May 8, 2008
Malaysia: First (Living) Woman Allowed To Leave Islam
Malaysia attempts to present itself as a "liberal" Muslim state. Article 11 of the Malaysian constitution states that a citizen can follow any religion of their choosing, contains a clause which shows that Malaysia has no concept of religious freedom but adds: "The law may control or restrict the propagation of any religious doctrine or belief among persons professing the religion of Islam." Article 3 states that Islam is the official religion of the state, but Article 3 (1) of the constitution states that 'other religions may be practiced in peace and harmony in any part of the Federation'.
Additionally, there is a racist element in Malaysia's constitution. All ethnic Malays are said to be Muslim. At the age of 12, each person in Malaysia is issued with an identity card - called MyKad - upon which the person's religion and race are listed. And all Malays are automatically said to be Muslims.
The problems are made worse by the racism of Malaysia's ruling party - UMNO. This party has ruled in a coalition since Malaysia became independent in 1957. After race riots in 1969, the party has actively promoted a racist policy of "ketuanan Melayu" which gives job preferences and privileges to Malays and Muslims above other racial/religious groups.
In the history of modern Malaysia, the only person who was allowed to leave Islam was an 89-year old widow called Nyonya Tahir. She had married a Chinese Buddhist man in 1936 when she was aged 20. She became a Buddhist. Her choice to become a Buddhist was made long before the Malaysian constitution was written. Nyonya had tried repeatedly to have the National Registration Department (NRD) change her status to "Buddhist".
The NRD never makes any decisions of this nature, as an amendment tot he constitution was brought in by the ruling UMNO party in 1988. There are two systems of justice in Malaysia - the civil courts, and the sharia (Syariah) courts. Article 121 (a) was introduced in 1988 which stated that any issue which fell under the jurisdiction of the Islamic courts could not be dealt with by the civil courts. As for a Muslim all issues of "religious status" are dealt with by the Islamic courts, all appeals to civil courts on issues of apostasy are rejected.
Nyonya Tahir made history when on January 24, 2006 she was allowed to be granted the status of being a Buddhist. This status had been denied her ever since Malaysia became independent in 1957.
Unfortunately, this privilege was not fully appreciated by Nyonya Tahir, as she had died on January 19 of that year. Her body had been refused a burial until Seremban State Syariah Court had decided on the issue.
The custom of body-snatching by Muslim courts has shocked the Western world since December 2005, when the corpse of a Hindu former mountaineering hero was refused burial. The Islamic courts had been told that Maniam Moorthy had become a Muslim convert, a fact his wife Kaliammal had denied. Moorthy had been in a coma when the allegations were made, and could not confirm or deny the claims. Kaliammal tok the case to the HIgh Court. The judge said that because of Article 121 (a) he could not intervene. On December 28, 2005, Lance-Corporal Moorthy's body was taken away by representatives of the Islamic courts and buried as a Muslim in a Muslim ceremony.
Since that time there have ben several cases where the bodies of Buddhists, Christians and Hindus have been denied burial until representatives of Islamic courts have battled to take possession of the cadaver. Such actions, shocking to outsiders, naturally cause upset and offense to grieving relatives. Muslim women are not allowed to marry out of their faith. As a result, families have been forcibly ripped apart when Islamic courts have decided that a Hindu woman is officially a "Muslim".
One 57-year old Malay woman, Kamariah Ali, had publicly rejected Islam in 1998 and in 2005. An Islamic court sentenced her on March 3, 2008 to two year's jail for the "crime" of leaving Islam. She has been jailed for being a non-Muslim before. She was a member of the heretical "Sky Kingdom Sect" which welcomed Buddhists, Muslims, Christians and Hindus to its compound. She was jailed twice before for not being a "proper" Muslim. In this decade she was jailed for insulting Islam, and in 1992 she was jailed for apostasy.
Another Malay woman who has fought for the right to leave Islam is Lina Joy. She became a Christian in 1981. The NRD refused to recognize either of her change of name from Azlina Jailani to a Christian one (Lina Joy) or to accept her conversion out of Islam. Eventually the NRD allowed her to have her Christian name on her MyKad, but refused to list her as a Christian.
Lina Joy took her case to the Federal Court - the highest court in the nation - in 2006. The result was delayed and delayed. Eventually, in May 2007 the judges at the Federal Court ruled by two to one that she had no right to leave Islam. Outside the court, Muslims cheered the result. Lina is not allowed to marry her Christian boyfriend while she is officially a "Muslim". She and her lawyer have received death threats from Muslims.
I wrote earlier this year:
"Today there has been a positive result for Siti. The news is carried by Associated Press, TVNZ, Japan Today, Bernama, International Herald Tribune, BBC and AKI:A similar case involved an ethnic Chinese woman from Nibong Tebal, Penang state, who was originally called Tan Ean Huang. She had married an Iranian man called Ferdoun Ashanian in 1999. Before she married him, she converted to Islam in July 1998, and her MyKad was changed by the NRD to acknowledge her conversion. She became known as Siti Fatimah. Only a few months after the marriage Ashanian deserted her, and his whereabouts are now unknown. In May 2006, she applied to Penang's Islamic Affairs Council to declare that she is not a Muslim. Siti Fatimah wanted her MyKad religious status to be officially changed to Buddhist.
She claimed that her conversion to Islam was only a means to get married, and after the failure of her marriage she had gone back to her Buddhist beliefs. She maintained reverence for Buddhist deities such as Kuan Yin and others. On August 11, 2007, Judge Othman Ibrahim Othman ruled at Penang's Syariah High Court that a decision would not be made until December 3. He ruled in the meantime that she should undergo Islamic counseling. As in other such cases, a decision has still not been made."
In Penang state, in northwest Malaysia on Thursday, a Shariah High Court' decided that the 39-year old cake-seller could leave Islam. The court ruled that when Siti married her husband, the official Islamic authorities and her husband had both failed to give her proper guidance on Islam.
The judge, Othman Ibrahim, ruled that "The court is disappointed because MAIPP (Penang Islamic Religious Council) did not act quickly to save the faith of a Muslim and provide a procedure to control and supervise a Muslim convert so that she did not abandon Islam. Without reasonable methods, perhaps more will come to court to renounce Islam."
Othman also criticized the Penang Islamic Religious Council (MAIPP) for failing to attend the court until the proceedings were nearly over, despite MAIPP being issued with a summons and statement of claim.
Judge Othman ordered MAIPP to cancel the certificate that claimed Siti had converted into Islam.
Lawyer Ahmad Munawir Abdul Aziz of the MAIPP said: "So you can't blame her for her ignorance of the teachings and wanting to convert out."
Siti was pleased, and said: " I want to go to the (Buddhist) temple to pray and give thanks."
