[gkya]

Ottoman? Janissaries, for a time, were so active in deciding who would be the sultan that, they were abolished by, IIRC, sultan Mahmud II. Erdogan has subjugated the police and the army, which were in the past very active in the political scene (frequent coups d'état, many parliamenters from veterans).

And I guess if we preserved the ruling house like the Brits and the spaniards did, and also some form of the Caliphate that acted like Vatican, maybe the things would be easier (I'm a secular agnostic, and I'm completely anti-nationalist). Nowadays there is no entity that is respected as a unifier of the Muslim world.

And further, maybe the Empire was better for middle-east. Here, the nation failed, for the bindings among people are mostly based on kinship, belonging to the same mahalle and memleket, and ultimately religion. But in Turkey you'll find many adjacent mosques and churches, for, AFAIK, it wasn't until nationalism took on that the major conflicts started. Under the Ottomans, yes, the muslim were a bit more advantageous, but not less subject to the sultanate than the christian subjects.

[steve19]

"Under the Ottomans, yes, the muslim were a bit more advantageous, but not less subject to the sultanate than the christian subjects."

Only if you ignore the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians and other minority Christian groups.

Think before you write.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide

[gkya]

Put your reading glasses on. And mind your language. There are many armenian citizens of turkey, maybe I'm one of them? Where do I say that I'm ethnically turkish? Think before you write.

I say this, in the sentence before the one you quote:

> AFAIK, it wasn't until nationalism took on that the major conflicts started.

The genocide happened during the late nineteenth-early twentieth century. Armenians were under Ottoman rule since long before, so were Greeks.