Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Uthman Dey: A Humanitarian Hero for Al Nakba Day

To all of my readers, I wish you a merry Al Nakba day. In honor of Al Nakba day and the founding of the State of Israel I wish to put in a word for Uthman Dey. No, Uthman Dey was not a leading Zionist; he was the Muslim ruler of Tunisia in the early seventeenth century best known in the West as a sponsor of the Barbary corsairs, the sort of practice that today we call state-sponsored terrorism. (To be fair Christians were also guilty of this practice. See my review of Catholic Pirates, Greek Merchants.) I mention Uthman Dey because of his handling of a major humanitarian crisis at the end of his reign. In 1609 Spain expelled its Morisco population. Similar to Jewish Conversos, Moriscos were Muslims who were forced to convert to Christianity at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Because of their concentration in southern Spain, the Moriscos were successful in maintaining themselves as a separate cultural unit and actually waged a number of revolts against Spanish rule until the Spanish simply expelled them. Uthman Dey welcomed these refugees into his kingdom with open arms and integrated these quasi Muslims into Tunisian society. Needless to say many of these Moriscos soon found themselves at work in the piracy business, which gave them the opportunity to get back at Spain.  He did not put them in refugee camps for sixty-three years to rally world opinion to the pitiful state of these Moriscos and force Spain to take them back.

What does it tell you if the entire Arab world lacks the humanitarian compassion of a seventeenth century sponsor of piracy?

7 comments:

Tamir said...

"He did not put them in refugee camps for sixty-three years to rally world opinion to the pitiful state of these Moriscos and force Spain to take them back".

Maybe, if he thought he could get away with it( i.e. he could actually "rally world opinion to the pitiful state of these Moriscos and force Spain to take them back"), he would have "put them in refugee camps for sixty-three years".

But in reality, who would have cared ?

Baruch Pelta said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Baruch Pelta said...

What does it tell you if the entire Arab world lacks the humanitarian compassion of a seventeenth century sponsor of piracy?
Well, I thought I learned two posts ago on this very blog that we shouldn't judge people for wanting what they want (whether that be a global Islamic theocracy or the want to rally world opinion and force Israel to give a Palestinian right of return), we shouldn't say they're wrong for acting according to their own self-interests and not taking others' into consideration, and that rational people (from Bin Laden to the Palestinians with the backing they have in the Arab world) can work things out with those they disagree with (from America to Israel).

Two frum libertarian correspondents I've been reading have been writing in morally equivalent terms when it comes to America fighting Al-Qaeda, but have been utilizing much more hawkish rhetoric when it comes to the Palestinian Question. I can't help but wonder why Chomsky's glasses seem so comfortable when looking at the Arab world...until Israel comes into the picture.

Izgad said...

Note that this post was not about right or wrong, it was about comparing the fate of the Moriscos to that of the Palestinians and asking why the Arab world has refused to do for the Palestinians today what they did for the Moriscos centuries ago.
In my moral universe, in a sense Chomsky is far more the enemy than Bin Laden ever was in that Chomsky denies my right to fight back in kind. His universe is one in which, as I am a white male non liberal Jew, it is my fault if I am attacked and I therefore need to atone. Chomsky in practice hands a blank check to all non-Westerns to go on the attack without fear of recrimination.

I support "Dresden" style responses for both the United States and Israel.

Baruch Pelta said...

I'm sorry, Chomsky probably wasn't the best way to describe your foreign policy, despite the equivalence the two of you share. My bad.

***

OK, anyways, so you don't say the Arab world is wrong.

What does it tell you if the entire Arab world lacks the humanitarian compassion of a seventeenth century sponsor of piracy?
It tells Benzion Chinn absolutely nothing. They're not wrong after all.

Anonymous said...

So you like the idea of a Palestinian pirate? Or maybe the fact that Israel lacks the compassion of a modern state that could give sanctuary to Palestinians. Either way, the analogy could be turned around in any direction.

Izgad said...

Of course analogies can be turned around and reasonable people can make a case for the Palestinians. Part of the problem with this conflict as that we are dealing with a situation where both sides deny that the other side even has a perspective, let alone a wrong one. That being said I do expect people to show more compassion to those from the same group as well as those whom they do not believe are trying to kill them. From my pro-Israel perspective, this raises the question of why the Palestinian refugee problem alone of all the refugee problems from the post Second World War period remains unsolved with the Palestinians becoming citizens of the countries they fled to and Israel offering compensation. The most obvious reason for this, to my mind, is that the Arab countries want there to be a refugee crisis as part of their propaganda war against Israel and thus it is the various Arab countries and not Israel that is to blame for the Palestinian refugee situation.