Question 1: We often think of Islam as “alien” to Europe. What does Mazower’s book on Salonica say about that idea?

Introduction

Thessaloniki was a Hellenistic city established by Macedonian King Cassandras in 315BC, and has fallen under the control of Greeks, Romans and Turks. Religion played a role in the city’s life, including Orthodox Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. During the Crusade, the city was a frontier city between European Christians and Turkish Muslims. The Arab region was an important trade route between Far East and Europe. According to Anastassiadou-Dumont (2008), the Ottoman Empire increased Islamic domination, and Jews who were scattered all over Europe, made Salonica their center (Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies).

Influence of Ottoman Empire

When the Ottoman Empire took over Thessaloniki in 1430, they renamed it Salonica and Sultan Murad Islamized it. In 1492, large numbers of Jews from Spain came were invited into the city to counter the Greek influence (BBC). Being traders and merchants, Jews made Salonica prosperous. For four hundred years, they had a strong hold on the city’s culture and social life, and the city was often called the “New Jerusalem”. Anastassiadou-Dumont (2008). Under Ottoman rule, peoples lived in relative tolerance of each other and the Sultan did not interfere with the city’s way of life even when there were intermittent conflicts among cultures or religions. According to Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies, there was always an anti-Semitic feeling amongst Greeks, leading to intermittent frictions, and the King of Greece during the First World War was pro-Germany.

Janissaries, who were the Sultan’s palace army, numbered from 20 thousand to 135 thousand at some time. Soldiers would capture and enslave Christian boys, teach them Islamic ways and Turkish language, and train them to become highly disciplined solders, with big salaries and social status (BBC). The soldiers became a powerful ruling class, for example Sokollu Pasa, who served three Sultans. In war they were highly organized with their own supplies, transport, rifles, and medical teams, like modern armies. Their military bands were so captivating that modern military bands and symphonies have copied them. They were banned during the auspicious incident of 1826, and 6000 of them were executed (Anastassiadou-Dumont, 2008).

Fall of Ottoman Empire

During the Greek war of independence in 1821 to 1836, Greeks found in Salonica were killed. In 1870, Bulgarians started to be influential, and by 1893 they had formed a revolutionary movement. The Ottoman Empire fell in 1912 by surrendering to the Greeks, Sultan Hamid being held in Salonica, but the Balkan army occupying Salonica. Islamic character was replaced by western education and economy (BBC). Following the great fire of 1917, many Jews moved to the city outskirts left by the departing Turks, and others migrating to Palestine and Paris. Some 100 thousand Greek Orthodox refugees from Turkey replaced 30 thousand Turks following the 1923 refugee exchange between Greece and Turkey. Suburban ruins and aged villas are evidence of a once dominant and vibrant Jewish community who included industrialists, merchants, craftsmen, and porters (Anastassiadou-Dumont, 2008).

Modern Salonica

The Jewish community was suddenly decimated during the Second World when German Nazis rounded and exterminated or expelled them from Salonica, turning the city into a “ghost city”, very different from its historical past Anastassiadou-Dumont (2008). The modern city does not bear much semblance to the ancient history since the destruction of its monuments by the original Turkish rulers.

Salonica is a port city of the Aegean Sea and south east of the Black Sea. The city bears elements of the ancient history, Egyptian spice shops, small Orthodox churches, and Islamic culture such as market baths. Salonica was the birth place of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Tukey, and headquarters of the Young Turk Revolutionaries. The empire is survived by ruins of wooden houses in the Upper Town and a number of stone mosques. The Rotunda which is a Roman edifice in the walled Upper Town, has been a church, a mosque, and a museum at different times of Salonica’s history. Narrow streets and a(BBC)ncient ruins are found in various places (Anastassiadou-Dumont, 2008).    

Conclusion

Salonica is a Greek city, in Europe, that has existed for more than two thousand years. In the course of its history, the city has had a cultural fusion of Greeks, Jews, Balkans, Slavs, and Muslims alike. In the recent history, the city has seen unprecedented violence that changed the demography of the city, such as expulsion of Muslims and Jews by different forces, and return of Greeks, that made a “ghost city”. The ghost city is full of ruins and monuments of its rich past, although there is little of the Turkish presence in the ruins. The decimation of the city was a deliberate act by the regimes, and even the fire of 1917 could be attributed to that plan.

Question 2: The map of deindustrializing Europe has a specific geography to it. Describe this and then discuss the ways in which “new” manufacturing is by-passing the cities most affected by declining industries and some of the social consequences of the hollowing out of manufacturing employment for those places with declining or collapsing industries.

Introduction

Deindustrialization is a phenomenon where the proportion of employment in industries to total employment in industrialized countries drops significantly (Saegar, 1997). It occurs when a country experiences a reduced influence by manufacturing employment compared to service employment. The main employment shifts from agriculture, through manufacturing, to service sector. In Western Europe, many countries are moving towards service employment.

Deindustrialization and its causes

Deindustrialization is attributed to three major causes, that is, manufacturing efficiency, globalization, and the North-South trade. The trend has also been observed in the U.S., East Asia, Japan, and Western Europe. In the major industrial countries of Europe, the proportion of employment in manufacturing concerns to total employment has dropped by one third, from 30 percent in the 1970’s to 20 percent in the 1990’s. By contrast growth of service sector employment has increased from about 50 percent to about 70 percent. The trend is responsible for widespread income disparity and unemployment of unskilled labor.

