Although it is difficult to explain the concept of understanding briefly, we will try to give a brief account of its meaning and consequences in the context of teaching from the viewpoint of constructivist learning.

Is it sensible to assume that ‘Everything which has been taught has also been understood’? Accumulating research on understanding reveals that it is not that simple. Not every teaching generates understanding. Von Glasersfeld (1990), commenting on the present situation, argues that something must be wrong as some children are leaving school unable to read and write or handle numbers properly, and knowing nothing about the scientific nature of the world. He relates this to teaching practices derived from behaviourist models; he is critical of the removal of the distinction between training on the one hand and, on the other, teaching which aims at generating understanding. Whether training manages to generate understanding is, he says, a matter of chance.

Understanding, in fact, is a very complex phenomenon to describe both philosophically and practically. In one attempt to do so (Skemp, 1989), two categories of understanding are defined: relational and instrumental. Relational understanding corresponds to intelligent learning. Instrumental understanding means habit-learning or learning ‘rules without reasons’. The advantages of instrumental understanding are: its being easier to grasp; providing more immediate and obvious rewards; and yielding the right answers more quickly. The advantages of relational understanding, on the other hand, are: it is more adaptable to new tasks; and what is learnt is easier to remember.

A shift towards relational understanding may provide the necessary motivation for students to learn more effectively. However, teaching for relational understanding suffers a major drawback. Selinger (1994) states: ‘Encouraging pupils to learn more relationally can be problematic for both teachers and their pupils; the investment required to make connections is greater than in instrumental learning and the contents of the curriculum need to be considered, so that connections can be easily and readily established.’

II. CONSTRUCTIVISM IN THE CLASSROOM

In constructivism, knowledge is always contextual. The so-called “objective” mathematical knowledge is the product of active construction which we make and share with others (Wood, 1995). Understanding, then, means constructing acts on the shared mathematical objects (ibid.).

The two major assumptions of constructivism can he summarised as follows (Caprio, 1995):

a) Knowledge is not objective, and does not have an absolute structure. What we know and understand is only our perceptions of reality.

b) Teachers help students to develop new insights. This is done by leading students to develop their own analogies, examples and non-examples, proof methods, new ways of solving a problem etc. The teacher, in short, attempts to teach thinking.

In the behavouristic model, the body of knowledge in. a subject-matter is the object of teaching. The teacher’s task is to transmit (or inject) that knowledge into the learner (who does not have it) through an adequate discourse. Constructivism questions this transmission-based approach. It assumes that students have their own paradigms before coming to class, some of which are invalid or incomplete. The duty of the teacher is to guide students on their way through reaching out to that in the knowledge they bring to class which is viable.

According to Pateman and Johnson (1990), constructivist ideas have influenced teaching practices. Teachers need to set up the temporal, discursive and cognitive space for students to construct concepts (Mousley, 1993). Mousley uses the term “moments” to describing the events in the classroom in which teachers and students create space for themselves; this term reflects the immediate nature of very small periods in which the potential of the lesson changes continuously. Her observations indicate that the decisions taken by the teacher in those moments help or prevent students to make sense. That is, the learners do not have command of the learning situation. Learning still depends on the teachers’ residual authority. Therefore, she suggests, teachers should leave more interpretive space in the learning process by presenting the students with loosely-defined tasks.

Jaworski (1994), commenting on the demands of constructivism on teaching methods, says that getting inside the head of the student helps teachers to build a model of the student’s conceptual level; language is a tool for that purpose, and the errors and apparent misconceptions of students can provide the feedback information the teacher needs to understand and adapt to the student’s level of understanding.

Teaching is heavily reliant on what the learner already knows. The duty of the teacher, in the constructivist model, is to help the student to construct new knowledge or discriminate alternative concepts, and to guide them to commonly shared concepts.

Constructivism, being a theory of learning, does not say much directly about teaching methods. Instead, it specifies the methods that are not appropriate (Orton, 1994). But since teaching and learning are complementary and reciprocal, it is inevitable that this theory has many implications for teaching. Von Glaserfeld (1987), for instance, listed some possible consequences of constructivism for teaching:

a) There will be a separation between teaching of understanding and training which aims (only) at repetition of behaviours.

b) Educators will be interested in what is going on in the minds of the children rather than in their overt responses.

c) The teacher will realise that language is a tool to help learners to construct understanding, rather than a mechanism for transferring knowledge.

d) There is a shift in the perception of errors from being something undesirable (which teaching should eliminate) to being possible indicators of the process whereby students make sense of their experiential worlds. The teacher’s duty is to detect those errors which yield information about how and why the child deviates from the teacher’s expectations.

e) There is a shift toward seeking knowledge about learners’ conceptual structures and finding ways to modify them.

