Belated Apology
@ Ian the Admin, Keenir, and others
I understand I made some rather inflammatory comments, and have thus been accused of trolling. I still think that what I posted does not constitute trolling, because that was not my intention, but that does not excuse the aforementioned comments. Nevertheless, I consider this topic closed. Granted, it is up to the mods to close it so if others want to read, discuss, or even redo the timeline, I can't stop them, but nor am I posting to it anymore. The discussion has gone so far off topic, for instance debating the definition and meaning of "European" and my rather controversial remarks that continuing the timeline is pointless. I do think that Keenir did take my comments a bit out of proportion and context to make me look worse, so I think it is best to explain how it ended up like this.
Originally Posted by Midgard
Then you are missing the point I made... the Seljuk Russia is likely to be even more backwards...
My reply (first off, note that by backwards I mean culturally/ethcially/politically backwards):
Of course, a Seljuk-dominated Russia probably would be more backwards. For one thing, assuming the course of history proceeds similarly with a European Great War happening in the 19th or 20th century, presumably whatever side this Turkish "Russia-Ukraine" fights, you could expect that the then dynasty (be it Ottomans or whomever) would get involved in the ATL WW1 and fall only to be replaced by a fascist state.
Operative word being assuming (emphasis added). That means assuming not only that events proceed similarly enough, but also projecting a worst-case scenario history loosely connected to OTL events, even though I took the OTL events out of proportion. (Of course I worded this poorly, implying that this would probably happen regardless. I should have said, "in a worst case scenario" or at least "in a particularly bad political current.") It is at least as likely that the Turkoman Russia would modernize, advance, improve, and progress. In a worst case scenario a fascist state would emerge, and the historical tendency for people to either lose a war (i.e. Germans), be on the winning side but still lose (Russians), or eagerly pick a side, end up on the winning side, and manage not to lose, but not to win wither (and therefore get screwed over from said involvement, i.e. Italians and Japanese), then a tyranical dictatorship is likely to result. Be it Fascist (Italy, Germany, Japan) or Bolshevik Communist (Soviet Russia). Thus I assume that in such a war, either this Turkish empire would be on the losing side, or if on the winning side, as an autocratic Islamic civilization on the fringes of Europe, with a cultural position similar to OTL Ottoman Turkey, and essentially the same geographical/economic status as OTL Russia, would be marginalized by the other Europeans and probably not share in the success of its Western allies. So in a worst case scenario, fascism becomes a very real possibility.
Given the currents of nationalism/racism and ultra-conservative Islam the resulting regime would either be a racist nationalist-fascist dictatorship with Turkish supremacy as ideology led by a "Turkish Hitler" (Mustafa Kemal Ataturk?) or else an Islamic theocracy like the Taliban or the Ayatollah's Iran. ...nation whose ideology would either consist of Turkish supremacist fascism (echoing OTL Nazism) or Islamist theocracy.
The phenomenon of ultra-conservative Islam is not a far cry. After all, some historians might say that the Golden Age under the Arab Muslim Kaliphs (granted even then not all Muslims were Arabs, but a majority were) ended with the emergence of the Seljuk Turks in the Middle East and the Ottomans with a more puritan and militant bland of Islam (despite the flourishing of arts, culture, and sciences under Islamic influence from Iberia to Afghanistan, ultra-conservative brands of Islam shunned music and the visual arts, and downplayed the intellect) and a more autocratic style of government than that of the Arab rulers. Granted this might not always have been the case, but despite the post-Ottoman nominal secularization (including adopting Western clothing styles and legalizing alcohol even while discouraging it), there has been a tremendous Islamist backlash in Turkey, especially recently. Thus it does not seem surprising that a theocratic rule *could* emerge in Turkey. But nobody takes issue with this comment.
The more controversial one was my accusation of racism. Granted it is an unfair thing to say. Of course I assumed that in a worse scenario racism which would possibly already exist might be amplified.
Keenir's reply:
and who says McCarthyism is dead?
(Why attack my points when you could make a witty ad hominem?)
I'm going to guess that you don't like Mormons.
therefore you can't omit a European nation just because you don't like it.
Personally, I consider these three lines counter-productive, but I would not go so far as to call this trolling. It is almost as if Keenir is trying to paint me as a bigot. I feel that these particular responses made me unwilling to apologize but I digress...
Keenir (in response to my comparison of Ataturk with Hitler):
I stand by my statment that Ataturk was a fascist (albeit he never called himself that, as the term "fascism" was revived from the Roman "fasces" by the Italians), but arguably he meets the definition. Even many encyclopedias attest that Ataturk Kemal ruled as a virtual dictator and that he at least qualified as "quasi-fascist". IOTL was Ataturk worse than Hitler, was he as bad? NO! Definitely not. It is hard to be
THAT evil. Was he as bad as or worse than Hirohito or Saddam Hussein? Probably not! Was he worse than Mussolini? Maybe.
Granted, I made some statements I should not have made:
Even so, there is a strong historical tradition of racism in Turkish society, and Turkish supremacism has the potential to be way worse than "Aryan nationalism".
While Europeans too have a history of racism (especially in the past five centuries), the Anatolian Turks have had an almost continous pattern of racism since their first foothold. This is NOT to say that every single Turk is or was racist or even that there were never brief periods of tolerance, but for the most part, Turkey was a racist nation.
