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CLEMENT DODD: “Difficulties of Turkey in the Eastern
Mediterranean: Britain, the United States and Cyprus”
ABSTRACT: Britain occupied Cyprus in 1878 with the
agreement of the Ottoman Government in order to provide a British base
to counter any further Russian aggression. However, history takes unexpected
turns. This occupation, and later annexation, of Cyprus by Britain began
at first to create problems for Britain not with Russia, but with Greece,
with whom at the time the Greek Cypriots fervently wished to be united
as part of the achievement of the Megali Idea.
Cyprus led first to friction in Anglo-Greek relations.
Then in the 1950s, fearing the island would become a Greek base only
40 miles away if Britain abandoned it, Turkey again became vitally interested
in its future. To confuse matters further, the original role of Cyprus
as a base against Russia greatly revived in importance when, in the
1960s, the Soviet Union began to gain serious influence in the Middle
East. This now induced the United States to take a pronounced interest
in the British bases and intelligence listening posts in Cyprus, deeply
afraid that Cyprus could become a Mediterranean Cuba. President Makarios
seemed to be holding out this prospect if he could not have his way
with the Turkish Cypriots. He wanted them to be a minority, not an equal
partner in government.
In 1964 the UN, and all states save Turkey, in defiance
of the internationally agreed 1960 Constitution for the island, fearful
for the vulnerable bases and other facilities, consequently began to
treat them, by then purely Greek Cypriot government, as the legal government
of Cyprus. This put Greece and Turkey at odds, allowing Greece to use
its position in the EU to help the Greek Cypriots obtain EU membership
for Cyprus. Greece first threatened to block the EU/Turkey Custom Union
in 1995 if a date for EU accession negotiations for Cyprus was not given.
Secondly, Greece later intimated that EU enlargement would have to include
Cyprus. As a result, Cyprus is now threatening to veto Turkey’s
entry into the European Union.
Is it then the case that in origin it is Anglo-American
interference in East Mediterranean affairs that has produced the present
difficulties for Turkey? This paper addresses this and related questions.
ALLAN CHRISTELOW: “The Muslim and Jewish Mediterranean
in an American Mirror: Peter Markoe’s Algerine Spy in Pennsylvania
(1787)”
ABSTRACT: Peter Markoe’s Algerine Spy in Pennsylvania
was the first piece of American literature on the North African states,
and it remains today the most neglected. When read through the optic
of literary scholars in search of Orientalist stereotypes. It can seem
a frustrating book compared to later works such as Susanna Rowson’s
Slaves in Algiers (1794) or Royall Tyler’s Algerine Captive (1802).
Yet when read in light of a knowledge of the contemporary situation
in Algeria, derived especially from Arabic and Spanish sources, and
in light of Markoe’s own background and connections, it can be
seen as a work of remarkable richness, with a keen instinctive grasp
of the dilemmas facing both Algeria and America at the time. It is a
product of a time when Spanish-Algerian relations were at a key phase
of renegotiation, and before popular mobilization in the US to free
the Barbary captives. That mobilization laid the foundations for enduring
themes and images in America that are invoked to this day.
The presentation will first provide a synopsis of
Markoe’s book. Then it will provide a sketch of his background:
the son of a wealthy planter from St.Croix in the Danish Virgin Islands
whose family were in the process of transferring their capital to Philadelphia.
But Peter himself was a rebel, a lawyer by training but a writer by
avocation, and unlike the moneyed elite a partisan of Thomas Jefferson’s
radical republicanism.
Next it will examine the re-negotiation of Algerian-Spanish
relations leading to the truce of 1785 and how this related to the larger
question of expanding Algeria’s commercial relations with Europe.
Key proponents of the new opening were Hasan Pasha, the future ruler
of Algiers, freelance diplomats the Comte d’Expilly and John Wolf.
The Algerians had captured two American ships in 1785, and early correspondence
from one of the captains, Richard O’Brien, indicates that these
figures immediately set to work cultivating his support of their plans.
As they knew well, however, there was scarcely a consensus in Algeria
to pursue such an opening.
Finally, the presentation will attempt to answer
the question of whether Peter Markoe had any contact, direct, or indirect
with the situation in Algeria, and whether any Algerians had a role
in formulating his book. The book consists of letters written by one
“Mehmet”, an Algerian sent to scout out the new land beyond
the ocean. It would certainly not have been out of character for Hasan
Pasha to send a “spy” secretly to America, nor to disown him
when it proved convenient. There is a documented case of Algerian “spies”,
at least some of whom were probably Jewish, being caught in Virginia.