A metaphor for teaching in the constructivist framework is “facilitate” (Lerman, 1993), as opposed to “inject” for the typical behaviourist approach.

Making Students Make Sense

Mason (1989) lists some aims of a teacher concerned to help his or her students make sense. He would like students to have seen connections, experienced a crystallisation of experiences subsumed under a general concept, gained a sense of coherence of a topic etc. Elaborating on the issue of the aims of teacher and students, Mason states that “subordination of teaching to learning” and “starting where the students are” do not mean that the teacher’s aims are the same as those of students. Rather, the aims should be confluent. The factors that determine student success in these aims depend on: teacher attitudes toward learning and teaching; the interest and commitment of the teacher; the extent to which teaching evokes students’ capabilities; and the extent to which students share the teacher’s goals.

Listening to the students while they are trying to make sense is a powerful way to get to know how they understand a topic. This talking can be among themselves or with the teacher. The ideal would be to talk to students about their understanding individually, but that is practically impossible. If they are talking with each other, the teacher can listen to different groups and gets an overall sense. Teachers’ dependence on that “overall sense” may not always be a reliable basis for making decisions about any individual student, but in a classroom situation it is inevitable.

III. TEACHING FOR UNDERSTANDING

Helping children to develop their perceptions is more productive than helping them to acquire particular ideas or bits of information. The necessary and sufficient condition for achieving this is to have a rough understanding of their current perceptions. It is essential for the teacher to have knowledge about pupils’ past experiences so that remedial actions may take place accordingly (Threlfall 1990).

Discovery and inquiry-based methods are acceptable ways to facilitate understanding. What is not good for the teacher is to sit back and await answers from the students without putting in any effort. Rather, the teacher should arrange the learning environment in order to enable useful experiences for the students. Although they can use some directive statements sometimes, much talking on the part of the teacher does not contribute to better understanding on the part of the learner (Orton & Frobisher, 1996).

Rote Learning vs. Meaningful Learning

Meaningful learning occurs if previously isolated bits of information are organised and restructured into new relationships. In other words, meaningful learning takes place as new knowledge is integrated into the learner’s existing knowledge. There is no one-and-only methods (e.g. discovery learning) for making this happen. Any method, such as expository teaching, is appropriate if it ensures that new learning is linked to existing knowledge (Orton, 1987).

In rote learning generally, the schema remain fixed. What is learned remains closely tied to where it has been learned, therefore it cannot be generalised to other contexts. It stays the memory as isolated bits of information. The learning of bare facts and procedures falls in this category.

Despite having little effect on learning, repetition and drill may be useful for the acquisition of declarative knowledge (Mayer, 1983). Repetition influences not only how much is learned but also the structure of what is learned. In fact, there is a misunderstanding, says Von Glasersfeld (1990), about the role of rote learning and memorization. He states that, they are not unnecessary. There are matters that simply have to be learned in a direct mechanical way. Orton (1994) argues that rote-learning has unfairly been associated with behaviourism and is a necessary method for learning. It takes place in a natural way.

Discovery Learning

Students in discovery learning situations are led, with limited teacher support, to discover the abstract from the concrete, and encouraged to make connections from seemingly disconnected events. In other words, discovery learning transfers the burden from the teacher to the student (Corno and Snow, 1986).

Discovery learning is advocated by constructivism because of the opportunities for discussion, negotiation and the exchange of ideas (Orton, 1994). The teacher’s role here is to initiate students to make their own interpretations which makes it easier for them to learn. But case studies conducted in classrooms reveal that what the teachers claim to be discovery learning is not discovery learning in its fullest sense (Wood, et al., 1990). The teachers rather impose on students what they are supposed to discover.

IV. CONCLUSION

No two students are same. Hence, it is impossible to find two identical teaching experiences. That is, “there is no royal road to teaching and learning.” The suggestions for good teaching do not comprise a method but rather promote a perspective. The teacher cannot do the learning for any pupil (Mason, 1989). At the end of the day, the so called “transmission process” (Jaworski, 1989) depends on students’ own construction of what the teacher says. It, indeed, is not surprising that there frequently is a discrepancy between the two.