Siti had filed her appeal on July 10, 2006, naming MAIP as a defendant. She asserted that she had only converted on July 25, 1998 only to be able to marry her Iranian husband. He had absconded four months after the marriage. Siti claims she still eats pork.
Her lawyer said it was a landmark decision. Some minority groups have said that this was a victory for minority rights, but until Muslims are allowed to leave Islam, just as any other person can leave their religion to convert into Islam, there has been only a lucky result for Siti.
It is of no consolation to Kamariah Ali who is in jail, to Lina Joy, or to Hindu women such as Revathi Massosai who was placed in an Islamic "rehabilitation center", wher she claims she was mentally tortured. It is no consolation for the family of Hindu rubber tapper Marimuthu. His wife, by whom he had six children, was said to be a Muslim. He was told that unless he converted to Islam, he would be prosecuted for "khalwat" - being in close proximity to a person to whom one is neither a relative or marriage partner. His wife has been forced to leave her family.
Until these injustices are addressed, and the racist parts of the constitution (Article 160, section 2) that define all Malays as Muslims, and the amendment of 121 (A) is struck off, there is nothing here to celebrate. The news is good for Siti, but it is a fluke, rather than a basic right. I am reminded of the saying "one swallow does not a summer make".
Siti may not even be out of the woods yet - MAIPP has the right to contest the decision from the state's Syariah High Court. Ahmad Munawir Abdul Aziz, representing MAIPP, said that his group would be lodging its appeal within 14 days at the Penang Syariah Appeals Court.
Siti had also tried to have the NRD change the religious status on her MyKad identity card from "Muslim" to Buddhist". Judge Othman Ibrahim had refused, stating that his court did have jurisdiction over this matter.
Malaysia's largest trading partner is America. Perhaps the American government should be pressing for Malaysia to allow freedom of religion for all people in Malaysia. As a member of the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), the Malaysian government has moved further towards Islamism.
In 2007, during the nation's 50th anniversary celebrations of independence (Merdeka), Malaysia's chief justice Ahmad Fairuz suggested that common law should be abolished and replaced with Sharia law.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 9:47 PM | Comments (0)
Islam: Civilization Clash in Shakespeare's Time - Part Two
This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared today in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.
The Clash of Civilizations In the Time of Shakespeare: Part Two
Part One appeared last week.
All the Ottoman Sultans were descendants of Osman I (1258 - 1326). Around 1300, this ruler united certain of the disparate Turkish tribes (Seljuks) who had originally settled in Anatolia from the 11th century. Osman emerged as a ruthless leader, uniting some of these tribes with force where necessary and establishing a center of power at Bursa near Constantinople.
The heavily-fortified city of Constantinople was held by the Byzantines and in the 15th century the Ottomans became determined to conquer it. Murad II (1421 - 1451) tried unsuccessfully to invade the city in 1423. On May 29, 1453, the city finally fell to the Ottomans, who were led by Mehmet II (1432 - 1481). The conquest of Constantinople has been described as the event that ended the Medieval period.
The Genoese had a trading colony in Constantinople when the city was under Byzantine rule. In 1348, they built a tower which still stands. It is called the Galata tower, after this Genoese colony. In the 15h century it became the home of a detachment of Janissaries. In the 16th century the tower was used to hold prisoners of war. These would be sent to the naval arsenal at Kasimpasa, where they would become galley slaves.
Janissaries
The "new army" (yeni ceri) of Janissaries reflected Ottoman hostility to Christianity. Orhan I, the son of Osman I, who ruled from c. 1324 - 1360, founded the group around 1330. From its inception the main recruits were Christians - either adults who had been forced to convert to Islam, or children of Christians who were abducted as "tributes". After an edict of 1362 by Sultan Murad I (ruled 1360 - 1381), special privileges were offered to this new army, and Turks began to join. The Janissaries became the main standing army of the Ottomans, but Christians continued to be forcibly inducted to its ranks.
In the 15th century, hostage taking became a weapon of control. In 1442 Vlad II the ruler of Wallachia (which includes modern Romania) sent two of his sons, Vlad and Radu as hostages to Sultan Murad II. Vlad was 13 at the time, the elder of the two captives. The boys remained at Adrianople (Edirne). Though Radu chose to stay with his captors, Vlad was freed in 1448. He became Vlad III, ruler of Wallachia. He battled against the Turks, but used against them a method of punishment he had learned from the Ottomans. He was known as Vlad Tepes - Vlad the Impaler. As well as enacting mass-impalements, he was reputed to have once eaten bread soaked in a victim's blood. The legends of Vlad Tepes and his father gave rise to the Dracula myth.
Another young hostage of the Ottoman Turks was George Kastrioti (aka Skanderbeg, Albania's national hero). He and his three brothers had been sent as hostages to Turkey by their father, who was following the orders of Sultan Bayezid I (also called Yildirim, or "lightning"). Skanderbeg converted to Islam, and distinguished himself in the Ottoman army. In 1443, he rebelled against the Ottomans and - as a Christian - he led some three hundred Albanians to fight with the Hungarians against the Turks. For 25 years he fought against the Turks, preventing them from conquering his homeland.
The Janissaries were a well-trained and effective military force. They were generally feared by members of the Turkish citizenry. They would carry long staves. Fynes Moryson was an English traveler who was in Constantinople in 1597. He encountered contempt for being a non-Muslim.
Moryson wrote that once, while walking in the city, "a wild-headed Turke took my hat from my head (being of the fashion of Europe not used there) and having turned it, and long beheld it, he said (to use his rude words) Lend me this vessell to ease my belly therein; and so girning flung it on the dyrtie ground, which I with patience took up".
Moryson on several occasions was robbed by Janissaries, who took his provisions from him. He published his account, called "An Itinerary" in 1617. He noted that long after his return to England, he was still traumatized by the experience.
Thomas Dallam, the organ-maker described in Part One, visited Constantinople at the end of the 16th century. Along the way, he and some others from his ship happened to be stranded for a night in a village on the northern shore of the Sea of Marmora. A janissary had been assigned to act as a bodyguard. They stayed in a "darke uncomfortable house". They slept on bare floorboards, while the janissary slept over a trapdoor.
In the night, one of the fifteen men went to the balcony to relieve himself. At dusk, the men had spoken of the snakes of the region. One of the man's garters was hanging loose and the wind blew it against his leg. He yelled that a snake was on him, and the others woke thinking they were being ambushed. The janissary who had been charged to protect them showed none of the courage normally associated with his trade. Hearing the noise, he opened the trapdoor and slipped into the cellar beneath. When the chaos had subsided the janissary was unable to climb out of the cellar and had to be pulled out.
