Popular Nationalism in Antioch During the French Mandate: The Making of the Sanjak of Alexandretta

Abstract

A brief glance at the narratives of Antioch since the early 19th century would divulge that the city is equipped with and revealed through the cultural constructs of the ideological projects of Ottoman modernization, European neo-colonialism of the late nineteenth century and belated Turkish and Arab nationalisms, respectively. The major motivations underlying each project are represented by institutionalized practices that produce and sustain these narratives that are utilized as tools in the ideologies’ appeal to the people. The French mandate system in Syria resembled indirect colonial rule that the interests of the French in Levant were manifold and concealed with the ideology of mission civilisatrice.