Finally, understanding is not the comprehension of an absolute reality but establishing a fit between the old and the new experience (Von Glasersfeld 1984 in Jaworski, 1994). To make students attain understanding, teachers should keep in mind that the teacher’s role is as a facilitator, setting up constructivist learning environments which provide useful experiences for students; there is no ready-made teaching strategy for facilitating understanding: a constructivist approach can use a repertoire of methods, the only thing excluded is passivity on the part of teachers or students; finally, teachers’ knowledge of what their students already know is the only source enabling them to plan their actions.

References 

• Caprio, (1995) in Constructivism in Education, Steffe, L.P. & Gale, J, (eds), Lawrence Erlbaum.
• rno, I. & Snow, R.E. (1986) ‘Adapting teaching to indiviual differences among learners’ in Wittrock, M.C. (ed.) Handbook of Research on Teaching, New York & London, Macmillan Publishing Co, pp.605-29.
• Jaworski, B. (1989) ‘Mathematics teaching; belief and practice’ in Ernest, P. (ed), Teaching Mathematics; The State of the Art, New York & London, Falmer Press.
• Jaworski, B. (1994) Investigating Mathematics Teaching; A Constructivist lnquiry London, Falmer Press.
• Lerman, S. (1994) ‘Metaphors for mind and metaphors for teaching and learning mathematics’, Proceedings of the 18th International Conference for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, vol. 3, Lisbon, Portugal.
• Mason, J. (1989) ‘Teaching (pupils to make sense) and assessing (the sense they make)’ in Ernest, P. (ed), Teaching Mathematics; The State of the Art, New York & London, Falmer Press.
• Mayer, R.E. (1983) ‘Can you repeat that? Qualitative effects of repetitions and advance organisation learning from Science prose’, Journal of Educational Psychology, 75(1), pp.40-9.
• Mousley, J. (1993) ‘Constructivism; epistemology to pratice’, Proceedings of the 18th International Conference for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, vol. 3, Lisbon, Portugal.
• Orton, A (1987) Learning Mathematics: Issues, Theory and Classroom, London, Cassell.
• Orton, A. (1994) ‘Learning mathematics: implications for teaching’ in Orton, A. & Wain, G. (eds)., Issues in Teaching Mathematics, London, Cassell.
• Orton, A. & Frobisher, L. (1996) Insights into Teaching Mathematics, London, Cassell.
• Pateman N.A. & Johnson DC (1990) ‘Curriculum and co structivism in early childhood mathematics’ in Steffe L.P. & Wood T. (eds) Transforming Children’s mathematical Education; International Perspectives, New York, Macmillan, pp. 346-56.
• Selinger, M. (1994) ‘Understanding’ in Selinger, M (ed.) Teaching Matheniatics, London & New York, Routledge. Skemp, R.R. (1989) Mathematics in the Primary School, London, Routledge.
• Threlfall. J. (1990) ‘An exploration of the way in which children and adults understand the mathematical concept of addition’. Unpublished doctoral thesis, Leeds, U.K.
• Von Glaserfeld (1987) Constructioism, in Husen T. & Postlethwaite N. (eds) International Encyclopedia of Education, vol. 1, Oxford, Pergamon.
• Wood, T. (1995) ‘From alternative epistemologies to practice in education; Rethinking what it means to teach and learn’ in Steffe, L.P. & Gale, J. (eds) Constructioism in Education, Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Wood, T.; Cobb, P. & Yackel, E. (1995) ‘Reflections on learning and teaching mathematics in Elementary School’ in Steffe, L.P. & Gale, J. (eds) Constructioism in Education, Lawrence Erlbaum.

Despite these common properties, the concept of being alive is well defined in biology. Living beings take in energy, produce waste, grow and reproduce. Plants and animals, however primitive, are living beings. Humans are included in the animal kingdom in that, like animals and unlike plants, they are animate.

It may be useful as well as interesting and challenging to make the distinction between living and non-living and seek answers to the questions, What is life? What is living and non-living being? What are the actual moral differences between them? and Do non-living beings

have any worth? The fact that (as we noted at the outset), in respect of their material and physical composition, living and non-living beings are similar, is a crucial one: if every thing is made up of Carbon, Nitrogen, Hydrogen and other elements, then, to some extent, the difference between living and non-living is going to be expressed in meta-physical and moral terms.

We define certain ‘life-functions’ like ‘take in energy, produce waste, grow and reproduce’, and classify entities as living or not by these criteria. If some or all of these ‘functions’ are there, we say ‘it is alive’, if not, we say ‘it is not-alive’. Consider a cat wandering and playing around. It eats poisonous meat and lies down. After ten minutes we check it for ‘life-functions and, realizing they are all negative, we say ‘it is dead (or not-alive)’. We may now ask, what is the actual difference in the being of the cat between these two states? Although, in terms of the cat’s physical make-up, everything is unchanged, how can we define it as being alive at one time and not-alive at another? Is it just our labelling of beings with our own criteria? And can our descriptions be adequate without some metaphysical considerations?

