OCR
The Arab Other in Turkish Political Cartoons, 1908—1939 present and also in those illustrations in which the cartoonist employed images that provide the viewer with a glimpse of the unpleasant past. In cartoons that include historical imagery, whether as a reference in a current event’s depiction or as full portrayal of a historical event, all three sorts of images work in concert to orchestrate the audience's perception of and reaction to the Arab stereotype. Arab characters in their capacity as the Other were present in Ottoman visual rhetoric. The 400-year-old Karagéz shadow plays demonstrated the multi-ethnic makeup of the Ottoman Empire. Exhibiting powerful images set against assumed and often stereotypical backgrounds, Karagéz figures constituted probably the first visual illustrations of the various archetypes within the Ottoman public. Employing a wide range of characters, Karagéz was an artistic space in which contradictions, differences, and relations typical of an extremely diverse society found vivid expression (And 1975: 51). Arab characters were among these characters. Their cartoon representations and the humour they contained served as perception builders for their audience. The attributes and qualities of these characters, which were used repeatedly in Karagéz plays, created a set of almost standard generalizations about the ethnic traits of Arabs. Ethnic stereotypes were fixed firmly through this popular artistic genre. In the prerepublican Ottoman imagination, there were two distinct characters referred to as Arabs. One was the ak Arap (“white” Arab’) and the other was the kara Arap (“black” Arab’) or simply zenci (Figs 2 and 3). They represented two different stereotypes that were almost opposed to each other. One was pale skinned, long-nosed, smart but cunning, wily, and untrustworthy; the other was dark skinned, curly haired, loyal, and honest but sometimes stupid. While the ak Arab represented merchants or beggars with heavy accents, the darker-skinned counterpart, the kara Arab, was often a representation of local household slaves and servants (Fig. 4). These two stereotypes of Arabs in Karagéz plays not only contributed to the newly developing cartoon industry in the Ottoman print by providing typecasts, but also established the basis for building another Other constructed through ridicule in contrast to the emerging image of the Turk. With the arrival of print media in the late nineteenth century in the Ottoman capital, Karagôz characters were adapted for the page. They became instrumental in the context of the passage into modernity. Echoing European Orientalist practices, Ottoman caricaturists imagined the modern “self” by contrasting it with an assumed backwardness within their realm. They associated the notion of “premodern” or “backward” with the Arab provinces of the empire, which signified the ultimate backwardness. At the beginning of the twentieth century, nationalism was a fuzzy concept, meaning quite different things for different groups and individuals in the empire. As yet lacking clear definitions of nation and homeland, cartoonists found themselves in a quandary: how to portray those who were outsiders and insiders at the same time—part of the empire but not quite part of the nation. Cartoons in 109