A century before the recent Middle Eastern "spring", a popular demand for civil rights and political freedom was voiced by subjects of the Sultan. During the last half-century of Ottoman rule, Ottoman subjects vented their quest for political participation and free speech, and criticized the state for its tyranny. They did so cautiously but quite persistently, already before the Young Turk Revolution and more boldly thereafter. Historians have hitherto addressed the phenomenon, often ascribing it to Western inspiration, but leaving many threads of its fabric unexplored.
This public quest was anything but monochromatic. There were marked variations among different categories of Ottoman subjects, not merely in their methods of airing their claims, and not only in defining the claims themselves; there were, moreover, important disparities in the very perception of political freedom and rights. Gaps in expectations existed between genders; among different ethnic communities; and, within the educated classes, variances existed regarding the advantages and faults of the desired liberties. That this was so is perhaps not surprising. It is remarkable, however, that the existing scholarship so far has paid little heed to these variations.
The proposed panel will highlight this diversity of concepts and demands by scrutinizing aspects of the calls for civil rights and political freedom that have either been overlooked or been studied superficially. The proposed papers will shed light on some of the intricacies of this historic development and render it more credible.
One paper will investigate the popular demand for political participation by concentrating, for the first time, on Arab women who pleaded, guardedly but unmistakably, for women's suffrage already in the late-nineteenth century. A second paper will explore the largely neglected medium of subjects' petitions to the State, a search that exposes the grassroots of the quest for political freedom. The other two papers will focus on public discourse on freedom following the Young Turk Revolution, examining the Arabic press, and that of minority ethnic groups, respectively. As these last two papers will reveal, for subjects of the Islamic Empire, freedom had not merely its lures but also its disturbing threats.
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Prof. Ami Ayalon
The 1908 fall of Hamidian tyranny with its awesome censorship apparatus suddenly made it safe for Ottoman subjects to speak out and openly discuss issues hitherto best avoided. A yearning for political freedom and free speech had long been stealthily aired through different channels; now it could be pronounced out loud. In scores of journals and newspapers that popped up almost overnight in the lifeless field of the Ottoman press, "freedom" became a resounding buzzword. Notions such as "free speech", "constitutional rights", "political participation", and "suffrage", became central in public exchanges in Turkish and Arabic, a discourse that was accompanied by much enthusiasm.
But what did it actually mean for Ottoman subjects to move into an era of freedom, and how was it compatible with society's political values, cultural norms, and the ongoing reality of the sultanate? The discussion of freedom, the sources show, was as confused as it was excited. Alongside delight with the new liberties, warnings were voiced about the hazards of freedom, if mishandled. Such concerns regarding the abuses of freedom would be vindicated, in part, by many who would bring unsuitable concepts to the field of public action. This was best reflected in the written press.
In the proposed paper, I will explore the rhetoric of political freedom, primarily freedom of expression, in post-1908 Arabic journals, newspapers, and some other writings. Examining its underlying tenets, I will offer an assessment of both the expectations and concerns of educated Arabs at the close of an era (and the dawn of a new one). Scrutinizing the themes and language of this discourse more closely than has been done so far, my paper will offer a more nuanced and essentially more accurate view of the intricate quest for political freedom toward the end of Ottoman history.
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Prof. Fruma Zachs
The nineteenth-century encounter between the Arab Ottoman provinces and Western culture sparked a public discussion in Greater Syria, of issues such as modernization, patriotism, cultural identity, and the local desire to reconstruct Arab society. In the evolving discourse, in which women took a vivid if modest part, women were first considered to be key players in these broad public processes because of their role in educating the next generation who would shape the future of the homeland. Gradually, however, the discourse shifted into other topics, such as women's activity and rights within the public sphere.
In this paper I propose to focus on one side of these public exchanges which has scarcely been researched so far: the discussion of Arab women's electoral rights before World War I. I will show that women writing in Arabic and expressing themselves in public used a direct/indirect voice and subtext rhetoric to promote their suffrage as well as other political rights. I will point to interactions between Arab women and their counterparts in Western movements (mainly US and UK Suffragists) and show that, while the local debate was influenced by the Western discourse, it sought to project itself as a local manifestation of Arab feminism.
The paper will be based on the Ottoman Arab press (newspapers and periodicals), that were published in big numbers in Greater Syria and Egypt from the 1890's until 1914. It will make an innovative contribution to the history of women during the closing decades of Ottoman history and, more generally, to the history of the Ottoman-Arab popular quest for social and political rights.
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Dr. Yuval Ben-Bassat
The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 transformed the Ottoman time-honored petitioning system, from a traditional towards being a modern practice. The reinstatement of parliamentary life, the reenactment of the suspended Constitution, the lifting of the ban on the press and political action, all generated profound political and social changes. Subjects' petitions to the State, a routine largely overlooked by historians, reflected these changes in bright colors and often-surprising detail.
As the Sultan became a figurehead with little actual power, petitions – hitherto addressed to the Sultan, requesting his benevolence and mercy (and granting him much needed legitimacy) – began to be sent instead to the Council of State, the Parliament, and the different Ministries. Their contents changed too: they now sought to obtain political rights, preserve privileges vis-à-vis other groups in society or within the applying group, and ensure civil equity and constitutional rights. In focusing on rights, the rule of law, and the deficiencies of the former system, the petitions echoed the changes in the popular discourse at large. Most importantly, they mirrored a transformation from justice as a Sultanic ad hoc prerogative to constitutional and civil law. Making frequent reference to the constitution, and the subjects’ right for equity and for the protection of the law, the petitions - written with the help of professional petition-writers whose writing reflected ideas circulating in the urban centers of the Empire - voiced a sense of a new era in the Empire’s history.
In the proposed paper I will examine a corpus of petitions from the Ottoman archives, a neglected medium which offers a uniquely sharp view on social and political concepts and practices. I will finally raise the question of whether these changes can be seen as claims to modern citizenship by the Empire's subjects.
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Prof. Bedross Der Matossian
There is no doubt that the ideology of the French Revolution, with its aura of success, had a tremendous impact on the constitutional debate in the Ottoman Empire. It left a legacy of the idée-force, especially the trinity of ideals--Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality--which found a strong echo among the various ethnic groups and their presses. The concept of freedom which was the essence of the Revolution became simultaneously one of the most important words in the lexicon of the Revolution and a major source of ambiguity. Defining the concept of freedom, as well as understanding its privileges and limitations, became the main task of the newspapers in their journey to educate and discipline the public. The following paper examines how different ethnic groups in the Empire (Armenians, Jews, and Turks) perceived the ambiguous concept of Freedom. The main concern of the different ethnic presses in Armenian, Ladino, Hebrew, Ottoman Turkish, and Arabic was to prevent lawless behavior by their publics. They were afraid that the gap in political authority created by the Revolution, coupled with the common understanding that citizens were free to do as they saw fit, might lead to an immediate escalation of ethnic tensions. Although most of the ethnic newspapers struggled to define the theme of freedom from different perspectives, they had one thing in common: to educate and discipline the masses in the chaotic situation of the post-Revolutionary period. Some discourses struggled with defining the concept of freedom; others highlighted its uses and abuses, whereas a third group dealt with its legality. All of these indicate that, during the fragile post-Revolutionary period, ethnic groups expressed anxiety about the abuses of freedom not only by their adversaries, but also by members of their own communities. A thorough analysis of the perception of freedom by different ethnic groups helps us understand the uses and abuses of this indispensable concept in post-despotic regimes. Interestingly, we see examples of such abuses prevailing in much of the Middle East today following the collapse of long ruling dictatorial regimes.
