In summer 2015 I have attended the “Blind Dates Sessions” as a senior participant, at Cittadellarte-Pistoletto Foundation in Biella, Italy. The resident artists later showed their works in İstanbul. Following is my contribution to the related book titled “Ottomans and Europeans” in 2016.

Any commentary on the Blind Dates meetings in retrospect is not suspended in time but filled by the presence of now, “jetztzeit” as Walter Benjamin would say. As I write these, the European Union and the Turkish government are on the verge of an agreement on the fate of Syrian (and Afghan, Iraqi and other) refugees, of plans for re-settlement in return for money and other concessions offered to the Turkish side, in short a “Faustian Pact” (The Guardian) on the livelihood of millions of disposessed. Incidentally, one of these concessions appear to be turning a blind eye to the deeds of the most authoritarian regime that Turkey (an EU candidate) had witnessed, which fights a war against Kurdish guerilla organizations on its soil with no regard for the collateral horrors it inflicts on its citizens, a police regime that supresses not only any hint of dissent on the street, but also unforgivingly cracks down on every expression that is critical of the war and the AKP in media, in academia, among the intelligentsia and the common folk that merely tweet. And all these happening, unsurprisingly, under the conditions of a civil war that could have been averted (not unlike in Syria and Iraq) while the lives of the people in Turkey cannot anymore be protected in the cities. This is the state of affairs as the final chapter (or, an appendix) of Ottomans and Europeans, by the time we recall critical issues that came to the surface in Cittadellarte in summer 2015.

Late Ottoman history is the site of  frequent interventions by Europe, mostly on behalf of  the empire’s Christian subjects. Interestingly, traces of an Ottoman democratization (constitutions, elected parliaments and minority rights, all turned on and off as the bargaining required) was made possible under pressure, in a situation similar to what a decent citizen in Turkey would expect from the possibility of accession to the EU today. Leading up to the Great War, Nineteenth century liberal-democratic values and humanitarian-missionary efforts were often compromised  by the allignment and re-positioning of European powers. Along with every nation’s prime interests, varied egos of diplomatic and military mission in and around the sublime porte, with the power plays and diplomatic blunders, many a catastrophe (including the Armenian genocide) could not be averted, but more importantly, were not loudly addressed at the time. Without a wholesale blame,  factions of a divided Europe were complicit in the misdeeds of late Ottomans, as a unified Europe is about to be now facing the Republic of Turkey.

In Cittadellarte last summer, artists of the Blind Dates were all too aware of this past, as they are either direct descendants or their family tree and origins of birth touches the troubled Ottoman history at some point. This context made it possible to talk extensively on history and archaeology, leading up to the varied nationalisms and xenophobia in the face of  the heartrending exodus across the Mediterranean that the whole world still witness. Understandably, informal conversations usually revolved around the migrant words and expressions trickled down from the Ottoman domain, a kind of fusion that recalls the right of immigration of bodies in troubled times. March 2016