The Dominion. THURSDAY, JANUAEY 15, 1920. RECKONING WITH THE TURK
Some recent cablegrams have laid strong emphasis upon the danger ' that the partition of the Ottoman Empire may occasion widespread turmoil .throughout the' Moslem world. Exactly how acute the danger is it is impossible to say offhand, but assuredly no such violent protest as is threatened was ever made with poorer justification. Ke- : ports which affirm that popular feeling in India and elsewhere is dangerously stirred over the impending fate of. Turkey seem in themselves to be well grounded. Arresting accounts have been given of enormous public gatherings in Madras, Calcutta, and other cities at which Indian Moslems have passionately protested not only against the abolition of the Osmanli Caliphate, but against the liberation of Arabia, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Syria, and Palestine. It is a strange additional feature that these' Moslem protests are receiving support in India from the Hindu population. With matters taking this course in India, it is, easy to believe that the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire is giving rise to a dangerous agitation in the extensive ancl ill-organised regions of Central Asia. Nothing is. clearer than that this widespread ferment is occasioned by. developments at which all lovers of humanity, peace, and justice are bound to rejoice.' The protests, of the Moslem world are raised against the dethronement of a Power which in temporal affairs has never been anything but a vile tyranny, and in spiritual affairs has never been anything but a blatant imposture. In recent times the Sultan of Turkey and some of his Ministers have come forward with smooth professions of virtue. Not long ago, for instance, the Sultan was quoted as saying to a French correspondent:— Our uainfitl position is evident. A 'handful of. traitors led us into the war. The harm thev did the country is now known to all. We arc to-day in a difficult situation. Wo hope the Allies wi|l not fail to respect our honour and independence on our own soil. ,As to the Moslem element of the population, how nan it louver be held deprived of security materially and morally in its rightful claims? Ido not forget'that lam the sou of Sullan Abdul Metljtd, who of the imperial '"house to whk'h I belong conspicuously stood for a liberty-respcct-intr policy towards Christians. As lam of the school of the ruler who ivas a lover of Europe and of the civilisation of the West. I shall respect those covenants which find expression in the uord liberty, faithful lo God and to all men. Similar things were said on behalf of Turkey at the Peace Conference. Damad Feuid Pasha, the Grand Vizier, modestly invited the Allies to restore the Ottoman Empire as it stood in 1914, and assured them that henceforth he and his fellow-Turks would devote themselves to "an intensive economic .and intellectual culture" in the hope of winning their way into the League of Na- . tions. It is a complete answer to all such professions that coming from such a source they are meaningless. As the Council of Ten observed in its reply to the Ottoman representations, the Turk has "no capacity to rule over alien races. The experiment has been tried too long and too often for there to be the least doubt." With its incidental features of the wholesale massacre of Armenians, Greeks, and people of other races, the record of the Turk is fairly summed up in the statement that neither among Christians npr among Moslems has be done other than destroy wherever he has conquered. It is true that Turkey was swept into the war as the pawn of a gang of mongrel adventurers, themselves the hirelings j and henchmen of the Central'Em-J pircs. But these modern infamies \ arose naturally out of the corruption in which the Ottoman Power developed on the site of the Roman Eastern Empire. The only sound policy in dealing with this corrupt tyranny is to root it out. The Anatolian peasants, who constitute the worthiest and most deserving element of their race, have as much to gain from the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire as the formerly subject races whom the Allies are • bound in common justice, and humanity to liberate and protect. Any claim to the contrary is mere hypocrisy and subterfuge. As much is to be said of any suggestion that protests on religious grounds against the termination of the Osmanli Caliphate rest upon a solid foundation. Well-in-formed authorities agree in affirming that the assumption of the Caliphate by the Ottoman rulers is illegal and heretical. The suggestion made by Mr. J. L. Garvin that the Sultan should be allowed to remain at Constantinople shorn of his temporal power, but retaining the title of Caliph, seems in existing condi-' tions to offer a means of softening Moslem prejudice. But the fact stands that the Ottoman Turks have as manifestly failed to establish any right to,exercise spiritual authority over the Moslem races as to retain their political authority over the peoples they have so vilely maltreated. Whatever its present significance may be, the present unrest in the i Mohammedan world cannot with any show of reason be regarded as spontaneous, but must he attributed to the insidious promptings of plotters who are concerned about ends very different to # promoting the welfare and security of the Mohammedan races. No doubt tangible clangers are raised in this way, but the Allies are not the less bound to emancipate the Victims of Turkish misrule, and to establish such a control over G'otii stantinoplo as will safeguard world peace.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19200115.2.10
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 94, 15 January 1920, Page 4
Word count
Tapeke kupu
926The Dominion. THURSDAY, JANUAEY 15, 1920. RECKONING WITH THE TURK Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 94, 15 January 1920, Page 4
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Dominion. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.