CHAPTER VIII

SOCIAL CHANGE

THE momentous nature of the contemporary transformation of the Orient is nowhere better attested than by the changes effected in the lives of its peoples. That dynamic influence of the West which is modifying governmental forms, political concepts, religious beliefs, and economic processes is proving equally potent in the range of social phenomena. In the third chapter of this volume we attempted a general survey of Western influence along all the above lines. In the present chapter we shall attempt a detailed consideration of the social changes which are to-day taking place.

These social changes are very great, albeit many of them may not be so apparent as the changes in other fields. So firm is the hold of custom and tradition on individual, family, and group life in the Orient that superficial observers of the East are prone to assert that these matters are still substantially unaltered, however pronounced may have been the changes on the external, material side. Yet such is not the opinion of the closest students of the Orient, and it is most emphatically not the opinion of Orientals themselves. These generally stress the profound social changes which are going on.

And it is their judgments which seem to be the more correct. To say that the East is advancing "materi

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ally" but standing still "socially" is to ignore the elemental truth that social systems are altered quite as much by material things as by abstract ideas. Who that looks below the surface can deny the social, moral, and civilizing power of railroads, post-offices, and telegraph lines? Does it mean nothing socially as well as materially that the East is adopting from the West a myriad innovations, weighty and trivial, important and frivolous, useful and baneful? Does it mean nothing socially as well as materially that the Prophet's tomb at Medina is lit by electricity and that picture post-cards are sold outside the Holy Kaaba at Mecca? It may seem mere grotesque piquancy that the muezzin should ride to the mosque in a tram-car, or that the Moslem business man should emerge from his harem, read his morning paper, motor to an office equipped with a prayer-rug, and turn from his devotions to dictaphone and telephone. Yet why assume that his life is moulded by mosque, harem, and prayer-rug, and yet deny the things of the West a commensurate share in the shaping of his social existence? Now add to these tangible innovations intangible novelties like scientific education, Occidental amusements, and the partial emancipation of women, and we begin to get some idea of the depth and scope of the social transformation which is going

on.

In those parts of the Orient most open to Western influences this social transformation has attained notable proportions for more than a generation. When the Hungarian Orientalist Vambéry returned to Constantinople in 1896 after forty years' absence, he stood amazed at the changes which had taken place, albeit Constan

tinople was then subjected to the worst repression of the Hamidian régime. "I had," he writes, "continually to ask myself this question: Is it possible that these are my Turks of 1856; and how can all these transformations have taken place? I was astonished at the aspect of the city; at the stone buildings which had replaced the old wooden ones; at the animation of the streets, in which carriages and tram-cars abounded, whereas forty years before only saddle-animals were used; and when the strident shriek of the locomotive mingled with the melancholy calls from the minarets, all that I saw and heard seemed to me a living protest against the old adage: 'la bidaat fil Islam'-'there is nothing to reform in Islam.' My astonishment became still greater when I entered the houses and was able to appreciate the people, not only by their exteriors but still more by their manner of thought. The effendi class1 of Constantinople seemed to me completely transformed in its conduct, outlook, and attitude toward foreigners."

Vambéry stresses the inward as well as outward evolution of the Turkish educated classes, for he says: "Not only in his outward aspect, but also in his home-life, the present-day Turk shows a strong inclination to the manners and habits of the West, in such varied matters as furniture, table-manners, sex-relations, and so forth. This is of the very greatest significance. For a people may, to be sure, assimilate foreign influences in the intellectual field, if it be persuaded of their utility and advantage; but it gives up with more difficulty customs and habits which are in the blood. One cannot over

1 I. e., the educated upper class.

* Vambéry, La Turquie d'aujourd'hui et d'avant Quarante Ans, p. 13.

estimate the numerous sacrifices which, despite everything, the Turks have made in this line. I find all Turkish society, even the Mollahs,1 penetrated with the necessity of a union with Western civilization. Opinions may differ as to the method of assimilation: some wish to impress on the foreign civilization a national character; others, on the contrary, are partisans of our intellectual culture, such as it is, and reprobate any kind of modification." 2

Most significant of all, Vambéry found even the secluded women of the harems, "those bulwarks of obscurantism," notably changed. "Yes, I repeat, the life of women in Turkey seems to me to have been radically transformed in the last forty years, and it cannot be denied that this transformation has been produced by internal conviction as much as by external pressure." Noting the spread of female education, and the increasing share of women in reform movements, Vambéry remarks: "This is of vital importance, for when women shall begin to act in the family as a factor of modern progress, real reforms, in society as well as in the state, cannot fail to appear.

In India a similar permeation of social life by Westernism is depicted by the Moslem liberal, S. Khuda Bukhsh, albeit Mr. Bukhsh, being an insider, lays greater emphasis upon the painful aspects of the inevitable transition process from old to new. He is not unduly pessimistic, for he recognizes that "the age of transition is necessarily to a certain extent an age of laxity of morals, indifference to religion, superficial culture, and gossiping levity. These are passing ills which time itself 1 I. e., the priestly class. 2 Ibid., p. 15.

' Ibid., p. 51.

will cure." Nevertheless, he does not minimize the critical aspects of the present situation, which implies nothing less than the breakdown of the old social system. "The clearest result of this breakdown of our old system of domestic life and social customs under the assault of European ideas," he says, "is to be found in two directions-in our religious beliefs and in our social life. The old system, with all its faults, had many redeeming virtues." To-day this old system, narrowminded but God-fearing, has been replaced by a "strange independence of thought and action. Reverence for age, respect for our elders, deference to the opinions of others, are fast disappearing. Under the older system the head of the family was the sole guide and friend of its members. His word had the force of law. He was, so to speak, the custodian of the honor and prestige of the family. From this exalted position he is now dislodged, and the most junior member now claims equality with him." 1

Mr. Bukhsh deplores the current wave of extravagance, due to the wholesale adoption of European customs and modes of living. "What," he asks, "has happened here in India? We have adopted European costume, European ways of living, even the European vices of drinking and gambling, but none of their virtues. This must be remedied. We must learn at the feet of Europe, but not at the sacrifice of our Eastern individuality. But this is precisely what we have not done. We have dabbled a little in English and European history, and we have commenced to despise our religion, our literature, our history, our traditions. We 1 Bukhsh, Essays: Indian and Islamic, pp. 221–226.