The European Journal of Public Health Advance Access originally published online on February 9, 2006
The European Journal of Public Health 2006 16(2):117; doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckl020
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Editorials |
Famine, Turks, and Plague: impressions from Graz
Johan P. Mackenbach** Correspondence: Department of Public Health, Erasmus MC, University Medical Centre Rotterdam, PO Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands, e-mail: j.mackenbach{at}erasmusmc.nl
In November 2005 the European Public Health Association had its yearly meeting in Graz, a nicely renovated city in the south-eastern part of Austria, not far from its border with Slovenia and Croatia. On the South wall of the local cathedral, one can still see a famous painting called the ‘Gottesplagenbild’. This fresco commemorates the three Plagues of God which afflicted Graz in 1480: Famine (caused by swarms of locusts), Turks (invaders to the country wreaking havoc among the local population), and Plague (another epidemic of the ‘Black Death’).
That the Turks were put on a par with locusts and the Black Death may strike us as uncivilized, but this was actually quite common in the period. During the 16th century the Ottomans swept over South-eastern Europe, captured the Balkans and Hungary, and twice reached the walls of Vienna. The military and economic successes of these Muslim invaders were feared across Europe, and the Turks came to be equated with all that was evil.
This is evident from the fact that even an enlightened man like Erasmus of Rotterdam often refers to the Turks as the embodiment of evil. To him, Turks were not only the threatening warriors at the Eastern borders of Christianity, but also a metaphor for the inner state of Christians, who because of their divisions harmed themselves more than their enemies did.1 Similarly, late-medieval dances of death often included a portrait of a Turk as one of the lowest social positions: a person on the fringes of Christian society who was seen to be beyond redemption.2
Perhaps all ‘civilizations’ need their own ‘barbarians’. The word ‘barbarian’ comes from the ancient Greek word ‘barbaros’, an imitative word which refers to the unintelligible sounds uttered by non-Greek-speaking strangers. The word came into use after the Greco-Persian wars in the fifth century BC, when the Greeks came to see themselves as superior and developed various stereotypes to mark the differences between ‘them’ and ‘us’.3
This antagonism is not something of the past only. The unease in many western European countries about the future European Union membership of Turkey is likely to have some of its roots in these historical hostilities, and is likely to reflect a feeling of profound differences between ‘them’ and ‘us’. The Dutch and French ‘no’-votes, in the 2005 referenda about the new constitution for the European Union, have been used to take a firmer stand in the membership negotiations with Turkey, in order to demonstrate to the European public that politicians take their voters seriously.
In public health, however, we should know better. Social exclusion often is a recipe for health disaster, and population health usually benefits if we resist the temptation of irrational distinctions between ‘them’ and ‘us’. Owing to centuries of exchange, Turkey has become a part of Europe, and even if there are cultural differences, the health of our populations can no longer be separated. The simplest reason is that our populations are becoming thoroughly mixed: millions of Turkish immigrants are living in many western European countries, and millions of western European tourists spend their holidays in Turkey every year.
As a modest contribution to building better links between Turkey and the rest of Europe, the European Journal of Public Health is receiving, reviewing, and increasingly publishing papers on population health in Turkey, written by Turkish public health scientists. Unfortunately, population health in Turkey is lagging far behind that in other European countries. For example, despite spectacular improvements over the past 40 years, Turkey's life expectancy is still 
10 years lower than the average for the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development as a whole.4 This actually presents interesting learning opportunities for both sides, and this is one of the reasons why we welcome more contributions on and from Turkey in the future.
References
1 van Herwaarden J. Omgaan met Erasmus. Rotterdam: Faculteit der Historische en Kunstwetenschappen, 2005.
2 Mackenbach JP Social inequality and death as illustrated in late-medieval death dances. Am J Public Health 1995;85:1285–92.
3 Hall E. Inventing the barbarian: Greek self-definition through tragedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
4 OECD Health Data 2005. Available from www.oecd.org/health/healthdata and www.oecd.org/Turkey (last accessed on 16 January 2006).
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