The foreign embassies in Pera, Constantinople, would usually have a small retinue of Janissaries to guard their interests. Between 1555 and 1562, the Flemish ambassador at the Ottoman Sublime Porte (government) was Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq. This individual, who would introduce the tulip to Western Europe wrote of Janissaries: "The Turkish state has 12,000 of these troops when the corps is at its full strength. They are scattered through every part of the empire, either to garrison the forts against the enemy, or to protect the Christians and Jews from the violence of the mob. There is no district with any considerable amount of population, no borough or city, which has not a detachment of Janissaries to protect the Christians, Jews, and other helpless people from outrage and wrong."
The subjugated states were obliged to pay jizya tax to the Ottoman government at this time, and alsoto submit quotas of male children, aged 12 to 13, who would become Janissaries. Among some of those sent to Turkey to be trained in warfare, a select few were chosen for the diplomatic service. These individuals, called Ajem Oghlan ("rough lad") would be sent to Constantinople to work in the service of the Sublime Porte.
The Ajem-Oghlan would be chosen for "bodily perfection, muscular strength, and intellectual ability, so far as it could be judged without long testing." Busbecq noted: "The Turks rejoice greatly when they find an exceptional man, as though they had acquired a precious object, and they spare no labor or effort in cultivating him."
From the mid fifteenth century onwards, there were several Janissary revolts. Finally, when these infantry troops were seen as a potential threat to Ottoman rulership, the Janissaries were officially disbanded in 1826.
Galley Slaves And Piracy
During the Renaissance, the main vessels of war in the Mediterranean were galleys. The Venetians and Genoese employed such oared vessels, and the Ottomans used similar vessels. These had sails, but a single tier of oarsmen maneuvered the boats in close combat.
The oarsmen on Christian and Ottoman boats were usually captives, forced to act as slaves. Few individuals who became such slaves would ever be free to write of their experiences.
One such individual was Edward Webb. He published an account of his adventures in 1590 in a book entitled "Ed: Webbe His Travailes: The rare and most wonderfull things which Edw. Webbe, an Englishman borne, hath seene and passed in his troublesome travailes.... Herein is set foorth his extreme slaverie sustained many yeres togither, in the Gallies and wars of the great Turk against the Landes of Persia.....".
Webb was a skilled gunner. His father Richard Webb, he states, was Master Gunner of England in 1554, the year of Edward's birth. Edward Webb was released with a ransom in May 1589 from captivity. His release in Constantinople is a matter of historical record. Webb reported that he had been serving on a ship as a gunner when it was captured. He and his companions were forced to act as a slave oarsman in Turkish galleys, stripped naked and abused.
He wrote that he spent six "yeares in this miserable state, wonderfully beaten and misused every day." He told his captors that he had "good skill in Gunners art" and was released from the galleys. He was still in bondage, and had to serve as a gunner, a conscript in the Turkish army. Webb claimed he had served in campaigns in Syria and Palestine, as well as Russia, Goa in India and even in the land of "Prester John".
This latter detail has led some to doubt the authenticity of parts of his report. Webb included myths of Prester John into his account of his travels. He describes cannibals, headless men and four-headed beasts in Prester John's kingdom. Worse, he recounts that he stroked unicorns in parks in this kingdom, an artistic license that (unless he speaks of rhinos) damages his credibility. Some of his details of Prester John's kingdom became reworked into Shakespeare's Othello (1.3, 128-45).
John Fox was another gunner who became a galley slave. He successfully mounted a rebellion and escape. His tale is told in Richard Hakluyt's vast anthology of travelers' tales, "Voyages...". Fox had set out from Portsmouth, England in 1563. His ship, the Three Half Moons, held 38 men and munitions. It was bound for Spain to trade, but was attacked by "Turks" near Gibraltar and soon overrun.
"the Christians must needs to the galleys, to serve in new offices; and they were no sooner in them, but their garments were pulled over their ears, and torn from their backs, and they set to the oars.".
In winter, many Ottoman galleys were put to shore at Alexandria in Egypt for repairs and "trimming". Near this spot their slave oarsmen were kept in a prison. In 1577, Fox and two other Englishmen were housed among 238 Christian captives, who came from fifteen nations. Fox killed a prison guard and led a revolt that saw the captives escape. They boarded the only galley that had been "trimmed" and fled. Though they were fired upon with cannon, none of the other galleys had masts or sails, and there were no slaves ready to row. Fox and crew escaped to Gallipoli.
From the latter half of the 15th century and into the first part of the 16th, the Ottomans had encouraged piracy. There were four Barbarossa brothers but two became notorious. Aruj (c. 1474 - 1518) was given a position in the Ottoman navy and was given several galleys to command. He began to attack the Italian coast, and also became engaged in conflicts with the Knights of St John.
Aruj gained control of Algiers in August 1516. He killed the Algerian ruler, Selim ben Tumi, either by strangulation with the ruler's turban, or suffocating him in his own steam bath. Aruj was killed by Spanish fighters in 1518, but in 1529, Algiers fell to the Ottomans.
Aruj's role was taken up by his younger brother Khair ad-Din. Algeria became a center for piracy. Last year, Family Security Matters dealt with the subject of the Barbary Corsairs, and their forcible abductions of both sailors and civilians.
In 1571, the Battle of Lepanto was a victory for combined Christian forces against the Ottomans. This was the last major battle involving galleys. The acts of piracy by the Ottomans would continue, and even increased after this. The galleys needed a large crew. A fleet of 200 ships required 20,000 oarsmen. Though galleys began to be phased out, Christian slaves would be used in construction work and other enterprises. The Barbary Corsairs, whose actions were never condemned by their Ottoman overlords, continue to hijack ships, raid village ports and traffic humans until 1815.
In Algeria, four English individuals who had "turned Turk" assisted their masters to build boats that were better suited to sail beyond the confines of the Mediterranean. These men, known as Ward, Bishop, Sakell and Jennings became notorious as traitors. In August 1609 these traitor-pirates' activities were discussed in the court of King James I.
The most feared of these pirates was Captain John Ward, born in Feversham in Kent. As a Muslim he was called Yusuf Reis. He came to piracy late. He was already a convicted pirate when in 1603, aged 50, he was forced into the navy. He deserted, hijacked ships and ended up on the North African (Barbary) coast. He made Tunis the center of his piracy. There Ward had allegedly vowed to "become a foe to all Christians, bee a persecutor of their wealt".
The Dey of Tunis was pleased with Ward's attacks, and gave him a plot of land and an abandoned castle. Ward had started piracy for profit, hoping to become wealthy from seized treasure, but gained greater wealth from kidnapping and trafficking human slaves. Andrew Barker, one of Ward's English captives said Ward's home was "a very stately house, farre more fit for a prince than a pirate." Barker said he had nor seen "any peere in England that beares up his post in more dignitie, nor hath attendants more obsequious."