If it is right to say that the building blocks of every living being are lifeless, not only life but also lifelessness should have some worth. Oxygen and water are unquestionably lifeless entities, but they are the most precious things on earth for beings living in this world. Therefore the intrinsic value of something has nothing to do with its being alive or not.

Dworkin (1993, p.69) reports the argument of David Hume and many other philosophers that objects or events can be valuable only when and because they serve someone’s or something’s interests, and (p.71) comments:

On this view, nothing is valuable unless someone wants it or unless it helps someone to get what he does want.

Dworkin’s own view is:

Something is instrumentally important if its value depends on its usefulness, its capacity to help people get something else they want. For example, money and medicine. Something is subjectively valuable only to the people who happen to desire it. Something is intrinsically valuable, on the contrary, if its value is independent of what people happen to enjoy or want or need or what is good for them.

Dworkin’s classification, wide- ranging though it is, could be extended by replacing the word ‘someone’ with ‘something’, and ‘people’ with ‘entities’. If we accept this extension, it emerges that everything living or non-living has some sort of value. Whether humans comprehend it or not, everything on earth and in universe has a purpose, and is of service to someone or something. Perhaps with the further advance of science and technology we will come to see more and more things, now considered as useless, as in fact valuable for some entity or other.

It follows that life is not a prerequisite in order for something to have value. It is existence that is primary. Spinoza (1923 edn, p196) wrote:

No one can desire to be happy, to act well and live well, who does not at the same time desire to be, to act, and to live, that is to say, actually to exist.

From existence every beauty and perfection may come, whilst from non-existence nothing is produced, good or evil. Although existence is entirely valuable itself, there are degrees of value. We are almost bound to assume that the perfection of an entity’s existence is through life for only a living being can experience its own existence, through thinking and reasoning. And all our knowledge is founded on experiences (Locke, 1993 edn, p.45).

Schweitzer (1923, p.26) argues that the essence of Goodness is: preserve life, promote life, help it to achieve its highest destiny.According to him, the fundamental principle of ethics is reverence for life. All the goodness one displays toward a living organism is helping it to preserve and further its existence. He believes that ethics embraces not only people, but also creatures; an ethics that does not also embrace our relation to the world of creatures is incomplete (pp.22-3).

If something is so valuable and precious, it must, in one way or another, be protected. We go to great lengths to secure and protect man-made pieces of art and scientific instruments. If life is so good and precious, how is it protected?

Every living being has an instinctive will to survive and is equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills. A small animal e.g. chicken will fight with a dog to stay alive. Plants too exhibit a desire to live. Individuals from the same-species grow roots and leaves in different lengths and sizes, depending on their environment, to increase their life chance. Schweitzer (1966, p.25) calls this the ‘will to live’. The ‘will to live’ is a universal fact, and entails competition between individuals and species. We observe in nature that, as well as co-operation and mutual helping, there is struggle: one life preserves itself by fighting and destroying other lives.

We destroy lives not only for survival but also for our convenience. We cannot build dams and produce electricity without destroying the environment and ending some forms of lives. All our daily food are plants and animals. It is unavoidable to destroy the lives of some plants or animals, knowingly or unknowingly, for various reasons.

If existence is entirely valuable, and the real basis of existence is life, then life should be valuable and respected in any form. However, is there any difference in terms of their value between different forms of life? Can animals be favoured over against plants, or humans over against both animals and plants? Could there be any justification for it? Is this a species-ism?

Many writers have sought answers to the question: ‘What makes human life valuable and, in particular, what makes it more valuable than other forms of life?’ (Harris, 1985, p.7). Harris questions the assumption that human life is (or should be treated as) more valuable than other forms of life. What justifies it and what, if anything, makes it more than mere prejudice to favour ourselves and our own kind? He says: ‘There is no doubt that we do value human life supremely, we think it important to save a person rather than a dog where we cannot save both, and we think it right to do so.’ Obviously, we must ask Why?

Before attempting to offer a possible answer, we should refer to Aristotle’s argument in his Ethics. He suggested:

We must not even demand to know the explanation in all cases alike; there are some in which it is quite enough if the fact itself is exhibited, e.g. in the case of first principles; the fact is primary and a starting point. Some starting-points are grasped by indication, some by perception, some by a kind of habituation, others by other ways’ (Aristotle, 1976 edn, p.77).

