The ‘Jorisards’: Public Mobilization Between Local Emotions and Universal Rights

Beyen, Marnix

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-48932-6_8

Marnix Beyen⁴

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Abstract

The imprisonment of Edward Joris in Istanbul engendered a form of mass-mobilization with strong reminiscences of—and close interconnections with—the Dreyfus affair in France. Having its roots in Joris’s hometown Antwerp, it quickly transformed into a national and even international forum by a small group of influential left wing journalists, intellectuals and politicians. While serving as a strong vehicle for the discourse of universal human rights as had been developing during former decades, this mobilization was also deeply influenced by emotional and particularistic responses. Nationalism and anti-Ottoman or Islamophobic prejudices—often verging on blatant racism—pervaded many pleas for the liberation of Joris. Apart from analyzing the actors, strategies and discourses involved in this mobilization, this chapter also situates it in the Belgian political context of the time. In so doing, it tries to understand why the Catholic government turned out to be very vulnerable to this left wing mobilization.

This contribution is in part based on Saskia Delbecque’s MA thesis (2012) entitled ‘“Die jongen moet vrijkomen”. De aanslag van Edward Joris op de Ottomaanse Sultan Abdülhamid II’ (University of Antwerp).

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Notes

1.
Georges Lorand to Georges Clemenceau, 13 January 1906, in L’Aurore of that same day, and republished in W. Resseler and B. Suykerbuyk (1997) Dynamiet voor de Sultan. Edward Karolus Joris in Konstantinopel (Antwerp: b+b), p. 106.
2.
Le Peuple, 8 January 1908.
3.
With regard to this phenomenon, see, for example, D. Geppert (2007) Pressekriege. Öffentlichkeit und Diplomatie in den deutsch-britischen Beziehungen (1896–1912) (Munich: Oldenbourg).
4.
This issue is treated in Chap. 5 of this volume.
5.
C. Verbruggen (2009) Schrijverschap in de Belgische Belle Époque. Een sociaal-culturele geschiedenis (Nimeguen; Ghent: Vantilt and Academia Press), p. 166.
6.
Quoted in Resseler and Suykerbuyk, Dynamiet voor de Sultan, p. 107.
7.
Emmanuel De Bom (1906) De zaak Edward Joris, (Antwerp: n. p.), p. 14.
8.
De Bom, De zaak Edward Joris, p. 2.
9.
On Resseler and his connections with Joris, see: L. Simons (1987) Geschiedenis van de uitgeverij in Vlaanderen, vol. 2: De twintigste eeuw (Tielt: Lannoo), pp. 28–29.
10.
On Van Nu en Straks, see, for example, R. De Bont, G. Reymenants and H. Vandevoorde (2005) Niet onder één vlag. Van Nu en Straks en de paradoxen van het Fin de Siècle (Ghent: Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal-en Letterkunde).
11.
On De Bom, see G. J. van Bork, Schrijvers en dichters (dbnl Biografieënproject 1), http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/bork001schr01_01/bork001schr01_01_0104.php (consulted on 28 October 2015).
12.
The figure of 50,000 is offered by M. Kebedgy (1906) ‘Crimes et délits à l’étranger’, Journal du Droit International Privé et de la Jurisprudence Comparée, 33, p. 764.
13.
The figure 2000 is mentioned in all the press reports appearing in Dutch newspapers after the meeting in the Antwerp Keizershof of 22 December 1905. See, for example, ‘Telegrammen’, Nieuwe Tilburgsche Courant, 22 December 1905 and ‘De zaak-Joris’, De Haagsche Courant, 23 December 1905.
14.
See, for example, H. Hoekstra (2005) Het hart van de natie. Morele verontwaardiging en politieke verandering in Nederland, 1870–1919 (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek); with regard to political mass mobilization in Belgium during the last decades of the nineteenth century, see G. Deneckere (1997) Sire, het volk mort! Sociaal protest in België, 1830–1918, (Antwerp; Baarn; Ghent: Linkeroever Publishers). On 15 August 1886, approximately 20,000 workers marched through the streets of Brussels demanding universal suffrage.
