Cultures in Conflict - Essay Example

In the nineteenth century the Jews, like the Christians and the Muslims, went through a phase of conflict -- the struggle between reformers and conservatives. Among the Muslims, the Greeks, and the Armenians, the reformers won. Among the Jews, they lost. For this the Jews paid a price. Compared with their Christian neighbors they fell steadily behind. The Jews had cast their lot, not surprisingly, with the reactionary forces among the Turks. The destruction in 1826 of the Janissary Corps, the old military order, with which the Jews had important links, was a heavy blow.

The rise of Russia and the growth of Russian influence were also not very helpful to Jews in the Ottoman Empire. Later in the century there was a certain upswing in the entrept trade of Salonica with its ties to the West, but despite improved education, which was fostered most notably by the Alliance Isralite Universelle, the effort came too late. They were caught in the circumstances which led to the end of the Ottoman Empire and the transformation of the entire region. Language has barely been mentioned in this discussion of the major communities of the Ottoman Empire. . However, the language of ritual was not necessarily the language of the street or the home.

While the hierarchy of the Greek Or thodox church was both ethnically and linguistically Greek, the parish clergy and flock was a polyglot mass speaking almost as many languages as were spoken in the empire itself. In the Balkans there were speakers of Slavic and, in the case of Rumanian, a Romance language. To the south of Anatolia there were Arabic-speakers. In Anatolia itself, according to observers during the nineteenth century, the majority of the communicants of the church did not know Greek at all, as their native language was Turkish or Armenian.

In Anatolia the Greek Orthodox who were literate wrote in Greek script, but the language many of them transcribed was Turkish or Armenian. The Ottoman Empire was a classic example of the plural society. An acute observer of similar societies in South Asia defined them with the following description which applies equally well to the Ottoman world: . . . probably the first thing that strikes the visitor is the medley of peoples. . . . It is in the strictest sense a medley, for they mix, but do not combine.

Each group holds by its own religion, its own culture and language, its own ideas and ways. As individuals they meet, but only in the market-place, in buying and selling. There is a plural society, with different sections of the community, living side by side, but separately within the same political unit. Even in the economic sphere there is a division of labor along racial lines. (Furnivall 304-305)For all their shortcomings, plural societies did allow diverse groups of people to live together with a minimum of bloodshed.

In comparison with the nationstates