When Scottish traveler William Lithgow met Ward in Tunis in 1615, he wrote that the pirate lived in a palace and had a retinue that included 15 Englishman. Lithgow related that Ward's home was "a fair palace beautified with rich marble and alabaster stones. With whom I found domestics, some fifteen circumcised English renegades, whose lives and countenances were both alike. Old Ward their master was placable and diverse times in my ten days staying there I dined and supped with him."
"Ward the Pirate" became the subject of a ballad written around 1690.
Slave Raids
In 1551, Suleiman the "Magnificent" ordered Dragut Reis to attack Malta. Malta was under the guardianship of the Knights of St John. The attack upon Malta failed, so Dragut reis turned his attention to the neighboring island of Gozo. A total of 5,000 citizens of Gozo, including women, were taken into slavery.
It is easy to blame the Ottomans for their slave-raids - especially when they were officially trading with the kinsmen of those they kidnapped. Between 1609 and 1616, a total of 466 English vessels were captured and their crews made into slaves. Many were worked to death. These slaves were, if lucky, ransomed. Kidnapped Christians were kept prisoner in Morocco, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli. In 1640, 3,000 English slaves who were held in Algiers petitioned their government for help. Through the 17th century it was traditional for English churches to hold services for the purposes of fundraising for the ransom of the hostages.
The Christians in the 16th century had also copied the activities of the Ottoman slave-dealers. In Bodrum (formerly Halicarnassus) in southwest Turkey, the Knights of St John (Knights Hospitaller) had a castle. These knights fought against the Turks at Lepanto and earlier at Malta. They had imprisoned Aruj Barbarossa at this castle.
In 1993 excavations at Bodrum castle found the skeletons of 13 galley slaves, still in fetters. These had been Muslims, probably war captives, who had served as galley slaves for the Christians. Their bodies had been unceremoniously thrown in a garbage heap.
The Genoese who captured Muslim prisoners also made them work as slaves on their galleys. According to Michelangelo Dolcino, the Muslim galley slaves would be chained to their benches night and day.
The times were harsh and savage. In June 1565 in a battle at fort St Elmo on the island between Jean de la Valette and Ottoman forces, both sides were uncompromising. The Turkish general Mustapha ordered the wounded Knights of St John to have their hearts torn out. Valette ordered that all Turkish prisoners should be decapitated, and that no more live prisoners should be taken.
The Ottoman Caliphs did nothing to condemn slavery, and grew wealthy through hijackings, kidnap and slavery. In today's climate of moral relativism, people are quick to condemn Western culture and history, yet hypocritically excuse the atrocities of others.
Thomas Dallam noticed that on the Greek island of Chios and others which were under Ottoman rule, how poverty-stricken the inhabitants were, due to their having to pay massive taxes to their overlords. This taxing of non-Muslims is all part of Islamic law. Called jizya, it is described in the Hadith of Bukhari (Book 19, number 4294) thus: "If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and fight them."
Many Muslims who currently complain that the West is "Islamophobic" should seriously re-examine their own history. In 1159, all the Christians in Tunis were given a simple option - "convert or die". They were not offered the opportunity of paying a special jizya tax to keep their faith.
From the time of Suleiman the Magnificent, the jizya tax was enforced in Christian communities under Ottoman rule. Samuel Purchas, who continued to publish the papers in Richard Haklut's possession after the latter's death, published an interesting document.
The document is authored by Edward Brerewood (c.1565-1613) who was the head of Astronomy at Gresham College from 1596 until his death. He states: "But, in all the Turkes Dominion that hee hath in Europe, inclosed after a peninsular figure, betweene Danubius and the Sea, and containing in circuit about 2300 miles (for Moldavia, Walachia, and Transilvania, I reckon not for the parts of his Dominion) namely, from above Buda, on Danubius side, and from Ragusa on the Sea Eastward, to the utmost bounds of Europe, as also in the Iles of the Aegean Sea, Christians are mingled with Mahometans...."
"And in his Dominion of the Turks in Europe, such is notwithstanding the mixture of Mahumetans with Christians, so that the Christians make two third parts at least of the inhabitants: for the Turke, so that the Christians pay him his yeerely tribute (which is one fourth part of their increase, and a Saltanie for every poll) and speake nothing against the Religion and Sect of Mahumet, permitteth them the liberty of their religion."
The Ottoman Caliphate had its faults, as did the earlier civilizations of the West. However, Western culture has not clung to the barbarisms and oppressions of its past. The Islamists who today tell us that the world would be a better place under a Caliphate should really examine that past critically. Do they really want to bring back slavery and to force non-Muslims to convert or be killed unless they pay a tax? As philosopher George Santanya stated: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
Adrian Morgan
© 2003-2007 FamilySecurityMatters.org All Rights Reserved
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 6:43 AM | Comments (0)
May 4, 2008
On Genocide, Free Thought and the Healing Profession
The recent events surrounding this latest battle between the anti-jihad blogs stemming from a piece on genocide posted in Gates of Vienna has reminded me again of what I dislike about the psychoanalytic profession. It is not the usual charges that it is not really science, nothing can be agreed upon in the community and that it just a bunch of sophisticated sounding hooey. My objection is that the most important traits to being a good healer such as wisdom, judgment, discernment, compassion and integrity just can't be measured with a string of letters after the name. These traits can't really be taught in a lecture and they aren't necessarily acquired over time. I think there's a very high risk of doing more damage than healing for those who have the credentials, the proof of a high level of training, the aura of intelligence, the respect, but are lacking in any one of the more difficult to measure traits.
My first instruction on the capacity of medical professionals for destruction was when I read about Dr. Joseph Mengele. The most terrifying thing about the Mengele story is that this was a man who was born into a family of wealth and privilege. And yet this soft, comfortable life did not prevent him from being cruel to others. By all accounts, he was a highly intelligent man. He was very well educated. He was a professional healer. And yet none of these things inoculated him against becoming evil. If anyone had the freedom to exercise his options and the ability to recognize what those options were, it should have been Mengele. If anyone should have internalized a sense of compassion and responsibility and understood the important place of ethics in his field it should have been Mengele!
Mengele is the most notorious but he is hardly the only medical doctor directly or indirectly involved in the holocaust. For the several decades preceding the final solution the scientific community, including, and especially, psychiatrists, wrote extensively on eugenics. Most were in full support and there was very little attention to the ethical implications of eugenics. They saw the culling of the diseased and infirmed a way towards a better society. Doctors wrote papers on the best way to kill the infirmed and reduce the population of the inferior races like blacks and Jews. Their favorite sport was to write research papers proving that the Jews were genetically defective.
Did the doctors see what was coming down the pike? Did they realize that they were greasing the wheels of genocide? They at the very least had to know that they were causing damage to the reputation of an already beleaguered people.
