Osmanlı Rüyası by Nuray Mert

For today's post I would like to discuss an article we read in our okuma class. It was a op-ed written by Nuray Mert for the newspaper Radikal. The piece is dated 04/28/2009.

Nuray Mert is certainly an author I want to research in depth. For my thesis on Atatürk, she seems to be a good source to quote. This particular piece she wrote is called Osmanlı Rüyası, or "Ottman Dream." I posted yesterday some thoughts on the Ottoman Empire, and touched on nostalgia felt for it by religious conservatives. Mert, however, goes into detail on the subject of "Osmanlı nostaljisi." Something that she sees as fake and rooted in emotion rather than historical fact. The article makes me question my observations I espoused yesterday.

Mert's language stands out. Her tone is satiric and witty. Using old Ottoman Turkish words (of Arabic or Persian origin) she satirizes the nostalgia felt on behalf of religious conservatives (Mert calls them 'muhafazakar' a word noticeablely of non-Turkish origin) for the Ottoman past. According to Mert, there are two ideologies competing for power in Turkey: republican ideology (she is careful not use Ataturk's ideology or Kemalist ideology) and what she describes as 'Osmanlı mirası" or "Ottoman legacy." The aims of the neo-Ottomanists according to Mert is "to build a society bound by religious culture in place of [one that is] modern and secular."

Her main argument is that for the muhafazakar, the Ottoman empire has become a symbol of an Islamic "golden age." The muhafazakar see the Ottoman state as "an island of civilization, a tolerant heaven, a symbol of justice, a heaven on earth."

Mert expands on this point to bring up some realities of the Ottoman state. She asks, "where were women's rights in the Ottoman empire." She answers by saying that for the average person in the Ottoman empire, there were no rights. The sultan's word was law. Mert also goes into some discussion about the "Ottoman woman." Though she doesn't believe personally that women in hijabs in Turkey want to return to that status, she does point out the irony that they champion a system that afforded women no rights.

For me personally, I think I would like revise my thoughts on muhafazakar. Yesterday I stated that I was in the secular camp but that I thought that the muhafazakar were harmless. After reading Mert's article, I have doubts now. I admire her uncompromising commitment to secularism and modernism. And I agree with her point, that all of this is a mere "dream." I look forward to reading more of her articles.