And preferences between forms of life fit into this category. We may not be obliged to find a satisfactory explanation as to why we value human life, even some individual’s life, supremely. Who could accuse me of unworthy discrimination if I rescue a human rather than a cat, my wife rather than a stranger, a black rather than a white, one from my nationality rather than one from another, in a rescue operation that does not permit me to rescue all? Who could accuse me of being a nationalist, racist or species-ist? This is simply a matter of preferences. This does not mean that I do not value the lives of the ones I could not rescue.

I cannot be expected to have a special reason for making that or a similar choice. I did so just because I felt it was the right thing to do.

Although it is not necessary to find a ‘convincing’ reason to value human life supremely, we can distinguish humans from other beings by some of his features, namely by their consciousness, reason and intellect. Dworkin argues that; ‘We treat the preservation and prosperity of our own species as of capital importance because we believe that we are the highest achievements of God’s creation, if we are conventionally religious, or of evolution, if we are not’ (Dworkin, 1993, p.82). Although in religious terminology God is free from having particular achievements or failures, it is true that humans are His special creatures, to whom He relates through Messengers. He made humans responsible for their conduct as they uniquely are equipped with consciousness, reason and intelligence to distinguish right from wrong.

In conclusion we may say that, to comprehend the nature of life is extremely important, but perplexing as well. Maybe we will never achieve that. However, as conscious beings, it should not be too hard for us to respect every being on earth, and reflect that they are all valuable.

Is there any reason to compare the worth of different forms of lives, if we embrace in advance the idea that they are all valuable and necessary for this world? Why should we put ourselves to the trouble of wondering whether we have any right to destroy some forms of lives for the benefit of others? Why do we hesitate to admit the distinctiveness of human beings? It is perfectly understandable to reject discrimination between human beings on the basis of race, gender, nationality and religion, but what could be a sufficient reason for devaluing humans as such in the name of equality between species?

Existence is good and every single being on earth and in the universe is valuable, and purposeful.

Therefore we should value all existing beings.

Consciousness, reason and intellect are precious, and we do accord supreme value to the lives of those beings who have these features. We should be aware of that too, and be respectful and responsible accordingly. 

References

• Aristotle (1976 edn)The Ethics of Aristotle, Penguin Books, London.
• Dworkin, R. (1993) Life’s Dominion, Harper Collins, London.
• Harris, J. (1985) The Value of Life, Routledge & Kegan, Paul, London.
• Locke, J. (1993 edn) An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Everyman, London.
• Schweitzer, A. (1923) Civilization And Ethics, A.&C. Black Ltd., London.
• Schweitzer, A. (1966) The Teaching of Reverence for Life, Peter Owen Ltd., London.
• Spinoza (1923 edn), Ethics, trans. White, W.H. and Stirling, A.H., Oxford University Press, London.

Together with massive campaigns to promote Western products, such story-lines and images, perpetuate the inferiorized stereotypes that used to be taught openly in the nineteenth century. Films especially can be seen as an arm of economic domination: ‘Because every film is a part of the economic system, it is also part of the ideological system… cinema and art are branches of ideology. None can escape; somewhere, like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, all have their allotted place’ (Nicholls, 1976, vol.1, p.24).

Because the US got the edge over the Europeans in the mass-market film industry, Hollywood and what it stands for have often been accused, even by Europeans, of cultural imperialism. The English as well as the French often complain that the norms of popular culture in their countries have been ‘taken over’ by the Americans. But the fact is that the success of American styles has been largely due to their commercial skill and power relative to English and French products. In no sense can it be claimed that the American popular culture industry portrays the French or the English negatively. By contrast, it is true to say that Western cinema, particularly American cinema, portrays Orientals, especially Muslims, negatively as a matter of course. All easy, popular stories have goodies and baddies, but must the baddies so often be foreigners and need the foreigners be culturally foreign? In order to be popular, popular films reinforce popular stereotypes-it is a vicious circle, at least for its victims. For those who manage such images, popular cinema is a powerful instrument of cultural suppression and domination. As one writer maintains, the virtual monopoly Hollywood has enjoyed for the last quarter century has made it the single most powerful advocate and purveyor of a simplified, homogenized American culture (Collins, 1989).

