From: ahmet@eecg.toronto.edu (Ahmet Parlakbilek)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish,soc.culture.greek
Subject: Re: If Against Turkey? Then is a lie!
Date: 13 Apr 92 19:26:27 GMT
Organization: University of Toronto

In article <92101.052308PXP111@psuvm.psu.edu> <PXP111@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
[prelude deleted]
>
>A DISPUTE:  Ahmet Parlakbilek (Univ.Toronto)  got offended with the first
>            paragraph of my Part II followind the Ottoman conquest of the
>Byzantine Empire. I'll include the controversial paragraph & his remarks.

Before proceeding further, let me make a point clear. There is not a 
controversial paragraph, all your article related to Ottoman and Turkish
history is controversial and distorted. But, as I said, I have no time
to deal with all of them.

>
>  Andro: From now on,our story of the Hellenes will be largely associated
>         with this newcomers:the Turks. In the wake of conquest the rela-
>         tions of the two nations started with in worst possible way: The
>         Greeks, as the other conquered people of the  Balkans, Caucasia,
>         Mesopotamia, Arabia, Egypt...suffered similar deportations, exe-
>         cutions, oppression policies  much similar to the famous Armeni-
>         an genocide, as well as the so called  "tax of blood"   (a cruel
>         turkification policy of the  Ottomans  that  consisted of taking
>         the 1 to 2 youngs of  every family and putting them in  military
>         schools, transforming (brainwashing) them to: "genitzari"-muslim
>         troops used to suppress the Serbs, Bulgarians, and of course the
>         Greeks...).
>
>  Ahmet:Thanks for supplying us this garbage as a metrics to show how the
>        Greeks perceive the history.I have no time to deal with your well
>        known biases, but let me make a few points.
>        Everything  in the above paragraph is distorted,  but most can be
>        found in some anti-Turkish books..  The new and ridiculuous part,
>        however is the "blood tax".  There was nothing called "blood tax"
>        in the Ottoman Empire,everything was based on religion,not race..
>        There was a tax to non-Muslims,  not to non-Turks...  Most of the
>        wifes of the Ottoman Sultans were  Greeks and non-Turks converted
>        to Islam; if there was a "blood business", do you think that they
>        would marry a Greek?
>        The Ottomans never took  "the 1 to 2 youngs of every family",  if
>        you had the chance to read some  unbiased sources,  you would see
>        that those kids were the ones without parents and they were rais-
>        ed by the state.
>        Ottomans  were not angels, but they were not definitely the  evil
>        you present. However,thanks for presenting them as such evils, as
>        nobody having some common-sense believes in such distortion.
>        Actually, I like such articles..They make my point that the Greek
>        education system is the  cause  of all this distortion of history
>        and the hatred against Turks among the Greek people.   We read so
>        many of these articles that there is no doubt that it is a probl-
>        em of Greek education in general,  not a problem of Greek indivi-
>        duals.   Interested people  are advised to read the  articles and
>        books of Herkul Millas.
>        BTW,  your idea of  acceptance this  garbage as basis of  history
>        discussions,was a pure joke, right? Funny guy,I can only pity you
>        and alike...
>
>  Andro: I know that most of my Turkish friends are much kinder than you.
>         and such an attitude dosn't reflect your compatriots. I take it
>         that you tried to insult me with these:  "garbage", "funny guy",
>         "I can only pity you and alike".  All I will say is that it is a
>         matter of self respect.  I will not imitate you for it is not in
>         my character,but I will answer to your comments sentence by sen-
>         tence:

Self respect starts with respecting the truth, Andro. If you bring here 
distortions and your biased history account as the truth, I obviously
have the right to call it "garbage" and you "funny". If you are
offended, try to correct your history knowledge, not my behaviour.
Neither "garbage" nor "funny" is used as a way to insult you personally,
I don't even know you, they are the adjectives the article deserves. 

