Public anger brings Ottoman atrocities against Lebanon back to light

Indiana Khaled

On September 5, 2019, a group of Lebanese citizens staged a protest outside the Turkish embassy in Beirut against Turkish interference in Lebanese affairs.

The protest came hard on the heels of remarks by Lebanese President Michel Aoun on the centenary of founding his country, in which he accused the Ottomans of causing the death of a large number of Lebanese citizens during World War I.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry countered by describing the remarks of the Lebanese president as “irresponsible.”

The remarks came only a week after Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu visited Beirut.

In April 2014, Lebanese protesters set the Turkish flag on fire during a protest organized by Armenian parties. The protesters asked Ankara to recognize the massacre of the Armenians, which took place 104 years earlier.

An advisor of the Lebanese president then criticized the Turkish Foreign Ministry, accusing it of offending the Lebanese president. He added that the comments the ministry made about the remarks of President Aoun was only an expression of the hegemonic mindset the ministry inherited from the Ottoman Empire.

Bloody record

The Ottomans instilled fear in the hearts of millions of people in the Arab region and in Europe after overrunning their countries.

Ottoman rulers committed the most dastardly of crimes against the same peoples. In doing this, the rulers of the different Ottoman provinces used to get their instructions from Istanbul.

Revival

Professor of political science at Cairo University Tarek Fahmi said the Ottomans followed a violent course in Lebanon.

The Ottomans, he said, did not allow any sort of political participation.

“This was why the Lebanese rebelled against them,” Fahmi told The Reference.

He noted that the Ottomans reacted by executing a huge number of Lebanese citizens.

“Among those executed were poets, writers and luminaries,” Fahmi said.

He said the neo-Ottomans in Turkey want to revive the concept of the Ottoman Empire.

This concept, he added, aims to bring the old Ottoman Empire back by controlling the countries that used to be part of this empire in the past.