242 Mediated Publics
the Hebrew word umah to refer alternately to a number of overlapping
groups: the ethno-linguistic (Sephardim), ethno-religious (Jews locally
and/or globally), civic/regional (people of Palestine), and civic/impe-
rial (Ottoman nation). Similarly, in Ladino the words nacion and pueblo
modified various communities, and in Arabic umma and wat.an were at
various times local and imperial, confessional or communal.
e “voice of the people” in reality reflected many voices. There Th
was no inherent conflict between the Ottomanizing impulse of the press
and its particularistic thrust, and indeed, the Ottomanist public sphere
was dependent on the concession of the empire’s various publics to its
existence and hegemony. While it would be tempting to simplify the late
Ottoman situation by arguing that the multiple publics (confessional, eth-
nic, proto-national) succeeded in drowning out the Ottomanist one, indi-
cating its failure, my intention is to focus on the process rather than on the
outcome, to illustrate the importance of the coexistence and coproduction
of both Ottomanist and particularist public spheres to the dynamic pro-
cess of publicness on the eve of the end of empire.
The press and its public
The late nineteenth century witnessed the emergence of a public sphere
throughout various centers in the Ottoman Empire, thanks in large part
to the rise in education, the (semi)-independent press, and the role of the
city in creating an urban citizenry.^17 To be sure, before the 1908 revolu-
tion Palestinians had an arena of public interaction: official information
and public discourse was transmitted via mosque, synagogue and church,
postings on the city walls,^18 public criers,^19 and informal networks such as
schools, markets, and social gatherings.^20 And yet, due to the strict limi-
tations of the Hamidian regime^21 on public life (censorship, gatherings,
organization), as well as the political impotence of the average Ottoman
subject, the Palestinian public sphere—as an autonomous arena of debate
and action—was highly constricted before 1908.
n turn-of-the-century Palestine, only one newspaper existed to I
serve its majority Arabic-speaking population: the official monthly organ
of the Jerusalem provincial government, al-Quds al-Sharif/Kudüs Şerif,