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We Are All Levantines Now

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We Are All Levantines Now 16 APRIL 2012 LM DLe Monde diplomatique We are all Levantines now The Levant, with its eastern Mediterranean trading cities that flourished thanks to the Franco-Ottoman alliance, was an economic and diplomatic experiment that pioneered a way of life all the world now understands BY PHILIP MANSEL he Levant means “where the sun This hybridity affected architecture and rises”: the eastern Mediterranean. public lives more than private lives. Religious Levant is a geographical word, free authorities controlled marriages and encouraged Tof associations with race or religion, people to live near their place of worship. defined not by nationality but by the sea. The Only after 1940, in Alexandria and Beirut, did great Levantine cities of Smyrna, Alexandria marriages between different religions and races and Beirut were windows on the world, ports begin. In Smyrna they were rare. more open and cosmopolitan than inland cities Outside the home some men developed like Ankara, Damascus and Cairo. From the multiple identities: in the 17th century Sabbatai beginning Levantine cities were international. Sevi, the “false Messiah” of Smyrna, founded They shared defining characteristics: geography, his own religion, with Christian and Muslim as diplomacy, language, hybridity, trade, pleasure, well as Jewish elements. Donme, as his followers modernity and vulnerability. All are present in were called, are still an important element in today’s global cities. Izmir and Istanbul. The Mohammed Ali dynasty Take diplomacy. The Levant is a dialogue – of Egypt, living in Constantinople as well as at the heart of what Gibbon called “the world’s Alexandria, were Ottoman, Egyptian and in debate” between Christianity and Islam. In some attitudes European. Alfred Sursock, who the Levant dialogue trumped conflict, deals died in 1924, was both an Ottoman diplomat came before ideals. The modern Levant was a and a Beirut businessman, equally at home in product of one of the most successful alliances Paris, Constantinople and Beirut. Levantine in history, for three and a half centuries cities were so cosmopolitan that, to visitors after 1535, between France and the Ottoman from their hinterlands, Smyrna seemed to be a empire, between the Caliph of the Muslims foreign country and Alexandria a European city and the Most Christian King. It was based moored off the coast of Egypt, while Beirut was on the shared hostility of the two monarchies Smyrna around 1900 the Paris of the Middle East. to Spain and the House of Austria, but soon Antony WYNN Levantine cities were trading cities, integrated acquired commercial and cultural momentum. into the economic systems of Europe and Frenchmen called the Levant “our Indies”. Asia. Like Hong Kong or Dubai today, they Provence lived off the Levant trade. had used lingua franca, the simplified Italian of the mind.” The Levant was a jailbreak. The were synonymous with enterprise. Smyrna With the alliance came the capitulations: understood by all the nationalities who went to Ottoman empire enforced few of the restrictions exported figs and raisins; Alexandria cotton; agreements between the Ottoman and foreign do business in the region: a business rather than of European governments, and there were Beirut emigrants to the Americas and Africa. governments which allowed foreigners to live a literary language, rarely written down. It was no ghettos. Travellers were astonished and People and business, not monuments, were their and trade in the Ottoman empire, for the most spoken by slaves, merchants and sailors; by the attracted by the variety of races and costumes main attraction. Thackeray wrote that he liked part under their own legal systems. As a result Beys of Tunis and Tripoli; and by Cervantes, in these cities and the juxtaposition of mosques, Smyrna because, having no monuments to visit, of the French-Ottoman alliance, French consuls Rousseau and Byron. The Gentleman’s churches and synagogues, inconceivable in it produced no “fatigue of sublimity”. were appointed to most Levantine cities. The Magazine wrote in 1837 of an Englishman in European cities before 1970. Ports bring music as well as freedom, and Levant was a very near East where, thanks to the Levant: “He has talked lingua franca till Smyrna enjoyed, according to the French Smyrna created its own sound, Smyrnaika or Ottoman law and order, travel was relatively he has half forgotten English.” Lingua franca botanist Piton de Tournefort, “an entire freedom rebetiko. It was the music of rebels, particularly safe. These were the years of the consuls, showed the inhabitants’ desire to communicate of religion”. As some still do, Muslims entered appreciated by the qabadays (Turkish) or dais and the ports of the Levant became diarchies with the outside world; they did not live in a churches to hear the music or gain divine (Greek) – the toughs who worked, gambled and between foreign consuls and local officials. cultural ghetto. protection. By 1700 Smyrna had 50 