It seems like some of these psychiatrists would have found the menacing situation that was developing in Germany worth a paper or two; the propaganda machine, the youth camps, the growing intolerance to dissent, the general population growing increasingly unsympathetic and hostile towards gays, Jews and the sick. But no, the good doctors didn't think to jump all over the Third Reich until after the smoke cleared and the mountain of bodies were piled up to the sun. Then we get to hear all about how such a sophisticated society like Germany could have gone down such a dark road. We get to hear all about the psychological phenomena of scapegoating and appeasement. Really, what would we do without the learned professionals?
How could the professional healers be so willing to pick on the weak, the people they should have been helping, while remaining so blind to the sicknesses of the greater society? These are the very people you'd expect to recognize sooner than anyone the menace that was right before their eyes.
Well, it's human nature, I guess. We're naturally programmed to go along with the strong current, the strong leader or the general attitude or sentiment of the society we're brought up in. It's safer and easier. It might be an evolutionary advantage. The people who learn to follow along with society survive. We don't have to learn to go with the flow, we don't have to actively think about it. It's automatic behavior. Next we soak in our societies attitudes and values growing up. Once we're stamped with society's template, we're off on autopilot for the rest of our lives, blind to everything but what our society taught us to see. Then a charismatic leader comes along with a mission. He pushes the right buttons and targets the right people. And people fall in line. It doesn't matter how intelligent or educated you are. It doesn't matter how much training you have in the human psyche. It clearly doesn't matter.
But there were people who saw what most of the medical community couldn't see. There were educated elites who did concern themselves about the ethics of eugenics. There were people who had a moral compass and resisted the message they were being fed by their society. People put their lives on the line to resist the growing pathologies of their society. It was a minority, but still! Proof that people are not merely slaves to the template they had been stamped with by their society.
When I was in middle school we watched some interviews of some holocaust survivors. One of the survivors said that we are no different today than what we were 40 years ago. Another holocaust could still take place during our generation or the next generation. My instinct told me he was right but I couldn't work out why. Don't most of us now know that racism is evil and everyone is the same? Haven't we seen all the horrifying videos of the concentration camp prisoners? How could there be a repeat?
Our generation has the same human nature as the WWII generation. It's our society's template we post-WWII generations have been stamped with that is different. We are now taught that Western civilization is no better and often worse than other civilizations. All religions are basically the same. We Westerners should be ashamed of ourselves for imperialistic past and that no other civilization is capable of the same level of evil. The rest of the world would not be in the pitiful state it is in if it weren't for our actions. We soak up this message in a million different ways since birth. And we know well the consequences for not towing the politically correct line range from being fired, jailed, assassinated, booted from Pajamas Media, or just branded as evil, racist and neo-nazis.
Some people today are realizing there's a flaw or two in the template that's been handed down to us. They're realizing the chief reason Western society is again hurdling down the road to destruction is that the politically correct template has hampered our ability to address legitimate problems like unrestrained immigration or Islam's rather destructive influence on Western society. They're stepping out of the comfort zone and taking on the subjects that have been taboo for so long. I encourage this not just on the grounds of supporting a free exchange of ideas. I encourage it because I think we need to erase or at least lessen the stigma associated with going outside the bounds of politically correct thought.
So, Dymphna, from Gates of Vienna, one of my favorite bloggers, is taking a break from GofV. She stopped in reaction to Shrinkwrapped's posting assessing El Englis as having signs of "regressive response to anxiety" because of the piece exploring genocide as a possible outcome of the current situation in Europe. Well, I think that was just the final straw. Since the beginning of rift between the anti-jihad blogs back in October she and GofV has been on the receiving end of attack after attack from Charles Johnson of LFG and his minions. She is a character and she really knows how to compound a problem, but she's a clearly a good person and she always has interesting things to say. I'm very sorry to see her go.
I think the blow that really stands out in my mind is the blow she received from her supposed friend, and member of the healing community, Dr. Sanity. The Sanity Squad was to address the conflict between the anti-jihad blogs that had taken place due to the October conference in their November 19th podcast. Sanity accidentally let the podcast running during a private conversation where she noted Dymphna's voice "quivered" during the interview and she wondered if she was afraid of something. Well, let me clue you in, Dr. Sanity. In the world we live in today, we can be branded a racist for the most innocuous of criticisms. There are certain trigger words that instantly create deep suspicion and tarnish your reputation. Once you're accused of supporting White supremacy or having neo-Nazi connections you're already in a distinct disadvantage, you're already placed on the defensive, trying to break through psychological barriers that keep people from giving you a fair chance. Added to that there seems to be an amazing level of obliviousness amongst the professionals among us as to just how vicious and relentless Charles is with his attacks that would put anyone on the defensive. He's the big man on the block tearing down the reps of the smaller blogs. And Shrinkwrapped called it a "family squabble"? I would have been upset too during that interview in the face of such obtuseness.
You'd think that the professional healers at least would have recognized that the role Gates of Vienna had been cast in put them at a significant enough disadvantage that some research beforehand to sort out the issues is necessary so they can make the podcast about a rational discussion on the goals of the conference, the role Vlaams Belang had in the conference, what Gates of Vienna understands about VB's past, what Gates of Vienna sees as the role of VB in the future. You'd think they'd recognize that if they don't do the necessary research on this sensitive subject beforehand, then the participants run a high risk of fostering more misunderstanding and creating more hurt feelings. And yes, creating more fear. The discussion would naturally descend into the realm of irrationality and one side especially would faced with the psychological barriers that go along with defending against vicious attacks by a more influential blog and the stigma associated with having White Supremacy ties. All that gushing compassion Dr. Sanity claimed to have had for both sides means zip when she demonstrates how little thought and care she's willing to devote to the handling of this rift in the anti-jihad community.
An already shaken Dymphna then discovered the 23 minutes of private conversation that made it on the podcast made for the public that hurt her even more. She sent a series of e-mails to Siggy and Sanity that were over emotional and her demands to delete the podcast that included threats of exposure of negative information were more than a little ill-advised.
Frankly, I would have thought Dr. Sanity would have been happy for an excuse to delete the podcast since that bungling, badly researched and careless performance reflects very badly on all the professionals involved. She choses to leave the podcast up but you'd think she'd at least have the humility and compassion to recognize that she made a mistake that hurts someone. And that recognition would be reflected in how she handles this problem. But no. Dr. Sanity proceeds to make the private e-mails Dymphna sent to her and Siggy public claiming she was FORCED to do it due to threats and blackmail. Well, no, Dr. Sanity. You most certainly were not forced to make those emails public. You might have told Dymphna privately that you know she's acting out of strong emotions and advised her to take a step back and think things through. You might have given her a chance to back off of her threats, before you publicly humiliated her more and gave that creepy Charles Johnson more ammo to attack. There are any number of approaches you could have taken that might have salvaged a friendship and help foster some trust that could have help eliminate some of the fear that keeps this whole affair alive. If not for the sake of friendship, then for the sake of your profession as a healer? It's yet another example of a member of the healing profession choosing destruction over healing.
