Julia Hauser, German Religious Women in Late Ottoman Beirut: Competing Missions (New Texts Out Now) PDF

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Julia Hauser, German Religious Women in Late Ottoman Beirut: Competing Missions (New Texts Out Now) Julia Hauser Julia Hauser, German Religious Women in Late Ottoman Beirut: Competing Missions (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015). Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book? Julia Hauser (JH): Having b...

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Julia Hauser, German Religious Women in Late Ottoman Beirut: Competing Missions (New Texts Out Now) Julia Hauser

Julia Hauser, German Religious Women in Late Ottoman Beirut:

Competing Missions (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015). Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book? Julia Hauser (JH): Having been interested before in the history of charity and the history of travel

on the cusp of imperialism, I had the idea of writing a book about the influence of travel on the founders of charitable establishments in Europe during the “long” nineteenth century. One person

in my sample was Theodor Fliedner, a Prussian pastor who founded the Kaiserswerther Diakonie,

an organization for single Protestant women employed in nursing and education, in 1836. Fliedner

then went on to establish several hospitals and schools run by the deaconesses. Eventually, they

were present in six major cities of the Ottoman Empire and Egypt. When I realized the wealth of sources on these establishments alone—about 2,500 handwritten letters from deaconesses on

each of these “stations”, as they were referred to—I decided to focus on just one of them, their

establishment in Beirut. This establishment consisted of two distinct institutions divided by class

and race: an elite boarding and day school for children from European and wealthy local families,

and an orphanage free of tuition for children from supposedly non-elite local families. I became

interested in the question of how their mission changed in the course of the encounter due to

negotiations with students and their families in Beirut, local authorities, and other organizations

with similar aims. As one of the nodal points of the Nahda (renaissance), Beirut saw a rapid

expansion in the field of education in the second half of the nineteenth century, a situation from

which missions and their respective states sought to profit, but which also put them in competition

with other establishments and under the scrutiny of the Ottoman state. This is very much mirrored in the deaconesses’ sources. J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures does the book address?

JH: Firstly, the book addresses the history of cultural encounters generally, and that of missions in

particular. In the latter context, missionaries have long been depicted as pioneers in the older

literature. In line with more recent research, my book shows that they were, to the contrary, very

much dependent on, as well as challenged by, their local environment, be it their clientele, other

organizations or local authorities. Hence, they adapted their policy to these exigencies (in the

deaconesses’ case, this meant, inter alia, offering instruction in French in the elite part of their

establishment and admitting their students’ young brothers to this school). Secondly, the book

addresses the growing literature on missions and imperialism. While both were fueled by the idea

of the civilizing mission, my study makes the argument that missionaries, again because of their

dependence on their clientele, did not always act in the interest of their respective governments.

Finally, the book addresses the history of globalization, where, at least on the level of textbooks,

women and non-state actors are often less prominent or appear as subordinate. As my study, in

line with other recent research, shows, however, they were influential in helping introduce new notions of education and gender—and the fact that they did so was not merely due to their initiative but above all the cooperation and tolerance of their respective clientele. J: Who do you hope will read this book, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

Many of the stereotypes about Islam and the Middle East we encounter in the media, and especially in right-wing

JH: I hope that this book will be read by global

populism these days, have their roots in

historians as well as historians of imperialism,

nineteenth century discourse about the

missions, gender, etc. I also hope that it will be

region, and missionaries were

read at least by some Ottomanists and

prominent exponents of this discourse.

historians of Beirut and the region, especially since their feedback would in turn be helpful

for me. Although my book mainly draws on Western sources, it is the first English-speaking history

of an organization that was an educational actor in the region in the late nineteenth and early

twentieth century. The elite part of its establishment, a boarding and day school for children from

Western and wealthy local families, was attended by children of some prominent local missionary,

but also Beiruti, Syrian, and Ottoman bureaucrat families, such as the Van Dycks, the Sursocks,

the Beyhoums, the Arslans, the Piciottos, or some of the numerous children of Mehmet Kamil

Pasha, who would later serve as Ottoman Minister of Education (and, in this position, warn of the

dangers of missionary schools).

Beyond these specific audiences, I believe the book also has a relevance for some present issues.

Many of the stereotypes about Islam and the Middle East we encounter in the media, and

especially in right-wing populism these days, have their roots in nineteenth century discourse

about the region, and missionaries were prominent exponents of this discourse. Missionaries

argued that Islam was a homogeneous cultural entity (and a profoundly negative one at that).

