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.

Celebrating Diversity!

Friends of mine have asked me "How can someone who loves Latin-American literature, Turkish and Persian Music, Korean food and Balkan history have such a negative view of diversity? And how can someone who has friends and family from every imaginable cultural background look down upon diversity?"

My answer is "I love the phenomena of diversity, but as an ideology and mantra , I find it particularly vacuous. Free and spontaneous exchanges between individuals of diverse cultural backgrounds have greatly enriched the visual, musical, literary and culinary arts. But, when governments, universities and corporations plan and mandate diversity as a form of social engineering, it becomes mindless and undemocratic, because:

1. The claims that an individual automatically adds value to an organization because they "increases diversity" through their racial identity is presumptuous and negates their individuality.

2. Paradoxically it negates the wonderful individual and intellectual diversity found within groups by implying that (for example) Jews and African-Americans as groups have specific traits that will enrich an environment. This of course implies a belief that intellectual and cultural homogeneity predominate within groups. A more reasonable position would be that the unique talents and insights of individuals, regardless of their ethnic identity, enrich a learning environment.

3. By "celebrating" a culture we avoid a complete, honest assessment of its strengths and weaknesses.

4. History shows that diverse nations can socially and economically thrive only when they have a dominant, unifying culture.

And in most cases their ideology is filled with contradictions. For example, schools like the University of Berkeley at California offers student housing that fundamentally encourage segregation, such as separate dorm halls for African-Americans, Asians, Latinos and Native-Americans. This shows that they value reinforced ethnic identities over true integration. Or perhaps they encourage this form of segregation because they believe that the benefits of diversity flow in one direction: European-Americans benefit from exposure to other cultures, but other cultures do not benefit from exposure to European-American culture.

So, next time someone asks me to "celebrate diversity" I will tell them that I am too busy cooking Israeli food, while listening to Greek music, while speaking Spanish with my beautiful, brilliant Mexican wife, to listen to their boring marxist propaganda.

Vat Vood You Say Herr Doctor Freud?

Herr Doctor Freud, your colleague Doctor Tim presented his fascinating psychoanalysis of the liberal sector sectors of Europe and the United States. According to the good doctor, growing segments of the said group have lost faith in the value of their culture and civilization. They exhibit strange thought patterns like rabidly and irrationally attacking Israel and promoting other cultures, while denigrating their own.

Herr Doctor, recently I listened to some hateful and racist rants against European-Americans by professor Jose Angel Gutierrez of the University of Texas. Mr. Gutierrez stated:

"We have an aging white America. They are not making babies. They are dying. The explosion is in OUR population. They are shitting in their pants with fear. I love it. We’ve got to eliminate the gringo, what I mean by that is if the worst comes to the worst, we have got to kill him."

Mr. Gutierrez went on to state:

"We are not immigrants that came from another country to another country. We are millions. We have an aging white America. They are not making babies. They are dying. It's a matter of time. The explosion is in our population."

Herr Freud, the issue is not Mr. Gutierrez's right to free speech (which I unconditionally support) or even the validity of his ideas - it's the very strange response of the recipients of his ire: European-Americans.

If a European-American were to speak hatefully of another group, or bring up demographic issues, they would be sharply reprimanded.

And I am certain that if a European-American were to repeat Mr. Gutierrez's rant on "the growth of Latino political power via the declining fertility of whites and the fertility of Latinas," they would be labeled a fascist or white supremacist.

But, Mr. Gutierrez's racist and supremacist rants are met by the deafening silence of the usual crusaders against racism. What's even more fascinating, is that not only is Mr. Gutierrez generously funded by the state to propagate his beliefs, he also received the Medal of Freedom from former president Bill Clinton. This implies support at the highest level of government. In addition, his ethno-political organization La Raza Unida receives corporate support through the Ford Foundation.

Of course Herr Freud, in no way am I proposing European-American nationalism, but I am fascinated by how segments of our academic, government and corporate elite can support the nationalism and racism of other groups.

Where does this come from? How can we explain this? Is it a lack of self confidence? Is it self hatred? Is it a sense of exaggerated guilt for crimes of the past?

Herr Freud, this is not an isolated issue, one of Mr. Gutierrez's publicly supported colleagues, Professor Armando Navarro of the University of California stated:

"Go back to Boston! Go back to Plymouth Rock, Pilgrims! Get out! We are the future! You are old and tired. Leave like beaten rats. You old white people. It is your duty to die. . . . Through love of having children, we are going to take over."

Another publicly funded professor, Charles Truxillo of the University of New Mexico openly discussed "demographic conquest" and even outright territorial conquest.

"...we are clearly going to be the majority in the Southwest in the next fifty - sixty years and especially here in California, by the year 2015 we're going to be more than fifty percent of the population...Republica del Norte," which would include the present U.S. states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, plus southern Colorado, along with several current Mexican states, is "an inevitability." The new "Hispanic homeland" should be brought into being "by any means necessary."

Herr Doctor Freud, I am not asking you to psychoanalyze these professors and the movements that they represent, because even though I find them distasteful they display a powerful confidence, ego and sense of self interest.

Herr Doctor Freud, I am more fascinated by the phenomena of individuals, groups and nations that laud and publicly fund individuals who call for their conquest and displacement. Never in history has a dominant group enacted policies that would lead to their own political and demographic displacement. What accounts for this self destructive impulse? My greatest fear is that an asymmetrical system that promotes nationalism in "protected groups," but suppresses rational expressions of self interest of the majority is unsustainable. One possibility is the gradual balkanization of society, another is that a reciprocal nationalism will be reawaken in European-Americans. I find both options highly worrisome, because history shows that while the achievement of relative peace, prosperity and equality takes at least a century of struggle, its disillusion can occur in but a generation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSmNEupHWjs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sMHmerZdiA