>         --> Yes, bay Parlakbilek: The Ottomans were no angels as you ob-
>             served  but it appears to me that you  can not  believe that
>             THEY COULD EVER ACTED as I described! Actually, you say:
>             "...but they were not definitely the  evil  you presented".
>             Remember,it is YOU that said that only evil people could ha-
>             ve acted such. Brace yourself then for a SURPRISE.

Andro, before talking about history, you have to realize a fact:
History is past and it should be evaluated in its time frame. If we go 
back some centuries, I can show you cruelties of "evil" Europeans, Egyptians
etc. with today's values and point of view. With today's values, Ottomans
can also be classified as "evils", they were thinking that all the population 
living in the empire were the "slaves" of Sultan. What a barbaric approach,
right? But, when you go back to fifteenth century and have some information
about the world conjecture, you would see that all socities were based on
a feudal slave/master structure. In this context, the freedom of religion,
language and some other freedom Ottomans provided to the "millet"s in the
empire, I think, deserves appreciation instead of degradation. Anyway, let's 
go on and see the facts.

>         --> I understand that you INFER that I am a product of the Greek
>             education system...but you can not possibly know me. Anyway!
>             You say that the Greek system  distorts  history in order to
>             make Greeks hate Turks. Let me say a three or four things:

Let me save this "education" part for another article. I will also cut and 
paste your three or four things to the end of discussion, as they seem 
more like conclusions and should be answered as such.

[three or four things are at the end of the article]

>         I know I wrote "Genitzari". It may by partially my fault you did
>         not recognize the word "Janissaries" or "Yenicheri" (new troops)
>         I think, in turkish.

I understood Yeniceri.

>         Never-the-less,You say that the Ottomans never took 1-2 kid from
>         the families as I wrote. Let as see:

Correct. I said Ottomans did not take "1-2 kids from every family". Can any
reader show me a single reference below saying that this was the case?
NO. Even if we accept your excerpts as-they-are, without any light on 
the reasons and results of important events and sociology of empire, you fail 
to show a single source mentioning "1-2 kids from every family". This 
is distortion, or better to say self-refuting, Mr.

>
>         The American scholar A.H.Lybyer writes in his "The Government of
>         the Ottoman Empire in the  Time of  Suleiman the Magnificent" in
>         pp36: "...Grandly disregarding the fabric of fundamental customs
>         which is called "human nature",and those religious & social pre-
>         judices which are thought to be almost as deep as lifeitself,the
>         Ottoman system TOOK CHILDREN (capital letters are mine) bold for
>         ever from  parents, discouraged  family  cares among its members
>         through their most active years,allowed them NO CERTAIN HOLD up-
>         on property,  gave them NO definite promise,  raised and lowered
>         them with no regard for ancestry or previous distinction, taught
>         them a strange law,ethics and religion, and ever kept them cons-
>         cious of a SWORD RAISED ABOVE THEIR HEADS which might put an end
>         at any  moment  to a brilliant career along  a matchless path of
>         human glory..."

This book was published in 1913. (I will explain the importance of date 
later.) And it does NOT have this quote on this page. You probably wrote 
wrong page number.

>
>        A.J.Toynbee USES and actually ADDS to THIS extract in his "Study
>        of History" (which was issued under the auspises of the Royal In-
>        stitute of International Affairs  and later by the Oxford Univer-
>        sity Press, Inc in some 11 editions in USA from 1946 until 1951..
>        only): pp575 "The Osmanlis so...solved their problem by treating
>        their new subjects as human flocks and herbs..."

Sorry, I did not have time to check this one, but your excerpt does not 
give us any hint about the phrase "1-2 kid from every family" and the `...'s
also tells me that the context is not clear.

