Of the 20 leading journals in political science (as measured by “impact factors”), only 1.34 percent of the articles published could be said to have religion as a primary topic, the analysis found.

Nicht, dass ich viel von Ernst Bloch halten würde, doch Blochs Ansicht über die politische Seite der Religion schliesse ich mich gerne an. In den Worten von Mark Lilla: “Religion (…) represents a political journey to discover what might exist, what lies dormant, in the human mind and society.”¹ Wenn das nicht für die Politikwissenschaften Grund genug sein sollte, sich mit Religion zu befassen.

1. Mark A. Lilla, The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West, New York 2007, 288. [back]

“Italian propaganda, in this district at least, is far more subtle. At the outset their known hostility to the Greeks gives them a big advantage. They avoid scrupulously any interference in Turkish administration and are extremely careful in their behaviour to Turkish women. At Konia I was told by a Turk that if an Italian soldier meets an unveiled Turkish woman, he turns his head away.“

Relief Officer E.C. Hole in a despatch to the British High Commission at Constantinople, 15th August, 1919.

“It is perhaps a truism to say that the Anglo-Saxon Race occupies a very unique position in the eyes of nations which have suffered as these hapless Greeks and Armenians have been made to suffer by their brutal Turkish rulers and by their still more brutal, because more educated, German over-Lords.“

Sir Richard Webb, British High Commissioner at Constantinople, April 15th, 1919.

„The writer recommended Ismet Pasha to receive the delegations of the Arab States then at Lausanne, and said that this was necessary for many reasons, principally because the Indians, whether Moslems or not, had agreed a month ago to come to the help of the Angora Government, thus disobeying the orders of the British Government in India, and not paying the taxes due for property and land, in case war was declared between the British and the Turks. Moreover, the Indians undertook to incite and excite the world against England in order to save the Arabic peninsula from the hands of non-Moslems. All this had to be done in obedience to the order of the Prophet, who before he died said ‘Clear out the infidels from the Arabic peninsula.’”

Excerpt from a letter addressed to the Egyptian ex-Khedive Abbas Hilmi Pasha, signed Barakatullah, dated February 11, 1923, and found among the ex-Khedive’s sequestered correspondence dealing with the Confereence of Lausanne.

„Mr. Almanachos, Greek Chargé d’Affaires (…) said th[at] he wished to convey an informal message to Y.E. on behalf of his colony, who were, to a man, profoundly impressed with the strength of the measures which you had taken. The events of 1921 had, he would tell me now frankly, shaken their confidence in us very considerably.

Now, however, Y.E. has, in a few hours, more than restored British prestige. „C’est la vraie Grande Bretagne“.

The one hope of his compatriots was that we should complete the good work by taking instantly the sternest measures which events might demand. There would be nothing but cordial approval from Greece if we shot Zaghlul and all his gang. That, everyone clearly says, was the only kind of way with Egyptians. Hit them at once and keep on hitting. They would then become like lambs, and it was the kindest way in the end.“

Source: High Commissioner Egpyt, 24 Nov 1924, no. 11225/20.

“Every thing is quiet here for the present as well as at the other parts of this district, but I am disposed to think, from the frequent ebullitions exhibited, that the Mussulman population of this city are discontented; the upper classes feel the effects of the reforms, which are not only distasteful to them, but have detrimented their pecuniary interests, and have placed them on an equality with their coreligionists, and the middle and lower classes, all of whom have more or less participated in the pillage of the Christians, and are implicated in the insurrection, although [they] are impatient under regular good and mild government, and are disatisfied with the equality of justice administered to all the classes of His Majesty’s subjects (…).”

N.W. Werry, British Consulate of Aleppo, to Sir Stratford Canning, Brit. Ambassador in Constantinople. Aleppo, 19th April 1851.

La foi, s’était le dogme de l’Eglise d’Orient qu’ils identifiaient avec la patrie. C’est la tradition byzantine. Le rêve du grec, c’est la resurrection de l’Emprire de Byzance. C’est de l’Orientalisme, certes, mais ce n’est pas du slavisme.

Source: Gabriel, Quelques notes sur la Question d’Orient, Athens 1853, pp. 7-8.

„Pan-Islamic propaganda by Germany against Great Britain is nothing new. The warp was steadily laid for years before the war under the „drang [sic!] nach Osten“ policy, Bolshevism and the Kemalist re-action have added the woof, and the thorough and purposeful manner in which the resources of Bolshevism are being applied, throughout the British-Muslim world, to the conversion of pan-Islamic sentiment into anti-British agitation bears the Berlin hall-mark, even were there not plenty of evidence of German activity in these intrigues. Inter-sectarian rivalries are being canalised into an anti-British current; pan-Arabism is to be absorbed, and Zionism placated; in short, every element of discontent is being worked upon with a view to coordination under the pan-Islamic banner.“

Source: High Commissioner Egypt, 13 May 1922 / Kew National Archives.