The speaker, a professor in some social science department, was talking about the Balkans and Kosovo and linking the history of the place to the Ottoman empire. "The Ottoman empire," he said, "was a golden age for the Balkans. There was very little persecution of non-Muslims. There were no large-scale purges and not many forcible conversions."
Part of that is true. The Ottoman empire, ruled from Istanbul, provided a world stage for hill-billies from Albania, Kosovo and Bosnia. That kept some of the ethnic rivalries under check, since the folks aspired to rise in the Sultan's court instead of fighting each other for supposedly sacrosant pieces of land.
The second half is disingenous. The Ottoman empire had a tax on infidels. Basically, if you were not a Muslim, you paid more in taxes than your Muslim neighbors. Guess whose businesses were more profitable and who could undercut the competition more easily. Besides, if you refused to convert, that whole world-stage-thing was out the window. Which is why the Serbs stayed behind, fighting the Turks and losing battle after battle. And over the generations, more pragmatic peoples converted to Islam.
Anyway, disbelieve any generalization you hear about the Balkans. There are no good guys in any of the Balkan conflicts.
