Migrants to Citizens : An Evaluation of the Expansionist Features of Hamidian Ottomanism, 1876 - 1909
Abstract
Hamidian Ottomanism (1876-1906) evolved by official design into a nationalist ideology with expansionist ambitions. In analyzing established evaluations of self-legitimating Sunni-Ottoman exclusivist policies in reference to the regime's interactions with domestic and potential (non-refugee, Muslim) migrants, it becomes evident that this formulation was not a singular narrative composed of two symbiotic components, but was instead bifurcated into distinct discourses.
The merging of the two in the state's dialogue with native, Sunni Muslims blurs the fact that the Hamidian state pro-pa-gated Ottomanism in two spheres: territorial and extraterritorial (natural-born Sunni Ottomans were members both of the territorial nation and of the extraterritorial umma, and thus recipients of both discourses). The 'Ottoman' component of 'Sunni-Ottoman' exclusivism took precedence over territorial migrants.
In the process of the state's rationalization, the Nationality Law of 1869 had equalized access to membership; the generic Ottoman national was ethno-religiously neutral and did not have a race or creed. The utilization of divine appeal and caliphal authority was, instead, essential to extraterritorial Ottomanism, which prepared the government for immigration without necessarily soliciting it.
When this Ottomanism did engender the mobilization and relocation of ideological adherents, however, in the final act of naturalization, national interest outranked all other allegiances, thus exposing 'Ottomanism' as the sole 'exclusivity' enforced by the Hamidian regime in the rational, domestic field.