They saw themselves as bringers of light and freedom to a dark region. They claimed that women

in the region were subjugated; that there was no idea of family life, and hence it was upon

missionaries to forcibly disrupt existing family structures, separate children from their parents, and

teach them new notions of family life. This is what establishments like the deaconesses’

orphanage—the non-elite part of their establishment—did quite actively, since by no means all

children in their care were actual orphans. While missionaries’ beliefs were challenged and to

some extent transformed by contact with their clientele, missionary publications for the home

audience (on whose moral and financial support they depended) continued to feed into these

stereotypes, and the wider discourse about the region continued to lend voice to these

perceptions. I believe that becoming aware of the history of such stereotypes and practices can help us understand and challenge their present-day versions. J: How does this book connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

JH: This is my first book. Previously, I was interested in how women in nineteenth century Europe carved out a space for commitment outside the private sphere through charity by employing the

argument of spiritual motherhood, and which class-based hierarchies helped them to secure their

newly won position. In my M.A. thesis, I examined a practice embraced by European scientific

travelers in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century: the attempt of passing as a local by means

of dress and language. It seemed to me that this practice was situated between late

Enlightenment approaches towards the cultural Other as we find them in authors like Georg

Forster, whose perspective was characterized by a hermeneutic approach and a sense of

superiority that would come to be typical of nineteenth century colonialism. Europeans could pass

as locals if they tried hard; locals, on the other hand, could not pass as Europeans. Then again,

the traveler in my case study, Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, was a traveler whose tone was a

relatively modest one, frequently making fun of himself and acknowledging his indebtedness to his

local fellow travelers, and who did develop a relatively respectful view of the region he visited.

What connected these previous interests to my first book was, first, a focus on social work as a

means of expanding women’s agency, and, second, exploring a gaze between empathy and a

sense of superiority, as well as the regional focus: both Burckhardt and the German deaconesses

visited what would later be called the Middle East. What divided them, however, was the issue of

religion. Scientific travelers around 1800 were, for the most part, not interested in making converts. To the contrary, they sometimes developed an active interest in Islam. J: What other projects are you working on now?

JH: In my new project, I look into the importance of global references and networks in the context

of organized vegetarianism from the mid-nineteenth century to the late 1950s, mainly focusing on

Germany, Britain, India, and to a lesser extent the United States and the Middle East. In order to

justify abstention from meat as a deliberate regime, European publications on vegetarianism from

the mid-nineteenth century made ample reference to foodways in other parts of the world, claiming

that the larger part of humankind did not consume meat. Especially in the context of the colonial

encounter in India, vegetarian activists from Europe encountered seemingly like-minded

protagonists from other continents, who, in turn, made reference to European vegetarian

discourse in their writings. These debates were by no means only about food, animal welfare and

health. Instead, they were connected to other forms of anti-vice activism, since supporters

believed that meat triggered cravings for alcohol, sex and violence, thus contributing to a

“degeneration”, as contemporaries would put it, not just of individuals but of societies and mankind

at large. Abstention from meat, by contrast, was considered to purify individuals who then would

act as a vanguard to the rest of society on a moral, spiritual, and physical level. Hence

vegetarianism came to be tied to notions of purity, visions of a new mankind including eugenics, and concepts of new world orders; sometimes egalitarian, sometimes openly hierarchical ones.

Excerpt from the Book:

In 1897, Louise Kayser, head of the boarding school run by Kaiserswerth deaconesses in Beirut,

reflected on the situation of her establishment, which seemed to her a mere "island surrounded by

the crashing waves of the ocean." Beirut, a flourishing port-city on the Mediterranean, had

experienced a veritable boom during the last decades. Along with demographic growth and

increasing economic and political importance, the city had seen a marked expansion of

educational facilities. Catholic and Protestant missions, Jewish organizations, local Christian,

Muslim and Jewish initiative and Ottoman reforms had turned Beirut into a "city of schools," with

the educational sector as a site of cultural contact as much as contest.This fierce competition, or so Kayser felt, threatened the deaconesses' school in its very existence.

The image of the island captures at once the story and the critique central to this book. Missions

have long been analysed from an isolationist point of view, as lonesome pioneers in the

wilderness. Choosing this perspective, however, means disregarding the ambivalent resonance

missions met with on the ground and the ensuing repercussions on missionary work. This study,

therefore, tells a different story, foregrounding the ongoing negotiations of a community of religious

women in a hub of educational activity. On the one hand, it shows their dependence on their local

environment. On the other, it highlights their agency on the ground in relation to their home

country. In stressing both dependence and agency, this book brings to light aspects obscured by

the island metaphor. At the same time, this image is highly significant as it reflects the gendered

rationale underlying the middle-class project of mission. According to the concept of separate

spheres, central to bourgeois identity, women were confined to the private domain where they were to exercise a civilizing influence on their children and thereby on future society.

