TURKS AND MOHAMMEDANS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
Siu,—In the editorial note appended to Mr. Ameer Ali's letter in the Spectator of November 30th you say, " We cannot believe that any body of Englishmen desires the extermina- tion of the Turk, or even his expulsion from Europe as an individual" (the italics are mine). The Committee of the London All-India Moslem League would be grateful to you if you will state whether in the millennium that has been ushered in in Eastern Europe Turks as a community are banned, and it is only permissible for " individuals " to enjoy Europe's hospitality. If this is not your meaning, the Committee would like to know why England has not raised her voice against the massacres of the Moslem Serbs deposed to by an eye-witness and published in the Daily Chronicle of November 12th, and the butchery by Bulgarian " irregulars " of the Turkish villagers, concerning which reports are now pouring in from unbiassed quarters P Is it due to the fact that the victims were not Christians P The Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke of the extension of " the area of freedom and good government," and the First Lord of the Admiralty blessed the crusade as "a just war.' The hundred millions of the Mussulman subjects of the King are asking the question, how it is that these Ministers of the Crown do not now interfere to atop the extirpation of Mussulmans?
You speak, again, of the Turk being unfit to govern "European Christian provinces." The Spectator is usually so fair that we are surprised it has overlooked historical facts in pronouncing its hasty verdict. We ask you to consider the immense difficulties under which they have always laboured in their work of introducing law and order in their European possessions; the constant " band" outrages, fiendishly designed and diabolically carried ont with the deliberate object of provoking outrages that might serve as a pretext for European intervention, or bring about a war such as we have just witnessed, with all its slaughter and misery. Within the last hundred years Turkey has had to suffer from six wars (including the invasion by Greece in. 1896 and by Italy in 1910) at varying intervals of a few years, in none of which she was the aggressor. We beg you also to bear in mind that every time she showed the slightest sign of reform or progress her inveterate and implacable enemy has been down upon her with fire and sword. May we venture to ask would any Christian or European Power have been able to do better under these conditions in a Christian province P With Ireland as a standing rebuke, every Englishman ought to be chary of pronouncing the Turks to be unfit to govern Macedonia, with its fierce religious and racial hatreds fomented from abroad.
People in England do not realize how deeply the heart of the Islamic world has been stirred by the misfortunes of Turkey and the injustice to which she has been subjected, nor the resentment which the open and avowed hostility of some of their British fellow-subjects towards Turkey has aroused among the Mussulmans of India.
The Mussulman feeling of goodwill and loyalty to England is at a discount at this moment of wild exultation at the downfall of the Turkish power in Europe; but we feel sure the time will come when it will recover its proper value, and the extent of the injury caused by this unfortunate war to British dominancy in the East will be understood and appreciated.
To us it is a matter for sorrow that it should have been left to a foreign statesman to convey an indirect message of sympathy and hope to afflicted Turkey, and that England, the greatest Mussulenan Power in the world, the "bulwark of Islam," as it was called in a fit of exaltation by a prominent journal, should have maintained an attitude of antipathetic reserve.
It still remains for England to help Turkey to build up an Empire which might and is certain to be a source of strength to her.
We rely upon your usual fairness and courtesy to find a place for• our letter in the next issue of the Spectator.—I am,
Hon. Secretary. London All-India Moslem League.
Hillside, Harrow-on-the-Hill.
[We meant and mean that Turkish rule in Europe (except for a time in and .around Constantinople) is over, that it is well that it should be over, and that all well-wishers of the Turks will rejoice to see their rule confined to Asia. The history of the Ottoman Turk in Europe shows him utterly incapable of successfully governing European and Christian races. It is a great mistake for the Indian Moslem League to allow Mohammedanism to be identified with the Ottoman race. The Moslem faith is in no sort of way bound up with Turkish supremacy.—En. Spectator.)
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