Shrinkwrapped doesn't make much better of a showing for his profession either in this latest anti-jihad flair up. It seems like Charles The Enforcer Johnson has been just begging for a good, long psychological write-up for quite some time now. He obsessively targets his ever growing list of enemies for constant smears and humiliation. He bans people right and left simply for disagreeing with him. There's practically a whole club of Charles Johnson's ban victims. And they aren't neo-Nazis. I think Charles Johnson is a malicious person who cloaks himself with politically correct thought so he can appear righteous when attacking his victims. Well, there are about a dozen different ways you can go with the whole Charles Johnson, LGF influence in the blog community. But no, there's silence on that meaty subject. I don't blame him. Nobody wants to risk getting put on Charles Johnson's hit list. But Shrinkwrapped will, however, unleash his mad analytical skilz on regressive El Englis, a guy who doesn't have the wherewithal or the inclination to damage his reputation in the blog community the way Charles Johnson demonstrated he does. And what has Shrinkwrapped really shown us about genocide in his piece? Except that he is going to act as Charles Johnson's willing arm to stifle discussion.
I don't think it's at all difficult to see why the professional healers in the blog community seem to shake Dymphna so. These are the people you'd expect to get it better than anyone. These are the people you'd expect more than anyone to chose healing over destruction. But it turns out that the professional healers of today are just as blind and destructive and lacking in a moral compass as their colleagues of the past were.
My position is that it is not the few brave voices out there willing to take the hits for exploring the subjects society feels too uncomfortable to discuss who would be responsible for enabling genocide. It's the people who go along with stronger current and blind themselves to the real menace before them.
Posted by Isabel de Castilla at 5:08 PM | Comments (12)
May 1, 2008
Islam: Civilization Clash in Shakespeare's Time - Part One
This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared today in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.
The Clash of Civilizations In the Time of Shakespeare: Part One
Anyone with only a passing interest in Islamic affairs will be aware of the term "Caliphate". The last Caliphate, that of the Ottomans, was officially abolished on March 3, 1924, on the orders of the secular government of Turkey. Islamists glamorize the Caliphate as something "good", but in its last years, the Ottoman Caliphate was bloated and corrupt. It gave rise to the Armenian genocide under Sultan Abdul-Hamid II. From the early 16th century onwards, the Sultan of the Ottomans was also the Caliph. On November 1, 1922 the Sultanate was officially abolished and the deposed Abdul-Hamid lost his title of Caliph. 18 days later his cousin was inaugurated as the very last Caliph, Abdulmecid II.
A year earlier, the Topkapi Palace which had formerly been the seat of the Ottoman Sultans, had been turned into a museum. A color photograph taken for Albert Kahn's "Archive of the Planet" project, using the Lumiere brothers' autochrome process, was taken on November 24, 192 in the palace. I features the gigantic throne upon which the Sultans had sat.
The Ottoman Sultanate had lasted from 1299 until the start of the 20th century, but it reached its peak of prosperity and power in the 16th century. The ruler who schemed to invade Christian European territory was the second Ottoman Caliph, Suleiman I. In 1521 Belgrade, capital of Serbia, had been captured by the Turks, and in August 1526 southern Hungary had become a Turkish dependency after the Battle of Mohacs. Three years later, the Siege of Vienna took place. Suleiman's forces failed to take the city, and apart from a second attempt to invade Vienna in 1683, this was the furthest that the Turks pushed into the European heartland.
Suleiman I was the tenth Sultan of the Ottomans. He ruled from 1520 until he died, aged 72, in 1566 while leading a war campaign against Austria. Suleiman was called "The Magnificent" by Westerners, while his Muslim subjects called him "Kanumi" or "Lawgiver". During his reign, Suleiman conquered Baghdad, and briefly took control of Persia.
In 1536 he signed a treaty with Francis I of France against the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. Under the pseudonym "Muhibbi", Suleiman was also an accomplished poet. He was the second Ottoman ruler to be called "Caliph". Suleiman's father, Selim I, who ruled from 1512 to 1520, had conquered Egypt and adopted the title "Caliph". Selim I had assumed power by forcing his father to abdicate and he had murdered his own brothers to secure his position. He had seen potential in Suleiman and had assisted his claim to the throne by killing Suleiman's brothers (his own sons) and other male relatives. Selim I was, understandably, called "The Grim".
Suleiman I inherited some of his father's cruelty. When he saw rivalry between two of his sons, Bayezid and Selim, he ordered that Bayezid be killed. After Suleiman's death, Selim II became ruler and Caliph, but he was a drunkard and a womanizer who was unable to harness the military gains made by his father and grandfather. He never led his army on a campaign, and left most of the governing of the empire to Pashas. Selim II died on December 5, 1574 in Istanbul.
Selim II's son Murad III ascended the Sultan's throne. Murads mother Afife Nur Banu Sultana was of Venetian in origin. His wife Safiye had also come from Venice and had belonged to a noble family. She had been captured in her youth by Turkish pirates, and become a slave. Sultana Safiye was Murad III's favorite wife, and wielded power
Trading and diplomacy
Under the rule of Murad III, Safiye had assisted in softening the role of the Ottoman Sultanate towards the nations of Western Europe. Skilled in diplomacy, she seems to have had a special affinity for the England of Queen Elizabeth I. Perhaps the Protestantism of the English monarch was seen as a beneficial ally against the "United Europe" represented by the Catholic Holy Roman Empire.
Elizabeth saw Spain as a threat at this time, with good reason. Philip II of Spain (ruled from 1556 - 1598) had been married to Mary, Elizabeth's Catholic half-sister. Mary had ruled from 1553 to 1558 and had returned England to Catholicism. Until his death, Philip II saw England as his rightful territory and inheritance. In 1581, Philip annexed Portugal. England had conducted trade with the East overland through Russia, but this route could not be guaranteed to stay open.
Following a diplomatic mission to Constantinople in 1575 by the agents of two wealthy London traders, an ambassador was sent to Ottoman capital. This ambassador, William Harborne, arrived in October 1578 after a three month voyage overland. He took up residence in the "Porte" and traded under the French flag. His presence was initially to act for the traders, Edward Osborne and Richard Staper. This arrangement was soon extended by both Elizabeth and Murad III.
On March 15, 1579, Murad wrote to Elzabeth of Harborne's mission: "In most friendly maner we giue you to vnderstand, that a certaine man hath come vnto vs in the name of your most excellent Regall Maiestie, commending vnto vs from you all kindnesse, curtesie and friendly offices on your part, and did humbly require that our Imperiall highnesse would vouchsafe to giue leaue and libertie to him and vnto two other merchants of your kingdome..."
