Rembetiko, Music of My Heart

Pictured Above: Semsis, Eskenazi and Tomboulis

One of my favorite musical genres is Rembetiko, the soulful, inventive music of the Greeks of Anatolia (Asia Minor). This style is rich with Ottoman, Persian and Arabic influences, both musical and cultural and many of its great performers were Ottoman Jews and Armenians. A study of the Ottoman Empire highlights the wonderful and destructive power of multiculturalism and diversity. On one hand the incredibly rich mix of cultures, races, religions and languages produced some of the most amazing music, architecture, poetry and cuisine that has graced the world. On the other hand, it bred conflict, instability and the first Genocide of the century, ultimately leading Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria to undertake a massive population exchange, with the goal of creating more homogeneous, stable and peaceful nations. If I had to derive a one line line lesson from the Ottoman Experience for the United States, it would be as follows: enjoy the cultural blessings that diversity bring, but tread carefully, for human beings are flawed creatures of conflict. Here is a wonderful song performed in 1929 by Andonis Dalgas and one performed by the prodigious Roza Eskenazi.

Ottoman Public Debt Administration

If you want to better understand the ruinous effect that debt has on a nation, I reccomend that you read up on the history of the Ottoman Empire. Through out of control spending driven by warfare, public works and corruption and by the 1870's, the empire was plunged deep into debt. In 1875 it was unable to continue payments to its foreign debtors and in 1881, after years of contentious negotiations, the Ottoman Public Debt Administration (OPDA) was established. The OPDA was controlled by the European creditors and bond holders. They exercised enormous power over the empire, by directly collecting taxes from the most lucrative sectors of the Ottoman Economy, such as the tobbaco, timber, silk & alcohol industries. The increasingly heavy tax burden places on peasants and religious minorities, that contributed to serious unrest, was at least partially driven by financial obligations to foreign creditors. Most painful to the Ottomans was the erosion of sovereignty brought on by the OPDA; they rewrote laws to the benefits of western powers and granted considerable extraterritorial rights to westerners and wealthy Ottoman minorities. Thankfully the United States is nowhere near this point, but it would be wise for more Americans to aquaint themselves with the experiences of other nations ruined by foreign debt. With a better understanding of this history, more Americans would be willing to part with unsustainable warfare, welfare and tax rates, in order to get our fiscal house in order. Our choice is to suffer austerity now, or future prospects of reduced sovereignty under the auspices of an American Public Debt Administration headed by China, Japan and our many other foreign creditors.

Borrowing in the Ottoman Empire by the government and within the private sector.

Throughout most of its history, from 1300 to 1922, the government of the Ottoman Empire relied on short-term loans from individual lenders as well as currency debasement and short-term notes to resolve fiscal shortfalls. On occasion, the Ottoman government just confiscated the monies needed, either from the lenders or from state officials. In the private sector, individuals, who only sometimes were professional moneylenders, lent their surplus to others. Both public and private borrowers commonly paid interest for the privilege. Both public and private borrowing persisted until the end of the empire - although confiscation became rare after about 1825. Very important changes occurred in the forms of borrowing, within and outside the government, beginning about 1850, when foreign capital became available and assumed an unprecedented role.

In many ways, the international borrowing experiences of the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century anticipated those of today's third-world nations. The Ottoman economy was competing in a world dominated by the industrialized nations of the West, which possessed superior military technologies and political and economic power. Ottoman survival strategy required large, modern military forces and state structures. As both were exceedingly expensive, government expenditures mounted accordingly. Unlike the economies of many of the countries with which it was competing - notably Britain and France - the Ottoman economy remained essentially agrarian and incapable of generating the funds needed for increasingly complex and costly military and civilian structures. Thus, the government borrowed to modernize and survive.

Acutely aware of the dangers, Ottoman statesmen resisted international borrowing until the crisis provoked by Ottoman participation in the Crimean War, 1854 - 1856. International loans then quickly succeeded one another, on decreasingly favorable terms. These loans were private, the creditors being European bankers and financiers who were usually given diplomatic assistance by their own governments. By the early 1870s, Ottoman state borrowing too easily substituted for financial planning; between 1869 and 1875, the government borrowed more than its tax collectors took in. The Ottoman state suspended payments on its accumulated debt in 1875, after crop failures cut revenues between 1873 and 1875 and the global depression of 1873 dried up capital imports.

Perhaps fearing occupation by the European governments of its creditors, the Ottoman government eventually honored its obligations. Prolonged negotiations resulted in a reduction and consolidation of the total Ottoman debt and the formation, in 1881, of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration; this body took control of portions of the economy. The Ottoman Public Debt Administration supervised the collections of various tax revenues, turning the proceeds over to the European creditors - an international consortium representing bond-holders of Ottoman obligations. Residents of France, Great Britain, and Germany held most of the bonds. The ceded revenues came from the richest and most lucrative in the empire - taxes imposed on tobacco, salt, silk, timber, alcohol, and postage stamps.

Although nominally a branch of the Ottoman government, the Debt Administration actually was independent and answerable only to the bondholders. Many scholars consider its founding as the beginning of Ottoman semicolonial status - when the state lost control over parts of its economy. Still worse, perhaps, the state's legitimacy and relevancy also declined in the eyes of subjects who had to pay their taxes to a foreign group rather than their own state. The Debt Administration represented a true loss of Ottoman sovereignty, but, as the government may have hoped, the consortium reassured foreign investors, who provided still more loans to the state, which needed still more cash to finance modernization.