Lacking the legal tools to extradite them, the virginia state government
apparently let them go on their way. And they announced quite plainly
that they wanted to get to Philadelphia, a cosmopolitan centre where
they could expect a much friendlier reception.
Mehmet, in the end, was betrayed by a traditionalist
rabbi in Lisbon, allied with conservative forces in Algiers. He was
stranded in America, left with no choice but to seek assimilation. Markoe’s
book can be seen as prescient, not only of the turbulence that would
spoil efforts at a new, enlightened opening in the Western Mediterranean,
but of the longer term trends and dilemmas that would affect Mediterranean
Muslims and Jews and America’s relations with both these communities.
His Jeffersonian vision was one of deep ambivalence, torn between a
commitment to new principles of democracy and liberty and a nationalistic
vision that excluded Non-Europeans and non-Christians.
JOHN WRIGHT: “Enforced migration: The black slave
trade across the Mediterranean”
ABSTRACT: Historically, the Mediterranean Sea has
been a forum for traffic and exchange between the three Old World continents
of Europe. Asia and Africa. Commercial cargoes shipped in complex patterns
between ports around this inland sea, and its large and small islands,
used to include slaves of many types and origins. Indeed, a stealthy,
small-scale Mediterranean slave trade lasted until the very end of the
19th century. During this enduring, enforced migration, black Africans
were still being herded by long and ancient roads across the central
Sahara to the outskirts of Tripoli, or to Benghazi, or other small harbours
along the coast of what is now Libya. Thence, as they had been for centuries
past, these unfortunates were shipped off to other cities and provinces
of the Ottoman Empire — Constantinople, Smyrna, Salonika, Cyprus,
Syria, the Aegean islands and the southern Balkans. These were all places
where there was still a brisk demand for black slaves, and especially
for women and girls as domestic and concubines. This paper briefly traces
the rise and development of this branch of the black slave trade from
the early Islamic era; the Saharan routes slaves were forced to travel;
the North African markets where they were sold for export; their Mediterranean
voyages to points of final sale; their numbers, ages and sex ratios;
the prices and profits made on them. It also considers how the coming
of steam navigation and European abolitionist pressures into the Mediterranean
in the mid-19th century changed the appearance, but not necessarily
the substance, of the trade until other events took control at that
century’s end.
SAUL KELLY: “Britain, Libya and start of the Cold
War”
ABSTRACT: The question of the Italian Colonies (that
is, the future of Eritrea, Somalia and Libya) from 1945-1952 played
a significant part in the breakdown of postwar Allied co-operation and
the start of the Cold War.
At the heart of this question lay the dispute between
Britain and the USSR over Libya. Issues such as the political complexion
of an independent Libyan state and international access to its strategic
facilities proved highly contentious in the conference diplomacy and
strategic planning of the early Cold War years. While Britain sought
to establish a client state in Cyrenaica that would underpin its position
on the eastern Mediterranean, the Soviet Union tried to claim Tripolitania
as a war prize that would secure Soviet access to the inland sea.
Based primarily on British and American sources,
this chapter will analyze how the subsequent Anglo-Soviet struggle over
Libya contributed to the disintegration of the wartime Grand Alliance
and the onset of the Cold War. It will also consider the success of
British efforts to establish a new client state in the eastern Mediterranean
to buttress Britain’s Middle East position.
KEITH HAMILTON: “Régime change and détente:
Britain and the transition from dictatorship to democracy in Spain and
Portugal, 1974-76”
ABSTRACT: The position of Portugal was, according
to the British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, a ‘test of détente’.
That, at any rate, was what he told the Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev,
on 1 August 1975. The message, which reflected Wilson’s own concern
over the apparent threat posed by communists and other parties of the
extreme left to Portugal’s nascent democracy, was all the more
poignant since it was delivered personally only minutes before the signing
of the Helsinki Final Act, one of the highpoints of détente in
Europe in the 1970s. It was also a salutary reminder that at a time
when many commentators and some diplomats believed the Cold War to be
over, developments in the Mediterranean basin appeared to portend an
extension, if not necessarily an intensification, of the East/West ideological
struggle. Whilst the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe
(CSCE) had been engaged in its laborious deliberations in Geneva, Nato’s
southern flank had plunged into crisis. The Yom Kippur war of October
1973 had already revealed profound divisions between the United States
and its European allies in their attitude towards the region, particularly
after Donald Rumsfeld’s delayed announcement in the North Atlantic
Council that American forces had been put on low-level alert, and the
subsequent Arab oil boycott had contributed to the onset of a world
economic recession which brought suddenly to a halt over twenty-five
years of unparalleled economic growth. Hardly less disconcerting for
the Atlantic alliance were the events of the following year: the revolution
in Portugal, the Greek government-inspired coup in Cyprus, Turkey’s
military intervention in the island, and the uncertainty surrounding
Greece’s future following the fall of the colonels’ régime
in Athens. In addition, the Western allies were worried by the political
instability which some feared would follow the death of two ageing dictators,
Franco in Spain and Tito in Yugoslavia, and by the possibility of communists
entering government in France and Italy. The situation did not go unnoticed
in Moscow where party ideologists openly debated how the ‘crisis
of capitalism’ might best be exploited to advance the cause of
world socialism. And by the autumn of 1975 American analysts were speculating
on whether for the Russians régime change might render détente
and Brezhnev’s Westpolitik redundant.