>
>        R.H.Davison  (professor of history in G.Washington University) is
>        more descriptive:  "...a system of levying a tribute of boys from
>        Christian subjects was organized. This may have started under Mu-
>        rad I, though the origin is not clear;under Murad II the conscri-
>        pting system known as devshirme (collecting) seems to have become
>        institutionalized.  About EVERY FIVE YEARS boys in their teens or
>        younger were TAKEN from Christian families,screened,TESTED,train-
>        ed 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 Ana-
>        tolia at least from the mid-fifteenth century.  Janissaries were
>        required to remain unmarried, though in Suleyman's time this rule
>        was broken.  They constituted a very effective fighting force and
>        were feared by opponents of the Ottomans;in battles they were of-
>        ten held in reserve until the crucial moment..." From his book:
>        "Turkey" (Prentice-Hall 1968, Inc pp 39-40)

This is your best, but still poor source. Note; The author did not mention
under what circumstances kids were recruited and also did not give any
details about the background of this decision. 

Before going on further, some advices who wants to distort history:
If you would like to find any "scholar" work on Ottoman empire for your
distorting purposes, I urge you to read books written between 1800 and 1920s. 
You can find lots of such "scholar" works, explaining how cruel and barbars 
the Turks were, how bad the Ottomans and Islam was etc. etc. You know the
usual propaganda under the cover of history science.. More or less the same 
story, which you might remember during the cold war times with the 
communist x-USSR empire. Also, it would be better to check books whose
funds came from some sort of Christian source; they usually state this at
the start of the book.

>
>         You say you didn't know this. I don't want to say that it could
>probably reflect something about the DEPTH of the education you had on
>this particular subject. I will not even suggest anything about a whole
>educational system AS YOU DID some paragraphs above...And in no occasion
>do I connect it with the recent survey among Turkish MP's.

Don't make me laugh more, Andro. I was reading Ottoman History when you
were dealing with Greek-propaganda books. Let me give you a brief history
lecture on this topic and leave the decision of who-knows-what to the readers.
(This is the first and last lesson I will provide for you, if you don't 
understand, too bad; refer to books or other knowledgable people, I do not
have time for a second one.)

The Yeniceri system in Ottoman state goes back as far as Orhan Bey, son of
Osman Bey whose name was associated with the empire for about 7 centuries.
The Yeniceri army was made up of the volunteers at first and their income 
was based on the "timar" system, roughly the taxes of land and property 
invaded by them. The system proved itself in time and at the 
end of 14th century, before famous Nigbolu and Kosova I wars, Yeniceri
was the most elite part of the Ottoman Army. However, the expansioning
Empire needed more troops and the volunteers did not meet the demand.
According to Ottoman law, which was based on Islamic law (note: I am not
sure whether this is _exactly_ the way Sheria is interpreted), all the
POWs were accepted as slaves of the sultan.The first idea of recruiting
the POWs to fill the vacancies after some training was proposed by Molla
Kara Rustem (also known as Danismend == knowledgable). Molla told to the
Sultan Murat I that, according to Islamic law, one fifth of the POWs
belong to the Sultan and Sultan can use them in the way he wants. 
Sultan accepted this idea and 1 out of 5 POWs were received by the
Sultan. This is called "Pencik Resmi" meaning "one-fifth tax". Note that
the prisoners are already accepted as slaves and the ones chosen by
Sultan were used to fill the vacancies in the Yeniceri after some 
training. This is not the "collection" of young people you refer to.
The "Pencik" troops became very useful in the Nigbolu war of Yildirim
Bayezid. After this success, a school called "Acemi oglanlar ocagi" 
(inexperienced boys school) was founded. The prisoners, who were
to be slaves, wanted to become "Pencik", as they see the relatively
comfortable life of Yeniceri. Everything was fine until Ankara War.After the 
war of Ankara in 1402, in which Yildirim lost to Timur, the Yeniceri system 
almost collapsed, because there were no new Penciks coming to support the 
Yeniceri system. The Ottoman State had very hard times for a few decades.
All possible sources (ie recruiting the Muslim kids) were used to support the
system, but this did not suffice. At this time, Candarli Ali Pasa, a minister
came up with the idea of "Devsirme", the extension of "pencik" system to the 
whole country. He prepared a law to collect kids and teenagers to meet the 
demands of Yeniceri and state (for qualified officers etc.). Some important 
details of the law was as follows:

