Islam, Turkey, and Armenia, and How They Happened/Chapter XVI
CHAPTER XVI.
TURKISH GOVERNMENT AND THE CHRISTIAN SUBJECTS.
1. The Nature of the Turkish Government. The Turkish Government is what we may call a politico-religious system. The Sultan claims to be the successor of the prophet, hence the highest authority over the Mohametan world. The Turkish army is exclusively a Mohametan army. All the struggles and wars, however political they may be, are regarded and fought as religious wars, always sanctioned by the legal decree from the highest religious authority, and led by "sanjak sherif," the holy banner of the "Apostle of Allah," used in religious contests of the Saracens. The law of the Turkish courts in its essentials and details is based upon the Koran, administered and executed by Mohametan judges, who are the white-turbaned religious heads of the community. In one word, the interest of the Turkish Government is that, and only that, of Islam. Hence the more zealous and intolerant a sultan the nearer the ideal of a Mohametan ruler, and more respected and obeyed by the bigoted people, officers and the army.
Another phase of the Turkish Government is its dualism. It is a government within a government. Two words, porte and palace, express these elements. The whole machinery of government exists at the porte, Council of Ministers and Council of State. All business is supposed to pass through their hands, and the whole administration subordinates to them; still all being subject to the supreme will of the Sultan. Any decision issued from the porte must be carried by the grand vizier to "the foot of the throne" and the Sultan's arbitrary utterance in positive or negative must be regarded as a "firman," the command of "God's shadow upon the earth." The palace is another center of authority more powerful than the official government, made up of chamberlains, mollahs, eunuchs, astrologers and nondescripts, and supported by the secret police. The general policy of the empire is determined by this party, and the most vital questions of the State are often treated and decided here, while the highest officials of the porte are left in absolute ignorance of what is going on. This party (palace), composed of the representatives of the most fanatic Moslems and the meanest adventurers, native or foreign, have the greatest influence upon the will and deeds of the Sultan. Not a single communication passes to or from the Sultan but by their agency, and with frequent modification or total fabrication.
2. The Government and the Christian Subjects. The inhabitants of Turkey, consisting of about fifteen different races or nationalities, are, in the sight of the government and law, divided into two essential classes under the official names of "Moslem" and "non-Moslem." Turks, Arabs, Kurds, Albanians, Tartars, Circassians and Africans belong to the "blessed" class (Moslem), while the Armenians, Greeks, Nestorians, Maronites, Jews, Druzes and Europeans belong to the Condemned party (non-Moslem).
Being led by the necessities of affairs, and often enforced by the commanding requests of the European Powers, the Turkish sultans apparently adopted and even officially proclaimed some religious and civil reforms for their non-Moslem subjects; but these schemes of toleration did not go further than the waste-basket. Sultan Mohamet II., the capturer of Constantinople, seeing that the population of the great capital had been thinned out by the sword, by flight and captivity, issued a general proclamation assuring the Greeks who chose to become settlers "that they would be protected in their lives and liberties, in the free exercise of their religion, enjoying certain privileges relative to their commercial pursuits; that they were to elect their own patriarchs, subject to approval of the supreme power and were to enjoy the same honors and ranks that had belonged to their predecessors in the ecclesiastical office," etc.; while another sultan, the grandfather of the present one, being informed of the existence of a conspiracy among the Greek subjects abroad, gave way to frantic rage and let loose the passion of his Moslem subjects against the Greek Christians in the capital and the provinces. Thousands of innocent victims were sacrificed to their vengeance, many of them without even knowing why they were slain. On Easter day the Gregorian patriarch of Constantinople was executed at the door of his own church, and as the greatest possible indignity which could be offered in the eyes of his nation his body was delivered to the Jews to be dragged through the streets. This was what "the honors and ranks" of the above quoted proclamation meant and as understood by the sultans.
"The Hatti Sheriff," sacred document "of Gulbane," promulgated by Sultan Mejit, the father of the present Sultan, as a concession of "equal rights and justice to all classes of the Ottoman subjects," infuriated the bitter feelings of the fanatical Turks, who, unable to bear the idea of being placed on the same level with the "infidel dogs," excited the ignorant population in the capital and provinces and imposed insults and outrages upon the Christians.
The 61st article of the Treaty of Berlin (1878), signed by the Turk, together with the six great Powers of Europe, to bring an end to the Kurdish and Circassian atrocities committed in Armenia, resulted in the Sassoun massacre of 1894, and the last issue of the scheme of reforms signed by the Sultan and published in eight columns of London papers caused the slaughter of 80,000 innocent Armenians with such horrors that 800 pages of the same papers could not describe and eighty centuries will not be able to wipe away this unparalleled blot on the eighteen Christian governments of Europe.
3. Constitutional Privileges of the Armenian Church. Nearly thirty-five years ago, after repeated appeals and great struggles, the Armenian mother church secured a constitution granted by the Sultan pertaining to her ecclesiastical rights as to the election and privileges of the patriarchs and synods and provincial councils, and the administration of the schools and other institutions. This constitution, though carefully sifted and limited by Turkish severity, was once supposed to be the guarantee for the protection of the ecclesiastical rights so long disregarded, but soon proved to be a farce upon the part of the Turkish Government. From the election of the patriarch, the head of the executive body of the said constitution and the only authorized agent between the Armenian church and the Turkish government, to the appointment of the village teacher, every transaction was meddled with, disturbed, delayed, and frequently prevented by the "good pleasure of the all-powerful Padishah" (the monarch), as well as by the least and the meanest clerk of the porte.
In 1850 the Protestant Armenians were granted a charter guaranteeing them "religious liberty and other rights conferred on the other Christian communities of the empire." In spite of these promises they have never been allowed to erect one church in the capital, though they have the site and the necessary funds in hand and have repeatedly petitioned for the same during fifteen successive years.
The Catholic Armenians, having their own so-called patriarch in Constantinople, and being indirectly helped by the Roman church, have comparatively greater access to the palace, and that by the cunning policy of the Turkish government, in order to sow tares among the Christian communities of the empire. In official documents these three branches of the Armenian church are intentionally distinguished by the names of "the Protestant nation," "the Catholic nation" and "the Armenian nation" (the old church). And the common people, unable to realize the real spirit of this distinction, receive it as a compliment and recognition of their equal rights.
4. Governmental Offices for non-Moslems. Non-Moslems are entirely left out of the legal and military services. No Christian is admitted in the Turkish army or navy as a soldier; some few Greeks and Armenians, however, serve as physicians in the army.
According to the later constitution, each community in the empire should have their representatives at the courts in proportion to the numbers of Moslems and non-Moslems of the country (not of the respective towns), as one to four; the president being always a Moslem and each Christian member being approved by the government herself. Under such limitations there could not be much room for the protection of Christians' rights, especially in the interior, where the Turkish members arrange matters and prepare reports to suit themselves and offer them to the Christian members to sign, even without reading the contents, and that most probably at the expense of the rights of their own friends and communities. Fear, ignorance, and sometimes selfish interests, compel them to do so.
Coming to other subordinate offices, as in telegraphic or postal departments, or in financial or register bureaus, etc., the Christians are used as helpers or chief laborers for the higher Moslem officers, who are either unable or unwilling to work and are glad to use such active and honest brains and hands for one third of the assigned salary.