This paper focuses on British reactions to the revolutionary
developments in Portugal following Caetano’s fall, and on British
policy towards Spain in the months preceding and immediately following
Franco’s death. It covers differences within the Atlantic Alliance
over the handling of Portugal, particularly those resulting from Kissinger’s
tendency to assume that it would be better to exclude a communist-dominated
Portugal from Nato, and those relating to whether or not the Western
powers should seek to influence the Soviet Union and its supposed encouragement
of red revolution in Lisbon by threatening to cancel plans for a CSCE
summit in Helsinki. In the Spanish context the paper similarly examines
problems arising between the United States and Western Europe over the
prospect of drawing a non-democratic Spain into closer ties with Nato
prior to Franco’s death. British diplomats, some of whom wished
to avoid a repetition of events in Portugal by encouraging contacts
between representatives of the British and Spanish administrative and
military establishments, had to cope with Labour politicians whose memories
of the Spanish Civil War set them against any liaison with the régime
in Madrid. While in the case of Portugal British diplomacy struggled
to come to terms with a revolutionary present, in the case of Spain
it was ensnared by a reactionary past. Both countries ultimately succeeded
in making the transition to democracy, but ironically Portugal’s
retreat from empire, which the British government had encouraged, was
soon followed by civil war in Angola Soviet and Cuban involvement in
which did much to undermine the achievements of détente in Europe.
EFFIE PEDALIU: “The US, the Mediterranean and
the Cold War, 1945-57”
ABSTRACT: The deployment of American power in the
Mediterranean in the post WWII period was incremental and hesitant.
Initially, and up until, the second half of 1946, the US saw its role
in the region as merely a supporting one to that of the UK. It was the
British weakness in fulfilling its role that led the US to assume more
responsibility. Although, the geostrategic importance of the region
was recognised from early on, the US treated the region in a fragmented
fashion. As crises developed American power was deployed to contain
them, maintain the balance of power and keep the region safe for Western
interests. It was only after the outbreak of the Cold War in Europe
and Asia that the Mediterranean acquired the primacy of the North Sea
and the Atlantic in American strategic thinking and it was only then
that the US took steps to turn it into a true mare nostrum for American
power. The paper will also argue that American hegemony over the Mediterranean
region was completed in three stages:
- The stage of power sharing with Britain, which lasted from
autumn 1943 until autumn 1946. During this period American policy
was directed towards issues arising from the war and post war setting.
It aimed at tackling these issues in cooperation with Britain.
- The transitional stage, which lasted from 1947 to 1949.
During this period American policy aimed at replacing waning British
power, which led to the direct involvement of the US not only in the
Greek Civil War but also in areas of the Southern rim of the region
such as Palestine.
- The hegemonic stage from 1940-57 during which America proceeded
to establish and institutionalise its hegemony throughout the basin.
COLIN HEYWOOD: “What’s in a name? The onomastics
of Algerine fleet lists circa 1700: a possible source for prosopographic
and technological naval history”
ABSTRACT:
1. Names of ships
- Imber, study of navy of Suleyman I, from Ottoman financial records:
ships — all in fact galleys — have no names.
- In the English navy of Henry VIII’s time, and by 1600, all
English naval ships have names — the Mary Rose best known.
- In the Ottoman fleet at end of 17 century, by which time line of
battle ships were being built (cf. Idris Bostan) — ships still
have no names (identified by name/rank of commander).
- But, the shipbuilding revolution occurs much earlier in Algiers:
by 2nd half of 17 century Algerine war vessels of the Atlantic type
all appear to have names (though smaller vessels and galleys still
do not)
- Starting point is a study of Algerine ship names published more
than 30 years ago by Guy Turbet-delof (Revu. Internationale d’Onomastique,
xxi, 1970), a short but insightful piece of work.
- 1st. Question: do names (or “names”) come into use coevally
with the adoption of ‘round’ ships at beg. Cf 17 century,
and with the renegades who pour into Algiers at that time, especially
from Holland and England, where they are used to serving on or commanding
ships which are identified by name.
