_THE SPREAD OF EDUCATION_
For the last few years—that is, ever since the victorious war waged
by Japan against Russia demonstrated to the peoples of the East that
an Oriental country could break away from the conservative traditions
that oppose progress, and make itself respected as one of the great
civilised powers of the world—a remarkable growth of nationalism
throughout Asia has attracted the close attention of observers in
Europe. The East that gave the West its early civilisation is now
taking its political ideals from the West. In India, China, Persia,
and Egypt national parties have risen whose aim it is to free their
countries either from native despotism or from European tutelage, and
to introduce forms of self-government modelled on those of modern
Europe. But though much has been written and said concerning the
awakening of the populations of the above-mentioned countries, it is
curious that there was no talk of any political movement in Turkey,
the nearest to Europe of the Eastern nations, until July, 1907, when
the world was suddenly amazed to learn that what appeared to be an
unpremeditated military mutiny in Macedonia had compelled the Sultan
to grant a Constitution to his country.
This Moslem revolution, that had been so long preparing and was so well
organised, came as a complete surprise even to such European residents
as knew the country best, including the Ambassadors of the Powers
in Constantinople and their Consular representatives throughout the
Empire. None of these gave any warning to their respective Governments
of what was coming. None of the newspaper correspondents in Turkey,
none of the globe-trotting M.P.s and members of the Balkan Committee
who were seeking an understanding of Turkish affairs on the spot,
had any inkling of the wide-spread conspiracy that was to upset the
Despotism with its first blow. It had been long known, of course, that
there existed a group of exiled politicians who called themselves the
“Young Turkish Party.” But this party was not taken seriously, for
its critics little knew that it represented all that was intelligent
and enlightened in Turkey. It was regarded as a little band of mad
anarchists, or at best of foolish visionaries. An ambassador described
the movement as “innocuous,” while some regarded it as “bogus,” and
denied even the virtue of sincerity to these patriots. It was written
of them in an authoritative work that “a large proportion of them
had gone into an exile with the express object of being persuaded
to return,” that is, of being reclaimed by the Sultan’s bribes.
An Englishman who has lived all his life in Turkey thus summed up
his opinion: “The Young Turkey association—lacking, as it does,
pecuniary resources, cohesion, definite purpose, and capable leaders,
has not shown itself a formidable organisation.” Our humanitarian
agitators had a complete misapprehension of the aim of the movement,
and were apparently convinced that no good thing would come from the
modern Turks. But the Young Turks all the while knew what they were
about, what they wanted, and how to set to work to get it; and the
organisation that for years was preparing the revolution worked so
secretly as to conceal the importance of the movement from the Palace
spies themselves.
No great political movement can be of sudden growth if it is going
to meet with permanent success, and though the ultimate explosion
may take by surprise those outside the movement, the revolution of a
serious people is the result of long brooding and gradual development
of opinion. From the time of the Sultan Mahmud II, who ascended the
throne one hundred years ago, the better and more patriotic statesmen
of Turkey have made efforts to bring the system of government into
accord with the methods of advancing Europe. The influence of Western
ideas made themselves felt throughout European Turkey, and began to
modify the intellectual outlook, the ideals, and the social customs of
the educated classes. The change, as I have pointed out in a previous
chapter, was reflected in Turkish literature, which about forty years
ago became Western in sentiment and style, and the literary language
itself was modernised by a group of writers of whom Kemal Bey,
historian, poet, philosopher, dramatist, and novelist, was pre-eminent,
a genius whose works, published in Europe, were not allowed to enter
Turkey during the Hamidian _régime_, but whose splendid war hymn, the
“Silistria,” the penalty for singing which was formerly death, now has
the same stirring effect upon the revolutionary Moslem crowds as had
the “Marseillaise” upon the French. As the facilities for education,
the schools and colleges, multiplied in Turkey, the thirst for
scientific knowledge and the culture of Western Europe spread through
the country, and with enlightenment and education naturally came the
liberalism of the West and intellectual revolt against the paralysing
influence of some time-honoured institutions and doctrines.
It is scarcely accurate in these days to speak of the Turks—as one
often hears them spoken of—as the finest of _Oriental_ races. The
Turks have been five hundred years in Europe, during which they have
intermarried largely with Europeans, and they are now to all intents
and purposes Europeans, more so, indeed, than some of their neighbours
on the continent of Europe itself, a fact which would be more generally
recognised were it not for the barrier raised between them by the
difference of religion. Thus it has come about that the modernist
movement in Turkey is much more in touch with Western ideas than is
that of the other awakening peoples of the East, who differ so much
from Europeans in race and character, and whose awakening has to a
large extent taken the form of antagonism to European influence and
a desire to free themselves from the European hegemony. On the other
hand, the Turkish reformers wish to attach the Turkish race to Europe
and not to Asia; their sympathies and culture are now Western and not
Eastern; they wish Turkey to be recognised as one of the civilised
countries of Europe.
It is partly on this account, too, that the Young Turks have repudiated
Pan-Islamism, the form which the modern awakening of the Moslem
nationalities has taken in some parts of the Eastern world—that
combination of Mohammedans of all races to resist the Christian
nations, of which, as I have explained, Abdul Hamid himself was an
advocate. It was a movement, which, if successful, might have restored
to Islam its glory and its conquering might, but it would have brought
with it the recrudescence of religious fanaticism and the impossibility
of progress on modern lines.
