Image Resource Bank

Image Gallery |  9 of 15

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Ottoman Empire was politically and economically unstable. Over the course of the nineteenth century, the Ottomans had lost a considerable amount of their territory to expanding European powers, and they were heavily indebted to European banks. As result of its economic and financial distress, Western political leadership began to refer to the Ottoman Empire as a perilously “sick man.” In 1903, cartoonist Emil Flohri drew a cover for Judge, an American political satire and humor magazine, which reflected this sentiment by showing the Ottoman Turk making the preparations for his own execution. Rather than attributing the weakening of the Ottoman Empire to financial and economic problems caused by foreign interference, Flohri censures the Ottomans themselves. Their collective demise is an effect of cultural character, and inscribed on the noose the Turk crafts for himself are the symptoms of his downfall: “Mohammedan fanaticism,” “slaughter of women and children,” “massacre of Christians,” and an insincere promise to enact reforms. Flohri’s satirical braiding of Islamic fanaticism with misogyny and violent intolerance of Christians in the context of a faltering Ottoman Empire is over one hundred years old, and his commentary is more evidence of the historical durability of negative stereotyping once a certain mental image has taken hold.

Save The Survivors

Name: Making the Rope to Hang Himself

Material: Color offset lithograph (?)

Size: Unknown

Date: 1903

Place of Origin: New York City

Location: Unknown

Source and Registration#: Judge Magazine

John Woods

Professor of Iranian and Central Asian History and of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, The University of Chicago

Alexander Barna

Outreach Coordinator, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago