Image Of The Turks

The Image of the Turks         Through push through history the poof Empire was looked upon as having a barbaric and lustful multitude. This was the feel of a absolute majority of Western Europeans. Andrew Wheatcroft wrote The footstools to signal just how the Europeans did look on the Turks. This news report shows how the feelings toward the Ottomans created stereotypes that lasted centuries.         The Europeans looked upon the Turks as discredit forms of compassionate beings, much give care Adolf Hitler sighted the Jews during realism state of war II. Europeans were prejudiced towards the Turks because they did non understand the Muslim bulk or their religion. Wheatcroft used a quote by Francis Bacon to show the idea of the Europeans in the sixteenth-century: With by morality, without letters, arts or sciences; a batch that toilet sc dischargee measure an acre of land or an minute of arc of the twenty-four hour per iod; base and sluttish in building, diet and the deal; and in a word, a actually(prenominal) reproach to human night club¦it is truly said concerning the Turk, where the Ottomans horse sets his foot, throng get on with up very thin (231). The Turks were considered to be a very dangerous group of people. The Europeans were really scared of them. They would meet in battle and thousands of crazy Turkish warriors called bashi-bazouks would appear, rampaging with swords in the shape of a crescent. The Europeans had never seen whatsoever thing like this before and they didnt expose what to think. These bashi-bazouks fought like no other warriors and were similar to modern day Marines in being the first line of defense. The Europeans looked at these bashi-bazouks as bloodthirsty savages (234). They were accused of raping the women and pillaging the cities they would conquer, knowing good and well that the Europeans would do the same when they conquered a city or nati on. Wheatcroft writes, The dim-witted folk! drawings from the Greek War show Egyptian soldiers and janissaries waste death Greek women, while Greeks (in their white kilts) are solely shown attack enemy soldiers. Yet we know that many thousands of Turkish women and children were killed, lots with appalling brutality, in the Morea (234). In India, when the British were a commutation power from 1857-8, there were similar acts of savagery performed by the British. They were on a campaign of racial terror, hanging around any Indians on whom they could get their hands in an bacchanalia of requital (235-6). They sought to torture these people because hanging was to a fault quickly a death for such terrible people. wiz voice of the torture inflicted upon the Indians is included in Wheatcrofts book: The to the highest degree established form of dispatching mutineers to strap them to the front of a cannon, and botch them in half, often so that their scattered remains would sprinkle the faces of their fountain comrades, lined up to observe the execution (236).         These acts of savagery by the Europeans were just as bad and sometimes worse than what was through by the Turkish people.

The Europeans fear of these mad Turks caused a dower of racial strife in which the Europeans turned every(prenominal) expression of the Ottoman Empire into a reproach of society. These views of the Turkish people did not fade a appearance with the fall of the Ottoman Empire. evening to this day, Europeans carry a certain fear of the Turks. Wheatcroft explains: The build of the Turk, fade away and constantly re forming, will never be free from its cabalistic root! s: In European fears of gender and violence looming out in the East (239).         It was not that the Turks were worse than the Europeans, it was just that they were different. They believed in a religion, Islam, which had very different moral standards from Christianity. Since it wasnt the same smell of the Europeans and their Catholic religion, it was considered wrong. This is similar to the way mainstream Christians view the religions that consider the intervention of snakes to be part of their worship service. These unknown religions are often the victims of stereotypes and misunderstandings concerning their beliefs.          In The Ottomans, Wheatcroft uses many examples to illustrate the conflicts in the European and Turkish beliefs that caused the prejudices between the two. He proves that stereotypes are not always to be taken as fact. The only way to get erstwhile(prenominal) labels on other people is to find out for yourself who p eople really are. If you want to get a ripe essay, allege it on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

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