You know, you sit down at a computer, you pour your heart out,
you sweat, bleed, you cry, and what do you get for it? Fame? Fortune?
A phone call from somebody at The New Yorker? I'll tell you what
you get. You get attacked. You get harassed. You get crucified.
Or in my case, you get so many people writing in to complain about
that the server crashes and you get the editor in your office explaining
the finer points of international law to you (apparently Flipped
has, or rather "had", a rather large Parisian
readership. When I told my editor that what we'd lost in Paris we'd
pick up in Stockholm, she threw my desk out the window. The window
was closed at the time. But I digress).
People complained by the thousands. "What the hell did any
of that stuff have to do with luggage?" and "Stop bothering
the French - why don't you pick on someone your own size?"
and perhaps most frighteningly, "Do you have a phone number
for that hot Mrs. Wittenborn-chick you talked about?" Yikes.
So what do I do? Do I apologize? Do I recant? Do I join Dick Cheney
at the Cavedweller Motel? Man, I don't even move off my topic.
Imagine it's the 15th century - which shouldn't be that difficult
for those of you who have ever been to East St. Louis - and you're
cowering in your house. For a lot of people in the 15th century,
this was pretty much what you did, kind of like "Must See TV"
is now ("Hey, Sven!" "Hey Goren!" "Wadidaya
do last night?" "Oh, you know, same old same old. Fed
the cows, ate some gruel, cowered in a corner of our hut - how about
you?" "Hey, me too! I never miss a night of cowering!").
That's just how it was. Lots of people were miserable, lots of people
were poor and through most of Eastern Europe, you had these marauding
hordes laying waste to towns - raping, pillaging, killing, and generally
disrupting social services. You know, like East St. Louis, but without
the glamour of being across the river from Missouri.
So imagine that it's the 15th century- and you're cowering in your
miserable wattle and daub hut (whatever the hell wattles are; whatever
the hell daub is) and outside the same bunch of crazed sociopaths
who've been wreaking havoc all week on your friends and neighbors
(may they rest in peace) are committing unspeakable atrocities to
your cattle and crops.
And you, eternal optimist that you are, or have been, through your
miserable life of virtual slavery, rampant disease, shortened lifespans,
general lawlessness, oppression and guilt, look around for some
element in all this that will give even a modicum of meaning to
your otherwise completely forgettable life. So you look out the
window flap (see! you don't even real windows! You have "window-flaps"
for crying out loud) and see abject destruction on a level that
is almost impossible for you to comprehend (although let's face
it, you're not that bright - you're a serf in 15th century Eastern
Europe. You'd barely qualify for a football scholarship at Ohio
State).
So what do you do? You turn to your terrified family and say -
"Well, if we have to be annihilated at least it's by the best.
For the world will never forget the Ottomans."
The who?
The Ottomans. The scourge of 15th century Eastern Europe. I know,
I know. It sounds absurd. It sounds like you're being attacked by
living room furniture. "Ooh, look out! Here come the Ottomans!
If we only had a few table lamps and maybe a chafing dish to protect
us!" You talk that way today and they lock you up. Believe
me, I know.
But these guys had it all. Start with their king (King? King of
the Ottomans? What the hell is that - some kind of late night footstool
huckster?): Suleyman the Magnificent.
Now you gotta hand it to old Suleyman - Richard may be the Lion-hearted,
Alexander may be the Great and even Ivan may be the Terrible, but
this guy was Magnificent! I mean, what's better than "magnificent"?
And imagine you're some other land-grabbing 15th century megalomaniac
and you pick up the paper and see this - how do you compete? What
are you gonna call yourself? "The "Magnificenter?"
"The Totally Fucking Awesome?" "The Fabulous?"
(although that's got a bit of a "Birdcage" vibe that might
not play too well on the steppe).
And under Suleyman these guys kicked ass all the way from Iran down to
Egypt. All the way up to Greece, all through whatever is left of
what we used to call Yugoslavia, across Hungary and right up to
Austria's doorstep. Think about that for a second. From Mecca to Vienna.
From hookahs to hofbraus. From Islamic fundamentalists to European
superpowers. For like two hundred years. So don't give me any
"Iraq." Don't give me any "Afghanistan." Suleyman picked
bigger countries out of his stool.
I hope you had a great Thanksgiving anyway.
Flip to the Ottoman
and Turkish Studies Department at Harvard University
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