Rapid growth in upcoming economies like India, Brazil and Korea, attracts more industries and international companies. The growth of trade between the industrialized countries and the less industrialized countries has empowered the less industrialized countries to start their own industries, but which are labor-intensive and have lower wage levels (Kollmeyer, 2009).

According to Rowthorn & Ramaswamy (1997), the share of domestic consumption of industrial goods has been constant for twenty years, long before globalization and North-South trade took root. Deindustrialization is a consequence of more efficiency in manufacturing than service provision. Therefore the negative effects of deindustrialization will be mitigated by a better service industry.

The decline of contribution of manufacturing industry to total GDP is attributed to increased service employment and the relatively high cost of services. Efficiency in manufacturing has lowered the cost of goods, while the less efficient services have remained relatively expensive. The higher proportion of services reflects in high GDP (Rowthorn & Ramaswamy, 1997). Two factors that explain deindustrialization are Engel’s law, and the law of supply. Engel’s law states that as income rises, a higher proportion of income expenditure goes to manufactured goods and services than to food. In industrialized countries, labor has shifted from agriculture to manufacturing because efficiency has reduced the need for labor, which fell from 20 percent of all employment in the 1960’s to about 5% in the 1990’s (Saeger, 1997).

As manufacturing also becomes more efficient, fewer laborers are required to run manufacturing processes. The extra labor is then absorbed by service sector, which is expanding, leading to deindustrialization. Moreover, non-core manufacturing processes are being outsourced to service sector, for example transport, accounting and legal services, leading to a shift towards service sector employment (Kollmeyer, 2009).

Deindustrialization has in part been blamed on trade between Europe and the less developed countries. Industries have been shifting from Europe where labor is expensive to the “South” where labor is cheap. There is high unemployment rate in Europe accompanied by a big difference between wages for skilled and unskilled labor and deindustrialization (Kollmeyer, 2009), the shift in employment does not suggest that manufacturing employment has reduced in quantity, but rather in proportion, as can be seen in table 1 below. The percentage of manufacturing employment in Europe, has generally dropped from around 26 percent in 1970 to around 21 percent in 1990. The proportion of production has however held at around 24 percent over the decades, which suggests that efficiency and automation have increased in manufacturing in the period. Deindustrialization is brought about by improved efficiency in production, the North-South trade where cheaper labor is found, and labor-intensive processes are outsourced. The displaced labor in the North shifts to service employment (Saeger, 1997).

Source: Saeger (1997)

Implications of deindustrialization

In the long term, economic growth will be measured against the level and productivity of the service employment. As technology improves, more functions of manufacturing will be automated with fewer workers, and others converted to service employment. Some services cannot be automated, for example medical practices, while some are subjected to fast growth, for example telecommunication and accounting. In ITC, hardware manufacture will employ fewer people, while software technology will absorb many. Wage bargaining in manufacturing has started suffering as labor decreases. New manufacturing is a more efficient process that uses less labor and more automation. The traditional industries were located according to sources of energy or raw materials. Restructuring may involve transferring an industry, for example in the case of chemical industries in Ruhr region and car manufacturing in Birmingham. Technology-driven industries are locating in more convenient locations, for example electronics industries are moving to Poland (Kollmeyer, 2009). With new manufacturing, skilled, techno-savvy labor is moving to new locations and realigning to new production methods. Relocation of industries depopulates the old manufacturing facilities which are abandoned or converted to new uses, such as parks and casinos. New locations compete for land, water and other resources, attract new settlements, and displace other economic activities. With deindustrialization, affluence leads to service consumptions like holidays, haircuts and styles, gambling, and sports. Productivity becomes unbalanced because some industries are easier to automate than others.

Conclusion

Deindustrialization is not a sign of failure in manufacturing, but rather of a matured and prosperous economy. The main causes of deindustrialization are improved efficiency in the manufacturing sector, and shifting the labor to the less efficient service sector. Globalization has little effect on deindustrialization because the displaced labor is absorbed by the service sector. The expanding service sector is labor intensive, and diverse, so it requires more labor and produces more GDP value.

References

Anastassiadou-Dumont, M. ‘Review: Mark Mazower, Salonica, City Of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims And Jews, 1430 1950, Harper Collins: London, 2005; 525 Pp.; 9780007120222,  8.99 (Pbk)’. European History Quarterly 38.1 (2008): 162-164. Web.

BBC,. ‘Ottoman Empire (1301 – 1922)’. bbc.co.uk. N.p., 2009. Web. 7 Dec. 2015.

Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies,. ‘History Of The Ottoman Empire, An Islamic Nation Where Jews Lived’. Sephardicstudies.org. N.p., 2004. Web. 7 Dec. 2015.

Kollmeyer, Christopher. ‘Explaining Deindustrialization: How Affluence, Productivity Growth, And Globalization Diminish Manufacturing Employment1’. Am J Sociol 114.6 (2009): 1644-1674. Web.

Rowthorn, Bob, and Ramana Ramaswamy. Deindustrialization. Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund, 1997. Print.

Saeger, Steven S. ‘Globalization And Deindustrialization: Myth And Reality In The OECD’. Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv 133.4 (1997): 579-608. Web.