Satoshi Katsunuma: Between the Arab World and Turkey

2023/04/15

The massive earthquake that struck southeastern Turkey this February caused immense damage to both Turkey and Syria. For those of us living in the "earthquake-prone" Japanese archipelago who experienced the Great East Japan Earthquake, this was not someone else's problem, and many were likely heartbroken as the detailed extent of the damage in each country became clear.

The Middle East region, of which both countries are a part, consists of three cultural spheres: Arab, Turkish, and Persian. Turkey, as its name suggests, is the center of the Turkish cultural sphere, while Syria, which includes "Arab" in its official name, belongs to the Arab cultural sphere. At first glance, the border between the two countries seems to represent the boundary between these two cultural spheres. However, this border is a new one, drawn just about 100 years ago after World War I under the leadership of Britain and France. For the 400 years leading up to that point, present-day Turkey and Syria both belonged to the Ottoman Empire, which ruled most of the Mediterranean world, and the differences between the two were much more ambiguous than they are today.

In particular, northwestern Syria, which suffered heavy damage in this earthquake, was strongly linked to the Turkish cultural sphere before the Great War. Turkish had been widely spoken there since the 16th century, and intermarriage with people of Turkish descent was not uncommon. Furthermore, the people of northwestern Syria had strong economic ties with Turkey. For them, Turkey was a major market as well as a source of raw materials and food. Additionally, Hatay Province in Turkey, where severe damage was reported, is home to the port city of İskenderun (Alexandretta); this port was the gateway connecting the Mediterranean Sea to Aleppo, a major city in northwestern Syria, until it was ceded to Turkey in the late 1930s.

The connection with Turkey can also be seen in the history of the anti-French revolt (1919–21) that broke out in northwestern Syria after the Great War. Ibrahim Hananu, an Ottoman official from the outskirts of Aleppo who led this revolt, did not align himself with Faisal of the Hashemite family (who also appears in the film "Lawrence of Arabia"), then based in southern Syria. Instead, he confronted the French forces stationed in Syria while primarily collaborating with Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), the father of modern Turkey, who was fighting the War of Independence in Anatolia. It was only after the French Mandate period following the suppression of the revolt that northwestern Syria strengthened its ties with Syria or the Arab world as it does today.