Surviving Ottoman Empire = bigger & more wide-spread Islamophobia?

Incognito

Banned
I have seen many people on this site speculate and daydream about how an Ottoman Empire that avoided collapse would have become a global superpower once it starts exploiting its oil deposits (sadly I have not seen any timelines on the subject but that’s another matter). It is also often speculated that the continued existence of the Ottoman Caliph would have unified the Islamic world and help quell such things as radical Islam.

But it occurred to me that if the Ottoman Empire were to become a 20th century superpower, surely it would start excreting influence and messing around with weaker nations just like all other superpowers have done. This tends not to endear the nations being messed with to the superpower in question. Additionally, the superpower’s competitors would be quick to spread and propagate any truths, half-truths and outright lies that tarnish the reputation of their main rival.

And since Ottomans would be associated with Islam and the Caliphate, would their rise in power bring about earlier and more widespread Islamophobia? Something similar to OTL Yellow Perils and Red Scares? Do you think there would have been the same kind of anti-Islamic rhetoric that’s hollered by today’s bigots – just a lot earlier, state-sponsored and turned up to eleven :eek:?

And what if the superpower Ottoman Empire were to end up in a “Cold War” with a western nation? Would Joseph McCarthy be on the prowl for “Closet Mahommedans” instead of “Communist Infiltrators” :p?

What are your thoughts?
 
I'd see it going in the other direction if the Ottoman Empire keeps operating like a fairly normal major power like they did up to WWI and surviving Ottomans likely butterflies away many Islamic fundamentalists. Any which do emerge will likely be surpressed by the Ottomans themselves as an internal threat.
 
I'm skeptical any huge multinational empire like that of the Ottomans or Austro-Hungarians could really have survived to the modern day in any recognizable form.
 

Incognito

Banned
I'd see it going in the other direction if the Ottoman Empire keeps operating like a fairly normal major power like they did up to WWI and surviving Ottomans likely butterflies away many Islamic fundamentalists. Any which do emerge will likely be surpressed by the Ottomans themselves as an internal threat.
It doesn't matter if Ottomans do or do not suppress Islamic fundamentalism. Their rivals and enemies would be quick to try & tarnish them with any ugly lies or half-truth they could. In WW1 British claimed that Germans were harvesting corpses for industrial use, in the 1950's McCarthy and others claimed that illegal drug use was all part of a Communist plot to undermine American society by rotting it from within, in 1970s/1980s a USSR-supported conspiracy theory arose claiming that AIDS was a U.S.-made bioweapon, etc.

So why would the Ottomans fair any better when it comes to political mud-slinging? Why wouldn't ATL politicians scream "the barbaric Muslims are coming to take your children and rape your women! Be aware of lurking Islamic sympathizers!!" when in OTL they screamed "the evil Reds are coming to burn down the churches, take away your liberty and spit on the flag! Be aware of lurking communist infiltrators!!"?
 
No. Part of Islamophobia, I think, is that we don't know who the bad guy really is, other than they're Muslim. There are liberal Iranians, Saudis, and Afghanis, conservative Moroccans and Turks, and everything in between. That Arab-looking dude praying fervently in some unknown language could be praying because his wife/father/child is dying, or he could be praying for success of a terrorist attack. No clue.

If the Ottoman Empire were to represent Islam, it would have to be a watered-down variant that most people could stomach, so that the Western fear of Islam would also be lessened. Just as a Christian nation tends to clamp down on the crazy variants of Christianity, so will the Ottoman Empire clamp down on their crazies.
 
No. Part of Islamophobia, I think, is that we don't know who the bad guy really is, other than they're Muslim. There are liberal Iranians, Saudis, and Afghanis, conservative Moroccans and Turks, and everything in between. That Arab-looking dude praying fervently in some unknown language could be praying because his wife/father/child is dying, or he could be praying for success of a terrorist attack. No clue.

If the Ottoman Empire were to represent Islam, it would have to be a watered-down variant that most people could stomach, so that the Western fear of Islam would also be lessened. Just as a Christian nation tends to clamp down on the crazy variants of Christianity, so will the Ottoman Empire clamp down on their crazies.

Agreed, Islamophobia did not come from absolutely nowhere but a pattern of radical Islamists commiting terrorist acts from at least 1979. Of course they are by no means a majority but more than enough to attract attention thus if Islamic terrorism would go down say 90% Islamophobia would drop by very large percentage within a decade or so IMO.
 
I'm skeptical any huge multinational empire like that of the Ottomans or Austro-Hungarians could really have survived to the modern day in any recognizable form.

We're still here, and we're a multinational state.

Remember, those two states were dynastic empires, not ethnic ones. It's not like there was an Ottoman or a Danubian Master Race.

(There was discrimination in A-H, but it was the Hungarians against the Slavs IIRC.)
 
So why would the Ottomans fair any better when it comes to political mud-slinging? Why wouldn't ATL politicians scream "the barbaric Muslims are coming to take your children and rape your women! Be aware of lurking Islamic sympathizers!!" when in OTL they screamed "the evil Reds are coming to burn down the churches, take away your liberty and spit on the flag! Be aware of lurking communist infiltrators!!"?

Would the Ottomans even play lip service to global Islamic revolution or would they concern themselves with Ottoman National Interests?