Within this Hollywood style in particular, there has been a consistent Middle Eastern stereotype-Arab or Arab-Palestinian, or Turk or Iranian-with negative physical and moral characteristics- lustful, fanatical, irrational, cruel, scheming, unreliable, often cowardly, and always outwitted and defeated. The adventurer-hero, once in the Flash Gordon style of noble warrior on the side of the good (in simple contrast to arch-enemy Ming the Merciless, an Oriental tyrant), is now, typically, a morally imperfect figure, nevertheless worthy of the audience’s full sympathy. The ‘James Bond’ character of the sixties and seventies remains by far the most successful hero-formula. He was designed for British and American audiences to identify with: ‘he is worldly, has diverse but specialized expertise, and has a passion for excitement. He is self-reliant, proud, wedded to privacy, honest, candid, loyal, a man of honour…’ (Simon, 1989). This figure exemplifies, in a form appropriate to the genre of comic caricature, the virtues and ethos which are supposed to give the British and the Americans their directness and sense of humour, their get-up-and-go, their problem-solving success. The villain-figures altogether lack positive characteristics, even any energy or wit they have is of a mad, evil-genius type; their characters lack any exposition; they have no past, their only present is to pose the challenge to the hero. It follows that no audience, not even the non- British/American audience can possibly do otherwise than identify, through the momentum of the story, with the hero and the ethos he represents.

Among recent historical films which have to do with Muslim lands and people, the most popular have been Lawrence of Arabia, Death on the Nile, Midnight Express, and Robin Hood. Of these, only the first has any substantial claim to be a serious, well-made film. In it, Lawrence, a British army officer, stationed in Cairo during World War I, works to ally the Sharif of Makka with the British against the Turks. The Arabs are presented as bumbling, loud, unruly primitives with some barbarian dignity but, in the end, easily bribed, easily tricked. The Turks are utterly vile and disgusting with no saving qualities of any kind. Indeed, the Turkish Pasha in Egypt is, in addition to being, ugly, foul and aggressive, a sodomite- characteristics flatly contradicted by historical evidence (Kirkbride, 1956). The fact that Lawrence was a British spy with very British images about the desert, about Arabs, Turks and Muslims in general, never enters into the film or the consciousness of its audience-there is not the slightest hint that the events might be presented from another point of view and so tell quite a different story. For all the undeniable beauty of some scenes, this film well illustrates the general point made by Raymond Williams that, in spite of their being artistic, works of art still serve an ideological function, that is, serve as propaganda (Williams, 1982). Embedded in Lawrence of Arabia there are all the usual distortions, political and cultural, which less artistic films present also, but crudely.

Midnight Express has been widely and continuously shown since its production in 1978. Though shot mostly in a nineteenth-century British barracks in Malta, the film is set in Istanbul which comes over as a most depressing place – a shock surely for anyone who has actually visited it. David Putnam, the director, freely admits that the film is based on a ‘dishonest book’ (Shipman, 1984, vol.2, p.1103). It wholly misrepresents what really happened to Billy Hase who was sentenced in Turkey for drug smuggling: the story implies that he was innocent; it makes much of his escape, though he was released under an amnesty agreement’ (ibid.). The quality of the director’s attention to the Islamic setting can be judged from the scene in which hairy- eared Hamidou (the actor is in fact an American) is whipping Jimmy with a leather belt while some other Turks are praying to Allah – Jimmy’s yells of pain provide the ‘music’ to the praying chorus (Kael, 1980, p.498).

Much the same kind of attention (and the same intention) is evident in the opening scene of Robin Hood: in a gloomy atmosphere the call to prayer rises from a minaret in Jerusalem, then an abrupt ‘cut’ to a filthy prison where an executioner is chopping off the hand of a prisoner – an illustration for the audience of Islamic justice. The point of these and similar devices of narrative and plot of setting, colour, tone and music – many examples could be given – is not only to present an image of Islam and Muslims that is as negative and humiliating as possible. It is also intended to contrast that negative with the positive virtues of the Western characters portrayed within the same story: the audience are required (and expected) to conclude that ‘the Americans, and the Englishmen and the Swedes, are civilized and sensitive…’ (Kael, 1980, p.498).

References

• COLLINS, J. (1959) Uncommon cultures: Popular Culture and Post Modernism, Routledge, London.
• KAEL, P. (1980) When the lights Go Down, Holt, Rinehart & Wilson, New York.
• KIRKBRIDE, Sir As. (1956) A Crackle of Thorns: Experiences in the Middle East, John Murray, London.
• NICHOLLS, B. (1976) (ed.) Movies and Methods, University of California Press.
• SHIPMAN, D. (1984) The Story of Cinema, Hodder & Stoughton, London..
• SIMON, S.R. (1989) The Middle East in Crime Fiction, Lilian Barber Press, New York.
• WILLIAMS, R. (1982) The Sociology of Culture, Fontana, London.

