Suchergebnisse

The African scramble for independence has led to two major political trends which have at least the superficial look of being contradictory but which may still turn out to be complementary. One is the consolidation of states, and, it may be, of nations, within the frontiers traced on the map of Africa with an imperial flourish by the colonial powers. The other is the unceasing agitation and conferring to secure some sort of African unity which would bring together within a common framework either all the African peoples or such more limited groupings of them as are now prepared to join forces for general or particular purposes. The unanswered, and still unanswerable, question is whether the states which have been emerging in such quantities, with more still to come—29 African Members of the UN at the end of 1961 as against five in 1955—will serve as the building blocks for a greater African union or whether they will jealously guard the separate identity which they have now achieved.

In practical politics the vital thing is not what men really are, but what they think they are. This simple truth, so often overlooked, is actually of tremendous import. It gives the key to many a riddle otherwise insoluble.The European war is a striking case in point. That war is very generally regarded as being one of "race." The idea certainly lends to the struggle much of its bitterness and uncompromising fury. And yet, from the genuine racial standpoint, it is nothing of the kind. Ethnologists have proved conclusively that, apart from certain palaeolithic survivals and a few historically recent Asiatic intruders, Europe is inhabited by only three stocks: (1) the blond, long-headed "Nordic" race, (2) the brown, round-headed "Alpine" race, (3) the brunet, long-headed "Mediterranean" race. These races are so dispersed and intermingled that every European nation is built on atleast two of these stocks, while most are compounded of all three. Strictly speaking, therefore, the present European war is not a race-war at all, but a domestic struggle between closely knit blood-relatives.

After the Karlowitz Treaty of 1699, the Ottoman Empire began to lose constantly in every field, when compared to European gains in economy, territory, industry and social changes. The ideas of the Enlightenment such as positivism and nationalism also undermined the foundations of the Ottoman social system (millet) that gave a common sense of identity to all the communities of the Empire. Beginning from that time, the Ottoman bureaucracy began to search for the meaning of being European. The most important question was what should be done in order to save the Empire. The first solution found for the problem was the reorganization of the Ottoman Army which was superior in comparison to its European counterparts. As it became obvious that this attempt was not enough, using Western values against the West by arrangements on education and diplomacy, and when these failed too, it was attempted to change the legal sphere by introducing Western secular values to coexist with Ottoman sharia system. These attempts made to prevent stagnation and decline from the 17th century onwards, did not prevent the decline of the Empire. In the 19th century, it is seen that some currents of thought emerge among the Ottoman intellectuals. The common point of all these currents was to save the "sick man of Europe" as uttered by the Russian Tsar, but the proposal differed. This study will discuss Pan-Ottomanism, which started in the mid-19th century as an ideology of unity, but developed to be a nationalist ideology in the early 20th century against the independence demands of the Ottoman non-Muslim as well as Muslim communities. The study will also discuss the influence of Ottoman pan-ideologies in the establishment of modern Turkey. Adapted from the source document.