mosques, fought with each other. Rebetiko songs mixed Many locals preferred to use the consuls’ law From 1840, with the spread of schools and eight synagogues and seven churches (Catholic, western polyphony and eastern monophony courts since they were less corrupt. In 1694 growth of steam and rail travel, French – then Orthodox and Armenian). In many streets you and described the sufferings of the poor, the and 1770, consuls in Smyrna (today’s Izmir) the world language – replaced lingua franca. felt you were in a Christian country. torments of love or the pleasures of hashish. persuaded the commanders of the Venetian and Pashas, viziers and sultans all spoke it, as did all Two hundred years later, when the city had a As early as the 17th century, according to the Russian navies not to attack the city, to prevent the rulers of Egypt until King Farouk; Mustafa Christian majority, Edith Wharton wrote from French consul, the Chevalier d’Arvieux, Beirut reprisals by Muslims against local Christians. Kemal the moderniser of Turkey; the poet from Smyrna: “I could not get used to seeing the was distinguished from neighbouring ports Consuls acted both as servants of their own Smyrna, George Seferis. It was an official tramways blocked by trains of loaded camels, by “parties of pleasure”. It still is. Beirut has government and as local powerbrokers and language of the municipalities of Alexandria the voitures de place filled with veiled Turkish become the capital of Arab night life. transmitters of technology and information. and Beirut. Young Turk revolutionaries learnt women and the savage-looking Turks and Levantine cities also brought education and In the danse macrabre of seduction and French in Paris (which they called a “star Albanians with weapons in their belts, side by modernity. Modern Turkey was born in the exploitation which has lasted to this day, outside brighter than my dreams”). French words side with fashionably dressed Levantines and Levantine port of Salonika, birthplace of Mustafa interference was matched by local desire for entered Turkish. Many Levantines were – and Europeans.” Kemal. The Young Turk revolution broke out more of it. In Beirut the al-Khazen family – still are – polyglot, speaking several languages, Houses were built in Ottoman-Levantine there in 1908, helped by the protection of foreign still prominent in Lebanese politics – used their often in the same sentence: French, Arabic, styles, often by builders from Albania and consuls and the proximity of foreign states. Latife position as French consuls or vice-consuls in the Turkish, Italian, Spanish, Greek or English. The Macedonia. Later, Italian or Paris-trained Hanim, the wife of Mustafa Kemal and the first late 17th and 18th centuries to strengthen their Smouha family, who came to Alexandria from architects were summoned. Palaces and houses Turkish woman to be unveiled in public, was own powerbase – and to urge the king of France Baghdad via Manchester, called the “polyglot like the Ras Al Tine palace in Alexandria, or educated at a French school in Smyrna. to “liberate” the area. In the 19th century the broth” of French, Arabic and English that they Palais Sursock and Maison Pharaoun in Beirut, In our new global age, geography is biting British consul in Beirut was visited by members spoke in Egypt “frarabish”. blended styles from different countries and back at history. Smyrna, Alexandria and Beirut of the Jumblatt dynasty (still hereditary leaders The Lebanese American historian William centuries. After 1850, red tiles from Marseilles are now trying to revive their cosmopolitan of the Druze community), asking Britain to Haddad wrote: “The nation state is the prison covered roofs throughout the region. identities. Istanbul, by the 1970s entirely Turkish, rule Lebanon “like India”. The Iranian consul is now a global business city again, the shopping in Beirut was a protector of the local Shia long centre of the Balkans and Black Sea. The Arab before the Iranian revolution of 1978. spring shows the desire of people in Syria, Consuls were equivalents of international Save up to 25% off the Lebanon, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia to reconnect organisations like Unesco, the IMF or Nato Subscribe to subscription price with the outside world and their Mediterranean – annoying but effective. In 19th century past – break out of the prison of the nation state. Alexandria, consuls protected criminals of Today’s global cities – London, Paris, New their own nationality, but also helped introduce UK & Ireland £28/€41 USA & Canada US$45 Other countries £36/€57 York, Dubai – are new Levantine cities. (They quarantine and fight cholera. Consuls organised I enclose a cheque for (please make cheques payable to Le Monde diplomatique) have welcomed thousands of immigrants a peaceful transfer of power from Turkey to Please debit my credit card Mastercard Visa Switch Delta from Smyrna, Beirut and Alexandria.) Global Greece in Salonika in 1912, but failed to do the Name cities share the same international character: reverse in Smyrna in 1922.
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