In spite of their long history and culture, and except for the period of the Crusades, the Turks hardly figured in Western consciousness until the conquest of Constantinople. Most of the West’s information about them came from the travel or diary recollections of merchants and traders who travelled to the Middle East and the Levant. Later, more copious publications appeared: journalistic or pamphleteering papers; formal studies aiming to describe the history, government, manners, religion, etc. of the Turks; books specifically about Islam as the West wished to have it portrayed, and (later still) plays and operettas with lavish ‘Oriental’ settings with important roles for ‘Turks’ or ‘Moors’ (Aksoy, n.d., p.344).

The earliest English book on Turkish history, the General History of the Turks (1603), was widely used as a standard reference work in Europe. Despite the fact that it was praised by many literary figures like Johnson, Southey and Lord Byron, the work has subsequently been criticized as an outrageously prejudiced collection of bits and pieces. As Bisbee remarks (1951, p.7) ‘whenever an educated Turk (looked) into Western histories of civilization or books on Turkey, he ran into unpleasant passages about his own people.’

Increasing Western interest in the Ottoman system of government, Ottoman culture, traditions and religion, occasioned further studies: for example, The Present State of the Ottoman Empire (1668), A Compendious History of the Turks (1660), Political Reflection Upon the Government of the Turk (1656). In seventeenth-century France too there were several publications which influenced opinion throughout Europe; the Ottoman Empire was at this time a still powerful entity and perceived by Christian Europe as a real threat.

During the eighteenth century, Ottoman decline allowed European powers to play the Ottoman government for their own (often conflicting) political interests. At the same time, literary attentions turned to the Ottoman territories as it became easier than before for travellers to go to Ottoman regions, particularly Istanbul, to satisfy their curiosity and fantasies about the ‘mysterious East’. A distinct fashion in literature became clearly established around 1775-1825 (Brown, Wallace, Cable 1936, pp.70-80). Among other well-known English travel writers of the period were Lady Mary Montague, Charles Thompson, Richard Pococke, Lord Baltimore, Richard Chandler, Elizabeth Craven, and Rev James Dallaway.

The negative image of the Turk in the West derived from the religious fanaticism of Crusaders who were taught to see Muslims as children of the devil or heretic followers of an impostor.

The word ‘Turk’ was thus mainly used either as a generic name for an Islamic state with its characteristic military and government institutions, or as a description of negative character type, of someone by instinct cruel, heartless, etc.

The best known literary images of Turks appeared in Elizabethan plays which used Turkish history as source material, generally turning on conflict or opposition between Christians and Turks. Simon Shepherd (1986, p.142) makes this interesting comparison between the ‘Turk’ and the ‘father’ figure in what he calls the Marlowe period.

There was a fashion for plays about the Turks (and other Islamic nations) in late Elizabethan drama. Similarly, many plays centred on the figure of a father, whereas after the 1590s young men became central. Turks and fathers are topics specific to the Marlowe period, although they are not necessarily connected…

Another significant analogy in those plays is made between Catholic cruelty and Turkish. In other words, Protestant propaganda could designate the alleged cruelty of Catholics in general and Spaniards in particular as Turkish. This contrasts with Foxe’s address to Protestants when he spelled out the true reality of religious intolerance among Christians: The Turk with his sword is not so cruel but the Bishop of Rome on the other side is more fierce and bitter against us…. Such dissension and hostility Satan had sent among us that Turks be not more enemies to Christians than Christians to Christians, Papists to Protestants… (quoted in Shepherd, 1986, p.144)

In most plays sensuality seems to be the dominant characteristic of the Turks. The plots of tragedies in particular turn on various ‘Turkish’ characteristics such as cruelty, revenge, intrigue, pride, passion, terror, treachery, and the like. The Turks are portrayed as the embodiment of such excesses in, for instance, Marlow’s Jew of Malta in John Mason’s The Turks, in Grevilles Mustapha, etc.

In other plays, a somewhat different Turkish stereotype is the figure of the wicked tyrant who is always either a Turkish Sultan or Pasha or general. He usually separates two virtuous lovers (the male character is the Christian Westerner, and the female one is a naive Turkish beauty) after becoming infatuated with the girl he has kept in his possession through force. The strength of the woman’s fidelity to her true lover is either rewarded by God with a happy reunion with him, or she prefers death to the tyrant’s love. Yet another stereotype is the intriguing woman who provokes rivalry among the courtlers enamoured of her. These rivals vie with each other to obtain her love but all fail, losing their lives in the struggle. (Aksoy n.d.,pp.343-8)

In the course of the nineteenth century as more and more people of different occupations and with different objectives travelled to Turkey, the use of these images and myths about the Turks in literary texts reached its height. It was quite the fashion to visit Ottoman lands in order that the travellers might, as it were, confirm for themselves, myths already mediated to them about the Turkish people, their culture, religion, language, etc.