1. "Devsirme oglan" would be between the ages 8 and 18.
2. He should have good physical and mental health.
3. There is no predetermined frequency to collect "Devsirme oglan", it 
depends on the demand of the army and state.
4. Collection would be made all over or part of the state according to demand.
5. At once, at most one "Devsirme oglan" out of a household out of forty 
households could be subject to collection in a village or town.
6. The "Devsirme oglan" should be one of the at least two male kids of
the family.
7. The boy, who is the only male child of a family, can not be 
"Devsirme oglan" even if he satisfies all other conditions.
8. The boy, who is married, even if he is between 8 and 18 can not be a
"Devsirme oglan".
9. If there are orphans satisfying the above conditions in a village or town,
they would be drafted first.

The "devsirme"s were educated with the best possible resources. At the end
of their education, the best were chosen as "icoglan" (~page)(the most trusted 
men of Sultan) and became statesmen, judge etc., the remaining became
Yeniceri or regular state officers.  

The officers, who is supposed to choose the "Devsirme oglan" according to
the order of Sultan, was called "Turnacibasi". There was also a law to
prevent any misuse or abuse of the Devsirme law by the "Turnacibasi".

Devsirme law was applied for a long time before some "Turnacibasi"s misused 
their authority for choosing kids. They did (or did not) collect boys, if 
the family gives them some money etc... you know the long-living bribery.. 
Anyway, the system survived until 1640s. Finally the Sultan, cancelled this 
law and later even the Yeniceri system was totally closed down because 
of corruption.

The above might be found in a detailed book about Ottoman social system.
But let me give some excerpts to support my lines and to provide some more
details.

Stanford Shaw, "History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey", Vol. I
chapter 5, The Dynamics of Ottoman Society and Administration, page 114
"The devshirme levy normally was not applied to children in Istanbul 
or the other major cities of the empire. Nor were children of 
rural craftsmen recruited because of the fear that this would harm industry 
and trade. There is some evidence, however, that urban Christian and Muslim 
parents resorted to bribery or sending their children to the country
to assure the advancement in life that devsirme recruitment could bring.
Jews and Armenians seem to have been excluded entirely(*), perhaps because
of arrangements made with their millet leaders or perhaps simply because 
most of them lived in town. Exemptions also were given to rayas who served the
Sultan in some special way - as cultivators of his personal lands, laborers
in gold and silver mines or guards of major passes and road crossings.
The only Muslims regularly included were those of Bosnia. Most of them have 
converted to Islam after the Ottoman conquest and had particularly
requested inclusion of themselves and their descendants in the devsirme
as part of their arrangement with Mehmet II. These were grouped together
under the name potor and sent directly to the palace service rather than to
the military."

(*) The word "entirely", IMHO, is not correct. There were a small number
of Armenians in the devsirme system, most notably Murat IV's favorite
page, Musa Celebi (mentioned by Evliya Celebi in his "Seyahatname") was
an Armenian. 

On the same page Prof. Shaw continues:
"It is easy to decry a system that required seperation from one's family,
home and religion for advancement, but the practice should be evaluated 
in the context of sixteenth century conditions and values. In Ottoman 
society, as in Europe at the time, religion was not merely an expression
of individual or even group viewpoints of life and the position of man
in relation to his maker but also a definition of human behaviour and position
in all aspects of life. Human beings thought, spoke, acted, carried on 
business, married, bought, sold and inherited property and died according to
customs and practices that accorded with the dictates of their religions.
Religion, therefore, had to be part of the process by which the individual's 
status and position were changed, and the devsirme and gulam systems did no 
more than recognize and institionalize this fact, thus making possible a fluid
social structure in which talented people could rise to important positions
in the service of Sultan."