The views of the Young Turkey party on this subject were thus expressed
by one of their organs: “We Ottomans belong to a race sufficiently
intelligent and practical to understand that the pursuit of the
Pan-Islamic designs of the visionaries would be contrary to our dearest
interests.” The Young Turk is a patriot whose first thought is for his
own fatherland; he is working for its liberation and its progress,
and hopes to make it again strong and respected of the nations. But
Pan-Islamism he leaves alone, and it will be remembered that the
Turkish Constitutional party gave no encouragement to the Egyptian
Nationalists, whose aspirations have a Pan-Islamic character.
On the other hand, the Young Turks have made it clear that theirs is
not an irreligious movement, and that Moslem fanatics cannot with
justice accuse them of holding the rationalistic views of the French
revolutionaries, and of being bad Mussulmans. Writers have described
this as a party of agnostics. This is an incorrect statement, and were
it believed by the Turkish people the Constitution would have but a
short life. There are, of course, some Young Turks who, during their
exile in Paris and other European cities, have acquired rationalistic
views; but the great bulk of them are faithful Moslems. There have
been at times agnostics in the English Parliament, but it would not be
fair on that account to dub England a nation of unbelievers. The Young
Turkish movement, indeed, far from being irreligious, is tempered with
the faith of Islam; but, as a French writer recently put it, with these
reformers Islamism is a motive and not an end.
But the Mohammedanism of the enlightened Turks who compose the Young
Turk party is a very different thing to the fanatical and narrow creed
of the Arab; for it is wholly and sincerely tolerant. There has been an
awakening of the religion of Islam itself, and it is now being proved
to an astonished world that the ancient dogmas of Mohammedanism are no
more immutable than those of other creeds. Even as the Christianity
of the Middle Ages, which burnt heretics and regarded science as the
invention of the devil, has adapted itself to modern ideas, so at last
has it come to pass with the supposed unchangeable doctrines of the
Moslem Church. Enlightened Mussulmans are doing their best to bring
their religion into conformity with modern ideas and the progress of
an enfranchised people. In India, Persia, and Turkey learned doctors
of the sacred law are showing that many accepted doctrines are not
enjoined by the Koran itself, but have been grafted on the religion by
various commentators; and therefore, even as the Reformation in Europe
rejected much that had been superimposed on primitive Christianity
and went straight back to the Bible, so does the present Moslem
reformation reject many of the commentaries and go straight back to
the Koran, bringing new interpretations to bear upon the Book itself,
with the result that the doctors have been able to prove that the
strictest Mussulman can reconcile it with his conscience to accept the
Constitution, that Islam is essentially liberal and democratic, that to
remove oppression and corruption is to obey the teachings of the Koran,
and that the granting of equal rights to Christians and Mussulmans—a
reform which was the stumbling-block to many Mohammedans—is in no wise
opposed to the injunctions of the Prophet.
The Young Turk movement is therefore Nationalist and not Pan-Islamic,
and the policy of these reformers is opportunist. Liberal-minded
themselves, they have had to bear in mind that Turkey-in-Asia holds
some of the most conservative and fanatical Moslems in the world;
so they had to go delicately to work when they began necessarily to
interfere with some cherished traditions. The exile of these young
men afforded them the opportunity of getting into contact with
educated Indian and other Mussulmans, learned in Moslem law, from
whom they received considerable assistance. It will be remembered
that the Sheikh-ul-Islam, as representative of the _mollahs_ and the
interpreters of the Koran in Turkey, gave the Young Turk movement
the sanction of the faith, rebuked the fanatics who had preached
against reform as being irreligious, and compelled them to stay their
mischievous vapourings. Had it not been for this support the revolution
would have been impossible. But it may not be generally known that the
theological arguments which convinced the Sheikh-ul-Islam that this was
the right attitude to take were drawn up for him by a faithful subject
of King Edward VII, Ameer Ali, ex-judge of the High Court in India, and
a learned exponent of Moslem thought and tradition. It was Ameer Ali
who recently introduced the deputations of Indians that waited on Lord
Morley to plead the cause of the Moslems in India who, by the scheme
proposed by the Government, were not to be given due representation on
the Councils.
The awakening of Turkey, the growth of liberalism, and the thirst
for knowledge among the educated Turks, including even the _Ulemas_,
whom the world regarded as the most narrow-minded of Mussulman
conservatives, were largely encouraged by the very measures which Abdul
Hamid had taken to suppress these ideas and movements so dangerous
to his despotism. Men of ability, being suspected by the Palace, and
living in perpetual dread of the _espionage_ which enveloped them
like some hideous nightmare, were unable to associate with each other
freely, and had to live isolated lives, the tedium of which they
relieved by reading, with a greater avidity than is displayed in other
countries, where men have wider scope for their intellectual energies,
works on history, philosophy, and law, and other literature which were
smuggled into Turkey across her land and sea frontiers. In latter days
the Turkish exiles in Europe succeeded in pouring prohibited literature
wholesale into Turkey, but at first the supply was small; one book,
passed secretly from one man to another, would be read by hundreds, and
young men greedy for instruction even went to the pains of copying out
with their own hands bulky volumes which they had borrowed. Many a man
who considers himself to be well read would feel ashamed on discovering
how much wider than his own is the knowledge of English literature
possessed by some of his friends among the Young Turks. The Sultan,
too, unintentionally, spread far and wide the very influences which it
was his desire to destroy, for by driving thousands of educated men
out of Constantinople into exile in various provinces of his Empire,
he made of these, missionaries of enlightenment, liberalism, and
political discontent. Those also who were exiled to foreign countries
and lived in Paris and other Western capitals came under the immediate
influence of modern ideas, and, communicating with their friends in
Turkey, inoculated them with their own views. Thus it came about that
the whole Empire was gradually leavened with dissatisfaction with the
Sultan’s rule, and the ground was prepared for the revolution.