                                        >evil you presented...

                                          Ahmet:
YOU Ahmet EVALUATED the action as Evil   >Andro, before talking about hi-
AND NOT ME,  so please do not give me    >story,  you have to  realize  a
the advice:                              >fact:  History  is  past and it
                                         >should be evaluated in its time
You are basically/simply  answering to   >frame. If we go back some cent-
yourself. Discuss it esoterically with   >uries, I can show you cruelties
Ahmet if you want... but, don't  infer   >of "evil"  Europeans, Egyptians
that  you are "supposedly"  responding   >etc.  with  today's  values and
to me, here...  No  Ahmet!               >point of view.


                                  * * *

3)      F  I  N  A  L  L  Y    T  H  E     A  N  S  W  E  R
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
                                          Ahmet:
Ahmet CONCENTRATE on the simple issue    >The Yeniceri system in the Ot-
you asked me. I certainly know that..    >toman state goes back as far as
stuff and the rules of the Core, and     >Orhan Bey,son of Osman Bey who-
their battles you describe next...       >se name was associated with the
                                         >empire for about 7 centuries.."

Go on! Let us hope that these is some-   >"...the Ottoman era, obviously,
thing here providing us with the answ-   >was not a perfect ,  happy time
ers to the topic of Christian kids...    >for  most  nations under  their
                                         >rule, but the  comparison  with
                                         >other empires of the time  dis-
Allow me here to express the same dis-   >closes the fact that it was not
belief (if not more) as you expressed    >a disaster either..."
about the... Armenian Genocide..         >

But again...this isn't the core of the   >
argument so allow me to ask you to fo-   >
cus on it. OK?
                                          Ahmet:
DID IT HAPPEN OR NOT? If you can refute  >And overall,  you  present this
it say it and let us get it over with:   >short-lived (at most 2 centuri-
                                         >es out of 7) exception (law and
     S A Y    I T    M A N  !            >application) in your "synopsis"
                                         >as the sole example of your re-
     S A Y    I T    .. .. ..            >asoning about the ill-behaviour
                                         >of Ottoman  State  towards  the
     T W O   C E N T U R I E S  !        >non-Turkish (or non-Muslim) in-
                                         >habitants of an empire.
     T H A T   I S   A L L  !

     P E R I O D ..

     H O W   H A R D   C A N   T W O   C E N T U R I E S   B E  ?


                                  * * *

4)      E P I L O G U E
::::::::::::::::::::::::

THE TRUTH NOW: Two centuries of your "exception" and yet some Greeks ma-
               naged to survive! Don't get me wrong:I appreciate the ack-
nowledgement. It is not yours or anybody else's fault,  that my ancestors
suffered from people born before you. BUT, do not tell me: "IT never took
place" or that, I, Andronikos,  don't know history whereas you do! If you
want to claim that the system took a different path (than the one intend-
ed) for, say, 200 years ... I may buy that. Don't try to persuade me that
it never happened and obliterate it though.

BETWEEN SOPHISTRY AND PARODY:
                              Ahmet:
Let me GET this straight:    >Correct. I said Ottomans did not take "1-2
According to you,the phra-   >kids from every family".Can any reader show
se of Davison  (for exam-    >me a  single  reference  below  saying that
ple) about an institution    >this was the case?...
described: "About every 5    >There was NO way more than one kid was col-
years boys in their teens    >lected from a family according to law...
or younger were taken from   >Even if we accept your excerpts as-they-are
Christian families,screen-   >without any light on  the reasons & results
ed,tested..enrolled in the   >of important events and sociology  of empi-
the Janissary corps...)      >re, you fail to show a single source menti-
Yes....                      >oning .
..ALL this PHRASE.. SELF-    >This is distortion,  or better to say self-
REFUTES the one you have     >refuting, Mr.
in quotation marks ??????
It refutes/distorts a sentence: "1-2 kids from every family" I used!...
Is this what you are trying to tell me? I am almost spellbound!

CONTRADICTIONS:
--> I guess it must be the last thing I'd imagine to hear in my life.
--> With all seriousness... Let me ask you something Ahmet:
    Why do you try so hard to disprove Hasan Mutlu?    He just flooded us
    the other day with all the stuff about the superior education in Tur-
    kiye... You just blew it!
--> Am I to understand...emm...that the process of collecting young Chri-
    stians every 5 years  CONRTADICTS  the possibility o f getting 2 Kids
    per family within this time span...
--> Could it be because the Ottoman Ruler wasn't supposed to get two chi-
    dren per family according to the rules "One kid per family" you just
    stated above?
--> Just out of curiosity Ahmet: Are these the same rules that had a 200
    year exception?  Forgetful me!
--> The thing that still escapes me Ahmet is how  "the 1-2 kids per fami-
    ly" contradicts the  possibility of  "1 child per family according to
    the  the regulations" ,you say, existed!
--> I would assume that the one is a subset of the other...
--> Where exactly do you see the "Self Refuting" here?
--> Boy! These Turkish Calculus must be really amazing!!!

Serious Arguments get Serious Responses as before...Ahmet.
The last "crop" though (about my! contradiction) was not even close...
Nice joke so I continued the fun a bit.                        Take Care!
                                                               Andronikos