Foreign capital invested in the Ottoman private sector became significant only after 1890. A part of the more general diffusion of European capital into the global economy, these investments also derived from the comforting presence of the Debt Administration, which was involved in many of them. Industrial or agricultural investment was nearly completely absent. Railroads, port facilities, and municipal services absorbed most of these monies, more firmly linking the Ottoman and international economies by facilitating the outward flow of raw materials and the import of finished goods. French financiers were the most important single source of funds, while the British and Germans also were significant providers. Almost all these new loans were administered by the Debt Administration.

By 1914, Ottoman public and private debts to foreign financiers consumed, in roughly equal shares, more than 30 percent of total tax revenues. In one way or another, the Debt Administration administered virtually the entire amount. This pattern of indebtedness makes clear the ongoing subordination of the late Ottoman economy to the European until the demise of the empire after World War I.

Bibliography

Blaisdell, Donald. European Financial Control in the OttomanEmpire. New York: Columbia University Press, 1929.

Issawi, Charles. An Economic History of the Middle East and NorthAfrica. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/ottoman-empire-debt#ixzz1EquBkRKl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Public_Debt_Administration

http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/en/Ottoman_Public_Debt_Administration

http://www.answers.com/topic/ottoman-empire-debt

The CFF Salutes: Taner Akçam

Taner Akçam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taner_Akcam) is part of a small but growing number of Turkish intellectuals who recognize the Armenian Genocide. For this Mr. Akçam has faced death threats and constant harassment. In the following clip he discusses "A Shameful Act", which is an clear and well cited exploration of the cultural, political and historic forces that led to the Armenian Genocide:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL3WF7f1WWA&feature=related

Armenian Genocide

Today (April 24, 1915) was the 95th Anniversary of the commencement of the Armenian Genocide.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_genocide). On this day 240 of the leading cultural and commercial figures of the Armenian community were arrested in the city of Constantinople, most whom were later massacred. From there, at least 1,000,000 Armenians died from massacres, hunger and thirst in the cold mountains of Anatolia and the burning deserts of Syria. Countless women and children were kidnapped and forcibly converted to Islam. Since then the Turkish government has destroyed 100's if not 1000's of monasteries, churches and architectural treasures that attest to the 3,000 year Armenian presence in Anatolia.(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdJhTgT0xqw)

As a Jew who lost countless members of my family in the Holocaust, my heart goes out to the Armenian Community. An added element to the Armenian tragedy is that the Turkish government and majority of Turkish people do not recognize the genocide. I can only imagine the rage I would feel if the German government and people denied the holocaust. In addition, several world governments have failed to publicly recognize the Armenian Genocide. Most shamefully, the United States and Israel fall under this category. While I understand the strategic value of Turkey, this flight from moral responsibility is incomprehensible, especially in the case of Israel. Thankfully most Israeli historians and intellectuals do not share their government's position (http://www.armenianweekly.com/2010/04/20/sassounian/).

Lessons from the Ottoman Empire

I have always been fascinated by Turkey and the Ottoman Empire, which was a fascinating nexus of Islamic, Christian and Jewish civilization. Ottoman music, cuisine, art and architecture represented a fascinating amalgamation of the diverse groups which made up the empire, which included: Turks, Tatars, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Arabs, Assyrians, Albanians, Kurds, Bulgarians and many more. And of course the Ottoman Turkish culture left a linguistic and cultural mark on the said groups.

But, as someone well versed in Ottoman history, I am painfully aware of the downside of diversity. The experience of the Ottomans shows that ruling diverse populations is only possible with a strong, centralized and undemocratic state. As the empire came to include diverse populations that lacked common interests, values and visions, the heavy hand of the state became increasingly necessary. Routinely inter-communal conflicts were suppressed by the Ottomans, such as blood libels issued by Greeks Christians against their Jewish neighbors.

Endemic tension between ethno-religious groups contributed to the revolution of 1908, which led to a more democratic and representative state. Unfortunately, democratization did not lead to a decrease in inter communal tension, but a marked increase. In the remaining European territory of the Ottoman Empire, not only did the Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Macedonians and Albanians battle the Ottoman State, but also against each other. Ultimately inter-communal tensions led to the death and displacement of millions of individuals in Anatolia and the Balkans.

Sadly, it was determined that the only way to create lasting peace by Greece and Turkey was to institute a population exchange in 1923 via the Treaty of Laussane. This treaty stipulated that 1.4 million Orthodox Christians of Turkey would be exchanged for 0.4 million Muslims of Greece. In addition, a three way population exchange occurred between Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria. And within the Turkish Republic, as the unifying Ottoman-Muslim identity was supplanted by individual Turkish and Kurdish identities, violent uprisings erupted that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of individuals. Similar outbreaks of violence occurred in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Yugoslavia, Lebanon, Iraq and other nations, as shared identities and interests were cast off and individual ethno-religious identities were reaffirmed. In all of the cases we learned that only a heavy handed government was able to hold diverse groups together and accordingly democracy heralded disorder and conflict.

So, I am understandably skeptical when Americans promote policies that increase diversity and philosophies that highlight it, while eschewing integration and our shared identity. When I hear our academic, political and corporate elites extolling us to "celebrate diversity" my response is that they should temper their positive optimism with a better understanding of history. This is increasingly true as the American government seeks to redistribute wealth and employment along ethnic lines, as seen in affirmative action. Even the most tolerant individuals become chauvinists when you touch their wallets.

The underlying problem is that we take it for granted that we have maintained a diverse society that is free, peaceful and prosperous, when it is the exception to the historical rule. This does not mean that individuals and groups shouldn't be free to determine and express their identities. It merely means that we as a society must be optimistic, while also being cautious and skeptical about claims based in utopian visions rather than the real experience of empires that came before us.