15.
Archief van de Federale Overheidsdienst Buitenlandse Zaken, Brussels [hereafter ABZ], Political files [hereafter PF], 4417/12, vol. 2.
16.
Quoted in De Bom, De zaak Edward Joris, p. 13.
17.
ABZ, PF 4417.12, vol. 2.
18.
See, for example, ‘Turc et Belge: S.M. le Sultan et l’anarchiste Joris’, La Métropole, 25 February 1906.
19.
For a Dutch translation of their letters, see De Bom, De zaak Edward Joris, p. 14.
20.
See Lorand’s interventions during the long discussion engendered by an interpellation by the Socialist MP Hector Denis on this matter in the Chamber of Representatives. Parlementaire Handelingen: De Kamer [hereafter PHK], 1897–1898, pp. 29–57. For a detailed description of the Mechveret affair, see S. Van Campenhout (2004) ‘De Jonge Turken in België (1897–1909)’, MA thesis (KU Leuven).
21.
See PHK, 1904–1905, p. 1948 (meeting of 25 July 1905). Also quoted in Resseler and Suykerbuyk, Dynamiet voor de Sultan, p. 20.
22.
Lorand to Resseler, 1 December 1905, quoted in Resseler and Suykerbuyk, Dynamiet voor de Sultan, pp. 82–83.
23.
On these parliamentary activities, see Verbruggen, Schrijverschap in de Belgische belle époque, pp. 162–163.
24.
On the commitment for Joris among libertarians in Liège, see: J. Moulaert, De vervloekte staat. Anarchisme in Frankrijk, Nederland en België, 1890–1914 (Antwerp: EPO), p. 115; on the Joris-meeting of 31 December 1905 in Ghent, see: Karel Van de Woestijne to Emmanuel De Bom, 29 December 1905, Letterenhuis Antwerp, W803. A petition sent on 24 December 1905 by a large group of people from Aalst can be found in ABZ, PF 4417/12, vol. 2.
25.
Petition by the Antwerp Joris Committee to the Governor of the Province of Antwerp, 26 December 1905, ABZ, PF 4417.12, vol. 2.
26.
See Resseler and Suykerbuyk, Dynamiet voor de Sultan, pp. 83–84.
27.
‘Le procès de Constantinople’, Les Temps Nouveaux, 30 December 1905.
28.
For the meeting in Amsterdam, see the letter sent by the organizers to the Belgian consul in Amsterdam, ABZ, PF 4417.12, vol. 2. The actions in Rome and Paris are mentioned by Verbruggen, Schrijverschap in de Belgische Belle Époque, p. 163.
29.
Verbruggen, Schrijverschap in de Belgische Belle Époque, p. 163.
30.
See Chap. 6 on this subject.
31.
On the importance of the Dreyfus-affair for the modern conception of human rights activism in France, see: M. Rebérioux (2007) ‘Les droits de l’homme’, in V. Duclert and Prochasson (eds.) Dictionnaire critique de la République (Paris: 2007), pp. 162–168, and particularly pp. 163–164.
32.
On the Belgian Human Rights League, see J. Depotter (2014) ‘De Ligue Belge des Droits de l’Homme. Activisme en identiteit, 1901–1939’, MA thesis (Ghent University). See particularly, pp. 15–16 with regard to the importance of the Joris case.
33.
Mayor Jan Van Rijswijck in his letter to the Joris Committee used these arguments with particular vehemence; see De Bom, De zaak Edward Joris, p. 13.
34.
De Bom, De zaak Edward Joris, pp. 8–9. The most radical critique of the ‘popular passions’ aroused by the meetings in favor of Joris, was formulated in ‘België. De zaak-Joris’, Algemeen Handelsblad, 4 January 1906.
35.
For example in De Huisvriend, 3 December 1906.
36.
Figaro, ‘Een Belg ter dood veroordeeld’, De Telegraaf, 20 December 1905; Hervay, ‘Le meeting Joris’, Le Nouveau Précurseur, 22 December 1905.
37.
On the impact of Lombroso’s criminal anthropology, see, among others: D. Pick (1993) Faces of Degeneration: A European Disorder, c. 1848–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), Chap. 5.
38.
Sancha, ‘Un Belge à sauver’, Le Matin, 7 December 1905.
39.
See more generally on this: J. Laycock (2009) Imagining Armenia: Orientalism, Ambiguity and Intervention (Manchester: Manchester University Press).
40.
