Turjman Excerpt

The excerpt is from Ihsan Turjman’s diary, a Palestinian Arab-Ottoman soldier during the First World War. The diary, as a whole, describes the impact of World War 1 on the Ottoman state, focusing on the Ottoman failure to form a multi-ethnic identity, the targeting of the Arab population under the military dictatorship of Cemal Pasha in Syria, the changing political and social consciousness felt all over the Middle East, and the empire’s impending demise. Turjman’s diary, furthermore, discusses the fate of Palestine, especially during a time period in which both Arab nationalism and Zionism became prominent. Throughout the text, Turjman questions the need for the Ottoman government to isolate, ostracize or oppress different minorities, not only the Arabs but the Jews, Christians and Armenians

Though most his written attacks target Jamel’s failed military campaigns in the Sinai desert fronts and the Suez Canal - perhaps why he is so frustrated by the vision of Cemal ‘overloaded with gold medals’ despite ‘all the defeats he has led them into’ - he also resents Pasha’s decision to execute, imprison or torture prominent members of the Arab society, and hopes the ‘barbaric Ottoman state’ will finally end. Cemal Pasha’s intense repression against Arab nationalism was an important turning point in Middle Eastern history, for it radicalized Arab officers fighting for the Ottomans. Such frustration, even when on an individual level, best describes the progressive rupture between Arab and Turkish relations. For many Arab nationalists, secession from the Ottoman Empire was not the end goal initially; Pasha’s use of violence to enhance Ottoman authority expedited nationalist demands, as well as the Arab Revolt of 1916, led by Sharif Hussein. In turn, it led Arabs to seek British support for their independence (and, in the long run, the British exploiting their struggle for