The Soviets at least had lots of foreign Communist movements as puppets.

How much Russophobia was there in the U.S. pre-1917? Some people say the fall of the Czar made U.S. entry into WWI more likely due to the opposition Poles, Jews, etc. would have to fighting alongside the Russian Empire, but that's not nearly as paranoid as the Red Scare.

Without even the appearance of subversion or a world conquest mentality, I doubt there'd be witch-hunts.
 
Would the Ottomans even play lip service to global Islamic revolution or would they concern themselves with Ottoman National Interests?

I would think they would concern themselves with national rather than purely religious interests. Remember that IIRC, much of the Ottoman ruling class were Armenians and Greeks anyway, and as far as I know there interpretation of Islam wasn't exactly Saudi Wahhabism. I imagine as well that there was a reason it was Turkey where Kemalism (An extremely secular ideology with roots in French Laicity) arose.

How much Russophobia was there in the U.S. pre-1917? Some people say the fall of the Czar made U.S. entry into WWI more likely due to the opposition Poles, Jews, etc. would have to fighting alongside the Russian Empire, but that's not nearly as paranoid as the Red Scare.

Before the October Revolution I believe Russia and the United States had a longtime history of partnership.
 
Would the Ottomans even play lip service to global Islamic revolution or would they concern themselves with Ottoman National Interests?

The Soviets at least had lots of foreign Communist movements as puppets.

How much Russophobia was there in the U.S. pre-1917? Some people say the fall of the Czar made U.S. entry into WWI more likely due to the opposition Poles, Jews, etc. would have to fighting alongside the Russian Empire, but that's not nearly as paranoid as the Red Scare.

Without even the appearance of subversion or a world conquest mentality, I doubt there'd be witch-hunts.

Considering how heavily Arab and Persian Islamic fundamentalism has been IOTL I could see the Ottomans trying to stop Islamic fundamentalism since they would see it as a threat to the empire from nationalists. If anything I could see the Ottomans rivals supporting Islamic fundamentalism like the Brits supported Arab nationalism during WWI.
 

Incognito

Banned
Would the Ottomans even play lip service to global Islamic revolution or would they concern themselves with Ottoman National Interests?

The Soviets at least had lots of foreign Communist movements as puppets.

… Without even the appearance of subversion or a world conquest mentality, I doubt there'd be witch-hunts.
Ottomans may not support global Islamic revolution, but if they were a superpower I’m sure they would support some foreign movements that would benefit them geopolitically and disadvantage their rivals. Can you name me one superpower that hasn’t engaged in some kind of proxy conflict?

Now, Ottomans could probably stir up something amongst the Muslims in their rival’s colonies, but even if they do not do that I do not see why their rivals wouldn’t involve religion into the anti-Ottoman propaganda. During OTL Cold War you had people refer to communists/socialists as “godless commies”, implying that God is on the West’s side. There was at least one politician who claimed Stalin was receiving instructions directly from satan. Whipping up nationalism and “hate the enemy” feelings through religious rhetoric should be even easier when it comes to the Ottoman Empire than it was against the USSR – simply bring up the Crusades, Caliph’s control of the Holy Land, Ottomans's history of kidnapping Christians & selling them into slavery and presto! The prols are ready for the Two Minutes Hate.

And let’s not forget that if Ottomans extend their sphere of influence to some Christian nations (be they in Balkans, Africa or elsewhere) the Sultan’s enemies could try to support militant Christians to stir up trouble against perceived “Muslim overlords controlling their nation”.
 
A thought I just had.

Islamophobia need not be in the United States. I don't think we'd see McCarthy witch-hunts of suspected Muslims (who would be too politically un-influential to appear threatening, unlike left-wingers prominent in FDR's time), but Europe, especially in states bordering the Ottomans or which used to be part of the Empire is a different beast.

I imagine a lot of calls for increased defense spending and pan-Balkan military cooperation, lest the "the Turk" invade and make captive men into eunuchs, captive women into concubines, etc.

(I would suggest making people pay the jiziya too, but the Ottomans abolished that during the Tanzimat era IIRC.)
 

De la Tour

Banned
wasn't the Islamist rise more to do with the disunity in the Moslem world? A more unified, centralised state might well lead to a more secular government and less radical Islam. Then again, it depends in what way the Ottomans survive. If it's just a bigger Turkey with the Caucasian states and Syria, I doubt the effects would be substantial.
 
Laos, Parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, and Bhutan have survived when the main ethnic group makes up less than half of the population. Mexico, Turkey, Iran, Indonesia, and Pakistan to an extent also.

Indonesia is full of separatist movement; Pakistan has a central authority who had a very limited power in part of the country. Soviet Union under Stalin actively eliminated nationalism with his nice manners at least for a time, China in a lesser extent but has used heavy internal immigration to change the demographics.
 
Here's an idea on how a surviving Ottoman Empire could lead to more Islamophobia in the United States...

Basically, if they control most of the Middle Eastern oil--if they survive with WWI borders they would--they would have a MAJOR influence in the world oil markets.

If they raise the price of oil for whatever reason and cause pump prices to rise in the U.S., that might piss some people off. There was a political cartoon once showing an Arab sheikh with a gas pump for a nose that came off as taking shots at Arabs for supposedly having big noses or something like that.
 
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