About the education of devsirmes, the accounts of Evliya Celebi in
his Seyahatname (Evliya Celebi was a traveller and author lived in the
first half of 17th century, his famous book Seyahatname (Travel-Book)
is accepted as one of the few reliable first hand accounts of the
life of 17th century.) is interesting.

Alexander Pallis, In the Days of the Janissaries - Old Turkish Life
as Depicted in the "Travel-Book" of Evliya Celebi, 1951, page 27:
"These pages [devsirmes], during their three to four years' service 
at the Palace, received a most careful education, nothing being neglected 
for the improvement of their minds and bodies. It consisted in a 
thorough grounding in the Turkish, Persian and Arabic languages, as well
as in the Arabic and Persian classics. They were also trained in all
manners of sports such as riding, shooting with the bow, throwing the
javelin and wrestling. Those who had fine voices and a bent for music, 
also received musical instructions."

Now, let's go back to your original article:

>         The
>         Greeks, as the other conquered people of the  Balkans, Caucasia,
>         Mesopotamia, Arabia, Egypt...suffered similar deportations, exe-
>         cutions, oppression policies  much similar to the famous Armeni-
>         an genocide, as well as the so called  "tax of blood"   (a cruel
                                                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^
>         turkification policy of the  Ottomans  that  consisted of taking
          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>         the 1 to 2 youngs of  every family and putting them in  military
              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>         schools, transforming (brainwashing) them to: "genitzari"-muslim
>         troops used to suppress the Serbs, Bulgarians, and of course the
>         Greeks...).

I am ignoring your baseless "Armenian genocide" claims and all other lines
and limit my study to the underlined parts.

How can the "devsirme" law or policy I explained above, be called as 
"tax of blood"? Is it applied to a certain race? To a certain tribe, family?
No. Is it related to the blood of people in any way? No. So, this phrase is
simply wrong.

The word "Turkification" tells us that the "devsirme" system is invented 
as a way to Turkify the Greeks or Christians or Non-Turks. This is simply
wrong and it is against the Islam, the basis of Ottoman system. There are 
lots to talk about this point: First of all Ottomans were accepting 
themselves as Muslims, not Turks, Kurds or Arabs. For them , each of those 
was a simple millet in their empire. I read in some books that the word
"Turk" was even used by Ottoman elite as a way to refer to the second class
Turkish people of the Anatolia. Definitely, they were not after 
"Turkification". One might say that the goal of "devsirme" system was to
convert Christians to Muslims. This straightforward idea is not correct
as well. The Ottomans were never interested in one-by-one conversion
to Islam. They were calling the inhabitants of the land they conquered 
to convert to Muslim as a whole, and if they did not accept, the only
thing they did was to collect extra taxes from the Nonmuslims. Bosnians,
who happened to have their own state these days, are, for example, an
example of converted Christians.

You mentioned that devsirme was applied to "1 to 2 youngs of  every family".
This is pure imagination of yours. Only one out of forty families were
subject to "devsirme" system. The word "every" is simply ridiculous. 
Moreover, as you might read above, there was NO way more than one kid
was collected from a family according to law. 

If we think globally, what is the difference between "devsirme" system and
the mandatory military service applied in Greece or Turkiye today? Ok,
today, boys are drafted at the age of 20 (or whatever in Greece), 500 
years ago, it was between 8 and 18, today everybody is obliged to go to
military service; 500 years ago, only a small minority was drafted for a
longer period of time... and some other details. But, globally
what makes it so "cruel" and "barbaric" compared to what we have now?