- ‘Names’ are actually iconographic and analphabetic, like
public house signs (and other establishments, from mercers to booksellers)
in an age of minimal literacy.
- 2nd Question: Is this the reason for the difference and uniqueness??
of Algerine (and other Barbary) corsair practice amongst Muslim/Islamic/Ottoman
shipping of the pre-modern era?
2. Use of Algerine ships’ names (or ‘names’)
- We have the lists — used earlier by Turbet-Delof and Belhamissi
— but only ones and twos. With more — nine — from English
archival sources covering period 1675-1715 — some questions can
be asked since ships can be, with some accuracy identified.
- Consuls and others who made the lists collected information also
on number of guns, number of crew, and name and ethnicity of commander/reis.
- hence, we can ask technological and prosopographic questions and
compare the Algerine (and other Barbary) war fleets with European
and Otoman ones;
- establish a prosopography of the reises;
- estimate number of crews, both for sailling and oared vessels —
fits or not w/estimates re number of Xn slaves in use at time ...
Concluding remarks.
Sources indigenous and ‘foreign’ ... Some
thoughts.
STUART SCHAAR: “President Woodrow Wilson and the
Young Tunisians”
ABSTRACT: Tunisian nationalists saw in Wilson’s
fourteen points an occasion to play on the contradictions in the post-
World War I alliance and weaken France’s hold over its Tunisian
protectorate. In the 1970s other Tunisians struggling for greater human
rights exploited President Jimmy Carter’s support for this issue
to engage Americans and use them to help form Tunisia’s first human
rights organization. I was involved in the 1970s attempt to liberalize
the Tunisian regime of President Habib Bourguiba. I helped form a delegation
of prominent U.S. citizens who traveled to Tunisia and participated
in the founding conference of the country’s human rights organization.
We met first in the Tunisian airport and then in the street in front
of the Africa hotel, since soldiers prohibited us from meeting inside
the building. Faced with armed officers holding machine guns, the organizers
of the human rights organization of the mid-70s went ahead anyway, confident
that the military would not attack them while the U.S. delegation was
present. Jimmy Carter’s policies in promoting human rights had
reached into the North African country of Tunisia. In a similar way,
Woodrow Wilson’s verbal support for self-determination lent legitimacy
to the Young Tunisian’s demand for a Constitution and an elected
assembly after the first World War. My own experiences during Jimmy
Carter’s presidency has given me insights into what may have happened
during the earlier period.
As early as 1962 Nicola Ziadeh in his book on the
development of Tunisian nationalism had pointed out that the Young Tunisians
had sent a telegram to President Wilson asking his help to end the French
Protectorate. Using arguments that they thought might convince President
Wilson of the justice of their claims, the Young Tunisians took their
case to the International Tribunal for Rights and Justice, demanding
that the court conduct an investigation into conditions in Tunisia.
The Tribunal refused to intervene on the grounds that what transpired
in the Protectorate was considered an internal matter of France and
did not fall within the court’s jurisdiction. One member of the
Young Tunisians living in exile in Berne Switzerland, Muhammad Bach
Hanba, wrote to Wilson in April 1919 asking him to help place Tunisia
under the protection of the soon to be formed League of Nations, in
effect taking it away from France. During 1919 the Young Tunisians,
led by ‘Abd al-‘Azīz al-Tha’Ālbī, attempted
to contact Wilson while the President resided in France. Their attempts
to do so, with the help of the French President of the Human Rights
Organization, failed. Wilson took the same position as the International
Tribunal and did not intervene in Tunisian affairs.
This brings up the more general question of Wilson’s
position on self-determination. Despite his verbal support for this
notion, he did little to undermine the established colonial order. In
Latin America he even ordered marines into Cuba and other countries
to stem nationalist uprisings. This paper also examines the new secondary
literature on Wilson and his position on self-determination more generally.
I have consulted the Wilson papers at Princeton University
and read through all their documents for the year 1919. In addition
I seen archives in Tunisia (those of the Prime Minister’s office)
and in France at Nantes belonging to the Minister of Foreign Affairs
and in Paris, the Quai d’Orsay archives. In addition, new books
and articles on Wilson examine critically his positions on self-determination.
All these sources help to clarify his impact on Tunisia, and by extrapolation,
on other countries of the third world.
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Plus
Book Reviews / Comptes-rendus
Index to Volumes 1 to 30, 1976-2005 /
Table Anneés 1976-2005
THE MAGHREB REVIEW — A Manifesto for
the Twenty-First Century /
LA REVUE DU MAGHREB — Un Manifeste pour Le XXIème
Siècle
Conditions of Publication /
Conditions de Publication
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