Osmanlı: The Original Pluralists

Seeing as my legs are beginning to buckle under the weight of impending midterms, I figured I would keep this week's post rather short and post something more substantial over the course of the coming week.

We Americans have a tendency to pride ourselves on a shared sense of plurality. This exists in various dimensions in the the United States, be it our cornucopia of dinner options or beer brands or television shows about "Real Housewives", but I like to think, among all else, we have the most self regard for the diversity of cultural identities that exists among the American people. Let me be clear, I do not ascribe to the belief that the United States is a veritable patchwork of peoples who live side by side in some off kilter utopia. American history is primarily the tale of our collective struggle to extend our shared concept of freedom to every person who calls our country home, and we still have tremendous difficulty in doing so, despite our many advances.

Being American encompasses different things to different people, but the fact that we all adopt that common title is what melds us together as a national unit. Immigration is such an integral part of our history that many people can rightfully claim their American identity regardless of where they or their parent emigrated from. The common thread, however, is the recognition, not of an American sense of Nativism, but of the reality that we are a demographic mess composed of the children of every opportunist, reject, inventor, refugee, wealth seeker, slave, and autodidact who settled on our land for one reason or another.

In my infinite ignorance, I assumed that this sense of plurality was something that was unique to the United States. I found, however, that to many Turks, the essence of Turkishness can be derived from a similar mode of thinking. The Ottoman empire (to which the Republic of Turkey is seen as a successor to) was so vast and incorporated so many different populations that it is virtually impossible to truly identify which Turks originally came from what ethnic  lineage. Turkic, Balkan, Greek, Armenian, Arab, Jewish, and a plethora of other peoples intermingled in relative peace throughout a state that stretched from Budapest to Yemen.

Historically speaking, an Ottoman was someone who followed Osman, the 14th century founder of the Ottoman Empire. Prior affiliation, be it ethnic or religious, was irrelevant, as long as your Ottoman identity came first. The Turkish people have adapted this ideology to their modern state: If you identify as a Turk, you are pretty much a Turk. There may be a slight degree of fine print to peruse in regards to this statement, but, for the most part, you can count yourself Turkish. The vast majority of Turks I know see this claim to the right of Turkishness as the main source of authority when it comes to their own national identity, regardless of where their ancestors originated from.

Similar circumstances tend to breed similar ideas, and it is both humbling and fascinating to see a such an important piece of my own national identity shared in a nation so far from my own.

Anyways, back to studying...