And overall, you present this short-lived (at most 2 centuries out of 7)
exception (law and application) in your "synopsis" as the sole example
of your reasoning about the ill-behaviour of Ottoman State towards the 
non-Turkish (or non-Muslim) inhabitants of an empire. Sorry, but this is
distortion and certainly is not a sincere behaviour, if you happen to 
know the true history. I wouldn't go into details of the treatment of
millets by the Ottoman State. Hasan Mutlu already gave some valuable 
information about this case. Let me finish my comments with stating the
fact that administration of empires in history was always based on the
interests of empire more than the interests and hapiness of the inhabitants.
In this regard, Ottoman era, obviously, was not a perfect, happy time
for most nations under their rule, but the comparison with other
empires of the time discloses the fact that it was not a disaster either.  

>  Having made my point anyway, I will say this much Ahmet (going back to
>your second paragraph):  Not knowing something (Ignorance)  doesn't mean
>that something didn't take place,no matter how cruel and unbelievable is.
>The one who knows it and the historians who confess on it are not distor-
>ting history.Nor should you be surprised  that some conceal it from a na-
>tion's younger generation.

There happened to be countless injustices and cruelties in history. Whatever
the reason was, the truth is that everybody did his/her best to survive 
and intentionally or unintentionally became a part of this survival
process. However, when we are studying history, we should stress those
injustices with the same weight for all nations and events and we shouldn't 
emphasize them for other nations as a way to prove our prejudices. 

>  And last but not least...As far as I like your enthusiasm and loyalty;
>please: Don't insult others simply because the carry a Greek name. 

The reason I used the words "garbage" and "funny" are, I think, more
clear in this posting. They have nothing to do with a Greek name; actually
I don't know where you got this idea.

>It is
>not polite but too annoying! Couldn't I flood you with ironies bitter as
>I was from  your comments?   No one has the right to insult... even if he
>ignores something (which was the case in this occasion). I hope next time
>we discuss matters in a calmer way. Then you will realize that we have in
>common more than you can imagine. Please, Be argumentative,don't provoke.
>
>Nice hearing from you and I hope I was constructive. No offense...
>                                                      Andronikos Romanos
>
>
>

three or four things:
>             1) I do not use Greek sources and I try to be  more unbiased
>                than you can imagine or BE.

You should try harder.

>             2) Further more I am serious, I check my sources, never talk
>                on top of my head.It appears to me that someone else DOES
>                NOT. If you wanted information for something that is "new
>                and ridiculous" for you (as you confessed),ask my friend!
>                In addition to this:Please,be more careful in your expre-
>                ssions next time to whomever you contact in the networks.

Ok. Would you please show me a single reference for your "1-2 kids from
every family" claim? 

>             3) My Synopsis had no element of  hatred towards Turks.  How
>                could it? 

As they say, the ignorant person, who does not know his/her ignorance, is 
more dangerous than the one who knows it..

>                I never implied that you or any of my Turk fri-
>                ends here are responsible for  acts of people generations
>                back. Actually,this the last thing you or anybody else is
>                responsible for: You weren't even born for goodness sake!

You are right on the point that I (or you) have nothing to do with things 
happened centuries ago. But, why the hell are you trying to assert what
you know as history as the "true history" ? Why didn't you write "As far 
as I know this is the case, is this true?"? 

>                So, let us put aside this ridiculous things about "educa-
>                tion promoting hating Turks". 

I will not put it aside and will show you with examples asap.

>                If Turks are hated in seve-
>                ral parts of the globe (personally I think this is a mis-
>                take), this is probably a result of several of their com-
>                patriots in ,say, Armenia,Cyprus,Kurdistan,Greece,E.Thra-
>                ce. Think of it.

In all of the above, there are two main nations against Turks: Greeks and
Armenians. The reason they hate at the first place is simply because they lost.
And now, they promote this hatred, especially the Armenian schools in North
America. Tough luck, hatred is more harmful to the one who has it. 

>             4) If you were  careful you  should  have noticed that in my
>                Synoptic History I said nothing about a "blood business".
>                I was very specific on what this policy consisted of...
>                Period.

Saying "period" does not make you right, dear Andro. I suggest you to
read the "blood tax" part again. 

Regards,
Ahmet Parlakbilek