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this period were multi-layered, imbued with geopolitical signs highlighting par¬
ticular politico-administrative boundaries, territories, and territorial visions. The
cartoon genre provides a vivid illustration of the ideological experiments of the day
at a time when ideological experiments such as Westernization, Ottomanism, and
Islamism, in line with currently emerging ideas of nationalism and Turkism, were
competing with one another.
The stormy period of Yemenite insurgencies, the Libyan war, the Balkan wars,
and finally the epic Great War could be defined as a time of “occultation” or “ges¬
tation” for the Ottoman cartoon sphere with regard to the Arab stereotype. After
a heroic interlude of the Arabs in north Africa during the pre-war years, the Arab
as a human figure no longer accorded with any of the recognizable stereotypes.
The visual archetype of the Arab was trapped in limbo: neither an insider nor an
outsider; neither friend nor foe (Figs 5 and 6). On the one hand it signified rapid
internal changes and confusion in the imperial centre about identity issues and,
on the other, external developments—Arab nationalism, collusion with imperial
powers, a sense of betrayal. The one significant feature of the Arab image that
remained intact, either as ally or enemy, was the assumed uncivilized nature. This
feature served as an echo of a former, less developed state of one’s own civilization.
Cartoonists, in their capacity as the new codifiers of the idea of a “modern” nation
based on Turkishness, understood that the renewed formation under the new Ot¬
toman ruling elite (the Committee of Union and Progress) was seeking to bury its
“near distant” with its uncivilized past in the process of retaining the solidarity of
the empire. The Arabs would rather be situated as the Other."
According to Bauman and May (2001), the self itself makes sense only in juxta¬
position to Other. Identity and alterity mirror each other by determining the pro¬
file of the Other and in return are determined by it. Nationalism emerged as a he¬
gemonic ideology in colonial and non-colonial contexts in the nineteenth century,
bringing with it the awareness of grouping as national collectives. The latter was
defined in terms of territory, ethnicity, religion, language, history, and tradition.
Within the definition of self as a nation, each of these groups (ethnic, religious,
territorial) was characteristically typecast or themed as the Other.
The negative sentiments of the Arabs were transferred to the new republic
through its founding political elite. The anti-Arab spirit of the new Turkish na¬
§ Young Turks were the exiled young officers and intellectuals that would form the political elite of the
Ottoman Empire in the coming decades. Their goal was the transformation of the crumbling empire into
a modern state based on a shared sense of commitment among its citizens and with sufficient military
and political strength to halt the encroachments of European powers. Very shortly after their takeover in
1908, however, the ensuing struggle between the centralist and federalist factions of the Young Turks set
the stage for a party dictatorship of the centralist group known as the Committee of Union and Progress
(CUP). The ideal of common citizenship was soon undermined as the CUP attempted to conceptualize
Ottomanism with Turkish nationalism and also by the secessionist leanings of non-Turkish groups such as
the Arab nationalists following the British-supported Arab revolt in 1916.