Petition by the ‘Freedom Loving Communists of the Netherlands’, 18 December 1905, ABZ, PF 4417/12, vol. 2.
41.
Rip., ‘De pleiters van den sultan’, De Nieuwe Gazet, 30 December 1905.
42.
On Edmond Picard, see B. Coppein (2011) Dromen van een nieuwe samenleving. Intellectuele biografie van Edmond Picard (Brussels: Larcier).
43.
Edmond Picard to Georges Lorand, 27 December 1905, in Resseler and Suyerbuyk, Dynamiet voor de Sultan, pp. 98–100; quote is on p. 100.
44.
Rip., ‘Gevaarlijke lafheid’, De Nieuwe Gazet, 14 December 1905.
45.
‘Geene overdrijving’, Het Handelsblad, 27 December 1905.
46.
See PHK, 20 November 1900.
47.
See in this regard, among others, M. Beyen (2011) ‘Tragically Modern: Centrifugal Sub-Nationalisms in Belgium, 1830–2009’, in M. Huysseune (ed.) Handelingen van het Contactforum ‘Contemporary Centrifugal Regionalism: Comparing Flanders and Northern Italy’, 19–20 juni 2009 (Brussels: Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten), 17–28.
48.
See in that regard G. Deneckere (2009) Nieuwe Geschiedenis van België, vol. 3: 1878–1905 (Tielt: Lannoo), 647–649.
49.
Compare, in this respect, Daniel Laqua’s analysis of the 1909 transnational mobilization in favor of the Spanish anarchist Francisco Ferrer: Daniel Laqua (2014) ‘Freethinkers, Anarchists and Francisco Ferrer: The making of a Transnational Solidarity Campaign’, European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire, 21 (4), 467–84.
50.
See M. Beyen (2001) ‘Féconder l’avenir par le passé. La politique commémorative de l’Etat belge pendant les années jubilaires 1880, 1905 et 1930’ in: G. Kurgan-Van Hentenryk and V. Montens (eds.) L’argent des arts. La politique artistique des pouvoirs publics en Belgique de 1830 à 1940 (Brussels: Éditions de l’ULB), 73–88.
51.
See, for example, the petition of the Antwerp Joris Committee to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, 19 December 1905, ABZ, PF 4417.12, vol. 2.; Figaro, ‘Een Belg ter dood veroordeeld’.
52.
‘Geene overdrijving’, Het Handelsblad, 27 December 1905.
53.
See, in that regard, H. de Smaele (2009), Rechts Vlaanderen. Religie en stemgedrag in negentiende-eeuws België (Leuven: Leuven University Press and KADOC).
54.
See for example L. Wils (1986) ‘De katholieke partij in de 19^de eeuw. Organisatie, programma en aanhang’, in E. Lamberts and J. Lory (eds.) 1884: Un tournant politique en Belgique/De machtswisseling van 1884 in België (Brussels: Publications des Facultés Universitaires Saint-Louis de Bruxelles), 69–98.
55.
ABZ, PF 4417.12, vol. 2.
56.
With regard to this left-wing anti-colonial opposition, see, among others, R. Rosseels (2012) ‘“De vijand van mijn vijand is mijn vriend”. Parlementaire identiteitsvorming en oppositie in het Congovraagstuk, 1906–1908’, BA thesis (University of Antwerp). See also G. Vanthemsche (1999) ‘De Belgische socialisten en Congo: 1895–1960’, Brood en Rozen. Tijdschrift voor de geschiedenis van sociale bewegingen, 2, 31–65.

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University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
Marnix Beyen

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Department of History, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
Houssine Alloul
Department of History, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey
Edhem Eldem
Department of History, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
Henk de Smaele

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Beyen, M. (2018). The ‘Jorisards’: Public Mobilization Between Local Emotions and Universal Rights. In: Alloul, H., Eldem, E., de Smaele, H. (eds) To Kill a Sultan. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-48932-6_8

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-48932-6_8
Published: 08 November 2017
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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