LITERATURE AND NATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

peter clarkeach country has Turkish words – belki ‘perhaps’ in Damascus, kubri ‘bridge’ inEgypt, hastahane ‘hospital’ in Iraq, yalek ‘waistcoat’ in Yemen or mekteb ‘school’in Tunis. In the first generation of Arab independence an education at theIstanbul Law School or service in the Ottoman army provided a unity ofcommon experience for many Arab politicians. The first Hashemite rulers ofIraq and Transjordan had grown to adulthood in Istanbul. Their families werelinked by marriage to the Ottoman aristocracy. I remember in 1970 PresidentSuney of Turkey, an old soldier, made a state visit to Jordan. One evening wasspent with elderly Palestinians and Jordanians, including senior members of theruling family. All had memories of World War I and, I was told, the eveningended with the singing of old Ottoman army songs.Contemporary Arabs are often ambivalent in their attitudes towards Turkeyand the Turks. In the University of Damascus the Turkish language is taughtonly in the Department of History. There is a political repudiation of theOttoman Empire from whose occupation Arab countries liberated themselves.On the other hand Turkish architecture and interior decoration is admired, andit is rather chic to have a Turkish grandmother. There is still a branch of theSyrian ÆAzm family in Istanbul.The Mediterranean world overlapped with the Ottoman. But the major portsof the Mediterranean, from Barcelona to Haifa, all had features in common.They all had international communities and a perspective that looked awayfrom the territory. Until the nineteenth century transport was always easier andcheaper by sea than over land. For two millennia Alexandria had large Jewishand Greek populations. Istanbul had Greeks, Italians and Armenians. Beirut andHaifa had strong European and American communities. Salonica had its Jewishand Donme community. Palermo has a church still with an old Byzantine rite.Pisa, Venice, Naples, Marseilles and Barcelona have flourished as a result oftrade with the Ottoman and Arab worlds. Tunis had a quarter known as LaPetite Sicilie. The cosmopolitanism of the ports contrasted with the nationalismof the inner cities – Cairo, Ankara, Damascus. The idea of omerta insouthern Italy is identical with ideas of family honour in many Arab societies.The Ottoman and Mediterranean worlds also overlapped linguistically. Anumber of commercial words, such as sigorta ‘insurance’, entered Turkish andcolloquial Arabic. There were even hybrid words, such as the Syrian colloquialgommaji ‘puncture repairer’ that uses the Italian for rubber with the Turkishagent suffix.The Indian Ocean also had an economic and cultural homogeneity. Therewas a generic similarity in its ports on the northwest shores from Karachi toMombassa via Kuwait and Aden. Arabia, the Gulf and to some extent Iraq werepart of this cultural world. Until 1970 the countries operated with one unit ofcurrency – the Indian rupee. Those who were educated into the modern world— 180 —www.taq.ir