Paradoxically, the idea of women as moral beacons also served as the argument for their entry

into foreign missions. Mission stations and schools were conceived of as surrogate domestic

spaces where women could exert their beneficial influence protected from the outside world. But

as this study reveals, competition with rivalling religious and civilizing missions forced them to

leave their figurative island to position themselves in the wider field, at times modifying,

disregarding or even acting against the original mission they had been entrusted with by their

home board. In more than one sense, therefore, the deaconesses' story may be described as one of competing missions, an impression both obscured and highlighted by the island metaphor.

By the time Louise Kayser voiced her concerns, the deaconesses, a Protestant organization of

religious women active in nursing and teaching since its establishment in Prussia in 1836, had

been carrying on their work in Beirut for more than three decades. Like many other missions, they

had arrived in the wake of events that, throughout Europe, were interpreted, in rather simple

terms, as evidence of "Muslim fanaticism." In the late summer of 1860, after eruptions of violence

in Mount Lebanon and Damascus, a stream of refugees fled to Beirut. All over Europe, the events

called the public into action. While European governments quarrelled over military and political

intervention, Protestant and Catholic organizations, spurred by denominational rivalry, planned

relief on the ground. It was in this highly competitive context that the deaconesses came to Beirut

to open a temporary relief station that would soon be transformed into an orphanage and boarding school, one addressed to lower-class Arab girls, the other to the daughters of Western expatriates.

Although the Kaiserswerth deaconessate was an organization that directed the thrust of its efforts

to the German states and German Protestant communities abroad, its work in Beirut corresponded

to its existing profile in many respects. Theodor Fliedner (1800-1864), one of the leading figures of

the nineteenth-century Protestant religious revival in contact with Evangelicals throughout Europe,

had founded the deaconessate in 1836 to aid single women who in turn would lend their help, in

physical and spiritual respects, to the weaker members of society. Dressed in a uniform habit at

once reminiscent of and distinct from Catholic female congregations, they pledged themselves to

obedience, poverty and chastity. Specialized on either nursing or education as a means of re-

Christianizing society, they were to be found in an increasing number of Protestant hospitals, infant

schools, elementary schools, orphanages and schools for middle and upper class girls in German-

speaking Protestant Europe, Protestant minority parishes as well as, from mid-century, in the Ottoman Empire.

The deaconesses established themselves in Beirut at a time when women participated in lived

expansionist utopias worldwide on an increasing level. Colonialism was one, mission was another.

From the middle of the nineteenth century, female religious organizations, a significant number of

which operated in Beirut, became global players of first-rate importance whose appearance was

connected both to the imperial aspirations of European states and to a series of religious revivals

in Europe and North America. At the same time, the deaconesses' arrival was also coterminous

with a growing interest in female education in Europe and America as well as in the Ottoman

Empire, where governments introduced reforms that would lead to the establishment of state

schools and teacher seminaries. Both developments were linked by the idea that women, by their

capability of nurturing, were agents of change vital to a thorough regeneration of society. This

argument at once reacted to and legitimized dynamic cultural encounters, one of which is unfolded

in this book. Part of the dynamics underlying these encounters were caused by the different hopes and expectations harboured by missions and local inhabitants.

Kaiserswerth's aims in the Ottoman Empire, for one, were as naive as they were radical. On the

one hand, or so its principals argued in line with many other missions in this part of the world, the "Kingdom of God on Earth" would only start once the "Holy Land" had been liberated from the

alleged fetters of Islam. Kaiserswerth's other objective was tied intimately to European, and

particularly Protestant, visions of gender in the Middle East. Only if girls, the mothers of future generations, were "uplifted" from the supposedly inferior position they were thought to hold in the

"Orient" could society as a whole be reformed. Both parts of this agenda were in no way unique but embraced to varying degrees by all missionary organizations in the region.

People in Ottoman Syria or bilād al-shām, as the area of present-day Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon

and Syria was known to its inhabitants, were not primarily interested in missions because of their

religious message. While the status of non-Muslim minorities, long autonomous but not granted

equal rights in the Ottoman Empire, had changed markedly due to socioeconomic and political

change as well as European pressure, this process cannot be characterized as one of clear-cut

improvement. Indeed, the status of non-Muslims became more rather than less precarious in

many ways. For Muslims, conversion to Christianity continued to be a drastic step involving a

change of religious, legal and political identity that might ultimately amount to social, if not actual,

death. Conversions of local Christians to a different Christian denomination might entail similar

sanctions as well as persecution by ecclesiastical authorities. Changing their religion to

Christianity, as a consequence, was far from desirable for most men and women in the Ottoman Empire.

Yet religion was not the only aspect missions had to offer. Many of them sought to convey the

religious message via education. Western education, however, enjoyed increasing prestige in

Ottoman Syria, a region with close economic and cultural ties to Europe. Rather than as bearers of

salvation, therefore, missions were appreciated as purveyors of knowledge when a system of

public schooling was only about to come into being. Protagonists like the deaconesses profited from this...