In early June 1580, Murat IIII granted a charter of privileges to English traders in Turkey. At that time the charter was made, only the French and Venetians had been allowed to trade.
On September 11, 1581, Queen Elizabeth granted exclusive trading privileges to 16 individuals, including Staper and Osborne,. This agreement led to the founding of the Levant Company.
Letters from Sultana Safiye to Queen Elizabeth were pleasant, if over-writiten: "I send your Majesty so honourable and sweet a salutation of peace that all the flock of Nightingales with their melody cannot attaine to the like, much lesse this simple letter of mine. The singular love which we have conceived one toward the other is like to a garden of pleasant birds..."
On June 26, 1581, Elizabeth had written to Murad III to reassure him that the actions of a rogue Englishman, Peter Blake of Ratcliffe would meet with severe punishment. In his ship the Roe, Blake had committed acts of piracy against Ottoman subjects at sea. The Sultan was addressed as "the most renowned and emperious Caesar, Sultan Murad Can, Emperour of all the dominions of Turkie, and of all the East Monarchie chiefe above all others whosoeuer, most fortunate yeeres with the successe of al true happinesse."
WIlliam Harborne traveled to Turkey as official ambassador for Queen Elizabeth in a tall ship, the Susan. The ship arrived at the Porte on March 26 1583. It would be some time before he would be granted a personal audience with Murad III. Gifts were brought in to the Sultan, carried by twelve men. These included cloth, gilded silverware, bottles and ceramics and even hunting dogs dressed in coats of silk. The gift which seems to have impressed Murad most was a clock.
This clock was described by an anonymous commenter in Richard Hakluyt's travel anthology "Voyages", or "Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation". The item is described as "one clocke valued at five hundred pounds sterling: over it was a forrest with trees of silver, among the which were deere chased with dogs, and men on horsebacke following, men drawing of water, others carrying mine oare on barrowes: on the toppe of the clocke stood a castle, and on the castle a mill. All these were of silver. And the clocke was round beset with jewels."
Until his retirement in 1588, WIlliam Harborne persuaded Murad III not to side with the Spanish against Britain, and English trade with the Ottomans flourished. Harborne was replaced by Sir Edward Barton who acted as ambassador until December 1597 when he died of dysentery. His successor was Henry Lello, an individual whose air of constant worry gave rise to his nickname "Fog".
Thomas Dallam's Organ
Harborne's presentation of the clock appeared to have inspired the next proposed gift to the Sultan - a large organ. This instrument, covered in baroque embellishments, was to be manufactured by Thomas Dallam, one of the leading organ manufacturers in the country. Dallam came from a village near Warrington in Lancashire, and was commissioned to design and construct the instrument.
Unfortunately, the Sultan had died on January 7, 1595. Murad III had suffered all his life from epilepsy and a severe grand mal fit, probably combined with a stroke, had killed him..The news was sent back to Elizabeth's court by the ambassador, Edward Barton in his fortnightly dispatches. He wrote on January 11: "105 (the embassy's code for Murad III, while Elizabeth was called 9) is extreame sick, some say deade and his sonne sent for out of Magnesia in Natolia."
Murad III was succeeded by Mehmed III, his son by the Sultana Safiye. Murad III had reputedly sired a total of 103 children. Mehmet had strangled sixteen (some say nineteen) of his brothers) to ensure his claim to the Ottoman throne. Shakespeare made an allusion to this custom of fratricide in Henry V, when the king addresses his own brothers at his coronation:
"This is the English, not the Turkish court;
Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds,
But Harry, Harry."
The Sultana, now the Queen Mother, continued to play an important role in Ottoman political life. It was decided that the organ should be sent to the new Sultan. Accompanying it would also be a coach, worth £600, for Safiye, the Queen Mother.
The organ - special gift to the new Sultan, Mehmet III - was presented to Queen Elizabeth in November 1598 for her to inspect. As well as being able to be played normally, the organ was also an automaton - which could play pieces of music automatically. It contained a clock that chimed a carillon of bells, and small ornaments on the instrument would move.
Thomas Dallam was to travel with the instrument, which was dismantled and packed into cases with straw. He ordered clothes for himself, and also two virginals, so he could amuse himself on the voyage by practicing his musical and keyboard skills. The ship he traveled on was The Hector. This left Gravesend on Tuesday February 13, 1599. On Wednesday August 15, the Hector reached Constantinople.
Though he had not been educated to any high level, Dallam wrote down his experiences of the journey in a diary. This journal is housed in the British Museum (Additional Manuscript 17480). The diary was not included in Richard Hakluyt's anthologoy of travel manuscripts, nor did it appear in "His Pilgrimes" an anthology by Samuel Purchas who continued to publish Hakluyt's documents posthumously. From the time the diary was completed in 1600 until the late 19th century its history is unknown.
In 1893, the Hakluyt Society published the text in a book entitled "Early Voyages and Travels in the Levant" which included extracts from the journal of Dr John Covel (1638 - 1722) who worked for the Levant Company in Constantinople as a chaplain.
Dallam's account of his journey is lacking in pretension. His spelling follows no order. The Hector had set its anchor beside the Seven Towers at Constantinople, the Ottoman state prison. Dallam would not inspect his cargo on the Sunday, as he was a devout Christian. He wrote: "The twentieth day (of August 1599), being Monday, we began to look into our work: but when we opened our chests we found that all gluing work was clean decayed, by reason that it had lain above six months in the hold of the ship, which was but newly built, so that the extremity of the heat in the hold of the ship, with the workinge of the sea and the hotness of the country, was the cause that all the gluing failed; likewise divers of my metal pipes were bruised and broken."
William Aldridge, consul at Chios. was present, and said the organ was not worth two pence. Dallam deliberately avoided mentioning his response to Aldridge. The chests were taken to the consul's house at Vines of Pera, the diplomatic quarter. Dallam and his assistants set to work restoring the organ, spurred on by an offer from Aldridge of a £15 bonus.
On August 28th the Hector, now situated outside the Sultan's palace, saluted Mehmed III with its 27 cannon. This led to a fatal accident. Dallam wrote that while one of the toughest seaman "was ramming in his cartridge of powder, some fire being left in the breech of the piece, the powder took fire and blew that man quite away in the smoke; about 3 days after all his lower part, from his waist downward, was found two mile from that place, and his head in another place."
In early September, the Sultan was visiting his mother Safiye at one of her residences. The restoration and repairs were complete, and on September 11 the organ was carried into the Sultan's palace. This was called the seraglio - a name which referred to the harem quarters where Mehmed's concubines were housed - but was the main palace of the Ottoman rulers. Close to the Topkapi Palace, the main seat of the "Sublime Porte" - a name for the Ottoman government - was housed.
