Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation (ص 91)
غرض
- عنوان
- Colonial Capitalism and Rural Class Formation (ص 91)
- المحتوى
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process in Palestine. Through private capital invested by the
Bergheims of Germany, for example, the Templars established the
settlement of Welhelma near the village of Tira (Scholch,1982). French
and British colonial missions were also heavily dependent on private
capital, notably, that of Baron de Hirch who built the first railway
in the Ottoman Empire, Moses Montefiori and most significantly Baron
de Rothschild (Scholch, 1982; Gozansky, 1986).
The increased involvement of the Ottoman Empire in the world market
economy in general and in the money economy in particular must not be
attributed to the imposition or penetration of Western capital only.
During the 19th century and in particular after the 1850s, the Ottoman
Empire was facing widespread peasant rebellions. These included the
riots in Palestine, following the withdrawal of the Egyptian army in
1856, the Druze rebellion in Lebanon in the 1860s and the Balkan
rebellion in 1875 and 1876. Moreover, during the 1850s the Empire was
continuously fighting the Russians, in what was Known as the Crimean
wars (Baer, 1975; Scholch, 1982).
All these factors mounted pressure on the Empire's treasury. As
early as the 1830s, the Ottoman army was absorbing 70 per cent of the
Empire's total revenue despite the fact that many troops were unpaid
(Owen, 1981:62).
During the first half of the 19th century, the Ottoman state was
experiencing a phase of decentralization. Despite the claim of the
central power in Istanbul to absolute ownership of all of the land
under its rule, various local governments in Greater Syria began to
assume independence. In Lebanon for example, the Mirs (heads of big
families) assumed full control over large areas of the Mountain
77
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. - تاريخ
- ١٩٨٩
- المنشئ
- Nahla Abdo-Zubi
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