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What is this yearning for the "Ottomans" in Turkey?
Paylaş
The word "Ottomans" has been dominating the agenda in recent days. You see examples such as that of a journalist that visited Palestine recently and who exaggerated a remark made by a semi-educated Arab in Gaza who said, "I wish the Ottomans hadn't left this region and we could have continued to live in peace."
Everywhere you look you can see evidence of an aspiration for the "Ottomans".
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was welcomed at an official event in
Firstly we should indicate that we have no criticism against the ruling Justice and Development Party's administration since they claimed that this was an act of provocation.
However perhaps we should remember how pro-government media harshly criticized university rectors when a banner reading "Army to Action" was carried at a demonstration of rectors and university students a couple of years ago in capital city of
At that time it was also clear that that banner had been intended to be provocative and demonstration organizers had it immediately removed.
There are still some repeating the same aspersion regarding this incident?
Let us leave them to take a look at themselves in the mirror and return to our subject:
We wonder what the aim or "yearning" is of those attempting to install an "Ottoman fashion".
Which of the 36 Ottoman sultans, excluding Mehmet the Conqueror, Selim the Brave, and Suleiman the Magnificent, can be remembered with respect and admiration for being far-sighted?
Do you know of any other dynasty that allows its founders, in other words the Turkish people, to be quashed by minorities?
Which dynasty, which lived a third of its entire history in degradation, can again be longed for?
Let's try to endure its military defeats. Aside from the magnificent works of Architect Sinan, we don't know what else Ottoman history has contributed to civilization that can make us proud?
Can we rationalize 600 years of history with Sinan alone?
Don’t those who yearn for a return to the Ottoman era know that envoys from foreign countries were far more influential than either the Sultan or the government on very important issues during the last century of this period?
Perhaps their failure to digest the basic principles of the republic that replaced this era lies at the heart of this yearning?
Paylaş