Vathek, originally composed in French and published in London in 1786, was written by Beckford, who had not even once visited the region he was writing about. He used his own family home as the primary setting for his Eastern tale, colouring and transforming it with the resources of a vivid imagination; he is reported to have said: ‘I had to elevate, exaggerate, and orientalize everything’ (Beckford, n.d., p.9). The work reflects the characteristic themes of ambitious quest for power, sadistic sensuality, sexual perversity, etc., developed through a number of scenes and episodes and all wholly imaginary.

Having regarded Vathek as a model for his own work Byron chose a Turkish setting when telling a tale of horror during a contest with Shelley, Mary Shelley and himself. He set his story about a vampire in Izmir: this betrays all too clearly his association of Turkey with crime, horror and cruelty (Prothero, 1902, Appendix IX).

The Western image of the Ottoman world would, of course, be quite incomplete without the various feminine motifs of the veil and the harem and their associations of secret and/or forbidden eroticism, alongside vague notions of something religiously and culturally bizarre. The overwhelming impression from the nineteenth century travellers’ and Orientalists’ writings is that the women of the country were lecherous and voluptuous under despotic repression. In Byron, again, the heroines of the Turkish Tales, Leila, Zuleika, and Gulnare are represented as the beautiful, helpless victims of a despot for whose sake the Western protagonist, or the Byronic hero, confronts his antagonist. The romance turns upon ‘rescue’ from the ‘veil’ (the hidden) and the ‘harem’ (the forbidden).

During the year of the war (1854) and after, many Europeans of diverse professions came to Istanbul and witnessed the Ottoman Empire at the moment of its complete helplessness and (despite the rhetoric of modernizing reforms) inefficiency and administrative incompetence. All of which contributed to the final disenchantment with the myth of the powerful Turk. The books written at the time express a general disenchantment with the East, but particularly with the Turks, which was largely brought about by the defeat. Istanbul, once the fairy-tale location of the East, became the focus of that disenchantment.

Almost as a natural consequence of the Turks defeat, their image in the West shifted into often contemptuous, demeaning caricature. This is particularly noticeable among some Victorian writers such as Thackeray and Charles Dickens.

Thackeray satirizes the Oriental romance and the realities of travel in ‘Punch in the East’, a series of articles he contributed to Punch, and mocks the Byronic romanticization of Turkish themes in ‘Mehmed Ali and the Sultan’ (Spielmann, 1899). Dickens, in his ‘Roving Englishmen’, debunks the sea voyage to Istanbul through his description which ends ‘Oh no! we should have been off anywhere but in Turkey’ (Household Words, 1854-56, IX, p.143). Also (p.142) he describes Turkish soldiers–once powerful, barbarous, cruel, etc.–thus: ‘There is no enthusiasm in martial ideals of glory. Our friends will go listlessly into the battle and listlessly out of it.’ He adds; I know that in saying this, I am not according to popular or agreeable sentiment. The romantic notions of a Muslim warrior are very different; but I know the Turkish soldier pretty well, and pity him sincerely for I know the causes which have sunk him so low.

References

• Aksoy, Yildiz (n.d.) ‘The Turks in 18th Century English Theatre’ unpub. diss. Erzurum: Ataturk Unýversity, Dept. of English Language and Literature.
• Bisbee, Elenor (1951) The New Turks: Pioneers of the Republic (1920-1950), Philadelphia: Unýversity of Pennsylvania Pres.
• Brown, Wallace, Cable (1936) ‘The Popularity of English Travel Books About the Near East; 1775-1825’, Philological Quarterly, 15, p. 70-80.
• Shepherd, Simon (1986) Marlowe and the Politics of Elizabethan Theatre, UK: Teh Harvester Press.
• Beckford, William (n.d.) The Episode of Vathek, London: Stephen Swith.
• Prothero, Rownland (ed.) (1902) Byron’s Works: Letters and Journals; London: John Murray.
• Curzon, Robert (1897) Monasteries of the Levant, London :Georoge Newnes.
• Spielmann, Marion H. (ed.) (1899) Contributions of W.M. Thackeray to Punch from 1843 to 1848, London: Harper and Brothers.
• Dickens, Charles, (1854-1856) Household Words; IX.