Of course, I should have at least worded some of it better. Characterizing Turkey as a racist nation is a very unfair generalization. My basis for a historically racist Turkey is probably from biased history. (I.e. written by Greeks.) In either case, even if my assertion is true, that the Turks really were all racists then that assumption should probably not be carried into an alternate history.
Nevertheless, Keenir has a very valid point!
Originally Posted by Ian the Admin
Hold it. You basically just accused modern Turkish society of having the potential to be worse than the Nazis...
(emphasis added) While even this suggestion has offensive implications, especially when dealing with counterfactual historical scenarios, there could always be someone worse than the Nazis. Horrific though they be, the Nazis were human beings and could possibly be outdone in terms of atrocities or group insanity by potentially worse human beings. For instance, to use an alternate history cliche, the Drakas are often considered significantly worse than the Nazis. Some people would seriously say Saddam Hussein is considerably worse than Hitler! Would Ian consider comparing the Baathists to the Nazis trolling? Although this is a bad example, because this is only comparing a faction, not an entire people to the Nazis.
But as for potential versus realistic tendencies towards racism, suppose I said the same thing about another group of people. Let's say for instance the nations of East Asia. Could the Chinese, Japanese, or Koreans possibly be worse than or even as bad as Nazis? Potentially, they
could be, as anyone on Earth *could* be, by virtue of being human, all people and groups are capable of evil, but realistically? Could the Chinese or Japanese or Koreans be worse than the Nazis?
Not at all likely! If anything, an extremely racist oppressive regime would be much more likely to emerge in a European nation such as France, Germany, Russia, or Britain. But if someone mentions a historical trend towards racism among a people how does that work out? Well, one could make a fair assessment that the cultures of the Far East had a tendency to be more culturally conservative and isolationist. As such, East and Southeast Asia, by virtue of its geographical isolation in pre-modern times developed in relative isolation. Japan and Korea were fairly ethnically homogenous societies. When European explorers began settling, colonizing, and conquering, the Chinese and Japanese strove for a closed door policy and Korea was known as the hermit kingdom by virtue of its isolation, sometimes self-imposed, usually a consequence of being sandwiched between two powers. As such, one might say that traditionally Sinosphere cultures with their emphasis on family loyalty, and only later on patriotism, and with a generally communitarian outlook, might be somewhat shy of the outside world and outsiders generally, and as a side effect a tendency towards xenophobia and ethnocentricism. Of course such an assessment is clearly false today, particularly in light of globalization. I hear that many Asian nations are very hospitable to outsiders, today anyways.
Given this cultural conservatism and oft strict isolationism in the Asian countries before the 20th century, which developed chiefly as a result of the geographical history of the Far East but also as a result of self-imposed policy, one might take the xenophobia and even ethnocentricism which is liable to result and exaggerate it to an extreme. Of course to do so is completely misleading! While the Chinese and Japanese did sometimes demonstrate a little xenophobia and ethnocentricism (as all peoples no doubt have done considering human frailties and limitations), to say that this would result in outright racism is completely unwarranted! Yes, xenophobic attitudes do sometimes lead to racism (in fact racism almost always stems from xenophobia), but it is just as likely that the worst thing those with an ethnocentric attitude will do is ignore other peoples and leave them to their own. But for a more realistic prediction of how the Chinese might have interacted with outsiders, consider historical examples. For the brief time that the Chinese engaged in distant voyages of exploration (before modern times), under the Ming. Chinese explorers caused no harm and commit no atrocities. The expeditions of Zheng He and his comrades offered nothing but kindness. While this trial might be too brief to truly demonstrate what would have resulted, it is very likely that Chinese explorers and settlers would have on the whole produced a far more benevolent effect than that of Europeans. For instance, Chinese settlements in the New World (most likely from British Columbia to Baja California, given the sailing route from China, possibly to Brazil from a base in Africa) would likely peacefully incorporate the Native Americans. Settlers would likely establish Confucian culture in the Americas, but conquest is not a very probbale occurence. More likely, the Chinese would link up with various Amerind tribes, chiefdoms, city-states, and empires and use their language as a lingua-franca. Of course, this does not mean that all will be peaceful. Perhaps the Chinese might consider certain Aztec practices barbaric and this could potentially create a conflict. Even if the Chinese (or any other people for that matter) looked down on a people for whatever reason, then it does not automatically follow that they would act on such an attitude violently or agressively, or oppress a people, but in the case of the Aztec religious rituals, the Chinese might feel somewhat more hostile. Even so, I imagine the experience of a Chinese colonization of the New World to be much more benign on average than a European one.
What about the Japanese? Again, nothing in their history really suggests that they would ever become Nazis, but then comparing WW2-era Japan and Nazi Germany is not that much of a stretch. After all, the Japanese government allied itself with Nazi Germany in the Axis Pact, Hirohito did establish a Fascist-style military dictatorship, and during this period, the Japanese did institute an official racism with racialist science (though racist ideology was not as central to WW2-era Japan as it was to Nazism) and even commit a fair share of atrocities (though nowhere quite on the scale of Nazi atrocities). Therefore while Japan around WW2 could certainly be compared to the Third Reich they were not quite as horrific. Still, the behavior of the Japanese during and immediately before WW2 is completely atypical when the rest of Japanese history is taken into perspective. Case in point, the Japanese were at their most racist immediately
after becoming Westernized under heavy European and American influence near the end of the Edo Period, and under the Meiji Period leading up to World War Two. Basically this is a tragic example of a highly civilized people colaborating in barbarism. So I guess the important thing to learn is not to overgeneralize and not to make falacious conclusions.