The building of the Topkapi Palace in Constantinople had commenced in the mid 15th century under the supervision of Mehmed II. The palace would be the main residence of Sultans and their retinues until the 19th century. At the start of the 20th century, the palace became a museum. In the time of Mehmed III, it was the home for the concubines, and also Sultana Safiye, as well as other staff, including Mehmed's dwarfs, who would dress in gold brocade with swords at their sides, and also his deaf-mutes.
Dallam wrote: "At every gate of the seraglio there always sits a stout Turk, about the calling or degree of a justice of the peace, who is called a chia; not withstanding, the gates are fast shut, for there passes none in or out at their own pleasure."
He described the various courtyards and gardens he and his associates had to pass through, before reaching a building where the organ was to be reassembled. On the same day, the coach was been delivered by Paul Pinder, ambassador Henry Lello's secretary, to the Sultana Safiye.
Lello wrote a letter around this time to Sir Robert Cecil, in which he mentioned Safiye's gift. He wrote that "the coach must of necessity be given to the old Sultana because it hath been brutted (announced) here long agone by some out of England that her Highness had ordained the same for her." The Sultana had already instructed him to order two horses from her own stables to draw the coach when it was ready. Lello made no specific mention of the organ.
Dallam would make the journey into the Topkapi Sarayi (palace) on several occasions as he reassembled and fine-tuned the organ. Lello told Dallam that the Sultan was "a monarch but an infidel, and the grand enemy to all Christians. What we or any other Christians can bring unto him he doth think that we do it in duty or in fear of him, or in hope of some great favor we expect at his hands." Lello warned Dallam that Mehmed III would give him no greater reward than the fee he had already been paid by the English government. He also suggested that Mehmed had no intention of seeing the creator of his gift.
The next day, Dallam did encounter the Sultan when Mehmed arrived with his retinue slightly earlier than expected. He wrote: "The Grand Senior, being seated in his chair of estate, commanded silence. All being quiet and no noise at all, the present began to salute the Grand Senior; for when I left it I did allow a quarter of an hour for his coming thither. First the clock struck 22, then the chime of 16 bells went off, and played a song of four parts. That being done, two personages which stood upon two corners of the second storey, holding two silver trumpets in their hands, did lift them to their heads and sounded a tantara. Then the music went off, and the organ played a song of 5 parts twice over."
At the top of the organ was a model of a holly bush filled with blackbirds and thrushes. At the end of the automatic organ-playing, these "did singe and shake theire wynges". Dallam noted that the Sultan was enthralled by the gift. Mehmed asked his vizier if the machine would ever repeat the performance. When told it would do the same an hour later, the Sultan decided to stay and witness the performance."
The organ was designed to automatically play only once every six hours, but Dallam had told the adviser where there was a pin in the machine. When the organ's clock chimed on the hour, all he had to do was touch the pin and the carillon, drum rolls and musical mechanics would start again. This was done.
The Sultan sat by the keys, watching them move. When he was told that the organ could be played by hand, Dallam was summoned into the room. He wrote: "I stood there, playing such thing as I could until the clock struck, and then I bowed my head as low as I could, and went from him..." Dallam's performance was well-rewarded. Mehmed took 45 pieces of gold from behind him, and ordered the gate-keeper to give it to the organ-maker.
Within days, someone had tampered with the organ, and Dallam was summoned to return to reset the mechanisms. Shortly after this, Dallam was invited by one of the Sultan's officials to have a special tour of the "privy chambers" at the palace. Over three days Dallam was shown around parts of the palace no outsider had seen. He saw the Sultan' bed-chaber, the private bath-houses and archery butts, and the rooms where royal gifts were stored.
On one occasion at a marble-paved courtyard, his guide indicated a grille set into a large wall. The guide urged Dalam to look through it. "When I came to the grate the wall was very thick, and grated on both sides with iron very strongly, but through that grate I did see thirty of the Grand Senior's concubines that were playing in another court."
Dallam was transfixed. The women were "verrie prettie ones in deede." They wore small satin jackets and their lower parts were clad in white drawers of such a lightness that "I could discern the skin of their thighs through it."
"I stood so long looking upon them that he which had showed me all this kindness began to be very angry with me. He made a wry mouth, and stamped with his foot to make me give over looking; the which I was very loathe to do, for that sight did please me wondrous well."
Thomas Dallam was treated well by the Sultan and his officials. Apart from his brief voyeurism with the concubines, he obeyed the rules which were ordered. He had to look downward in the presence of the Sultan or a senior official, and when leaving the noble's presence he walked backwards.
In England there was ambivalence towards the Turkish empire at this time, even though trade was being encouraged with the Ottomans. Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) would call the Ottomans "Ottomites" in his play Othello, first performed in 1606:
"Are we turned Turks, and to ourselves do that
Which Heaven hath forbid the Ottomites?" (II.iii.169-70)
For most people in Europe, even when trade was taking place, the Turks were feared. The concubines in Mehmet III's harem were mostly Christians who had been abducted by corsairs (pirates). The coasts of Europe from the 15th century onwards were prey to the marauding of corsairs from north Africa. The rulers of these nations - Morocco, Tripoli, Algiers, Libya, were vassals of the Ottomans. Entire populations of some coastal towns were abducted into slavery.
The Ottomans themselves encouraged such plunder and slavery. The "Barbary corsairs" would attack targets in Ireland, Scandinavia and even attack whaling vessels off Newfoundland. The Ottomans would plunder ships and take crew members to work as galley slaves.
On October 15, 1579, in a response to Murad III concerning the future ambassador WIlliam Harborne, Queen Elizabeth herself expressed concern about the English sailors who had been taken as galley slaves by the Ottomans. She addressed the Sultan as "the most imperial and invincible prince" and wished him "many happy and fortunate yeeres, with abundance of the best things." She nonetheless was obliged to end her letter with the following:
"Moreover the signification and assurance of your highness' great affection to us and our nation, doeth cause us also to entreat and use mediation on the behalf of certain of our subiects, who are detained as slaves and captives in your Galleys..."
The lives of galley slaves were both arduous and humiliating. Those forced to work the oars on the galleys were stripped naked. Few had any chance of improving their status with their captors or gaining their freedom.
The Ottoman empire was so dependent upon slavery that it relied upon slaves for its defense. It instituted an elite infantry force called Janissaries. The name came from Turkish: - "yeniceri" or "new army". These soldiers were slaves, abducted mostly in childhood, and then intensively trained.
In part two, using contemporary and first-hand accounts where possible, I will describe how the Ottomans inspired dread in the cultures of Europe.
Additional Sources:
Richard Hakluyt: "The Principall Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation", London, 1589
Stanley Mayes: "An Organ For the Sultan", Putnam, London, 1956
Adrian Morgan
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Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 5:20 AM | Comments (5)