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From the Daily Telegraph, a bit of anti-dhimmitude on the part of writer Christopher Howse. For once, it's the Brit's turn to make fun of Hollywood's dhimmitude. Good show!..pip, pip and all that.
On February 11, 1847, the Scala opera house in Milan, its stage fitted out with fantastic arabesque ogees, onion domes and filagree fretting (representing the harem at Antioch), echoed to wild applause at the premiere of Verdi's I Lombardi alla prima crociata (The Lombards on the First Crusade).It was not so much the music that wowed the opera-goers, but the identification of Jerusalem, occupied by the cruel Saracens, with Milan, occupied by the cruel Austrians. Lombard nationalists saw themselves as Crusaders.
That was, obviously, an absurd projection of modern values on to a creaky historical framework. But it was no more absurd than Sir Ridley Scott's new film set in 1186, just before the Third Crusade. Kingdom of Heaven follows the fortunes of Orlando Bloom (Legolas in The Lord of the Rings) as a blacksmith's son handy with a sword in defence of Jerusalem.
Teen audiences who cheered on Legolas as he slaughtered hundreds by the bow in the vast battles of Middle Earth, are invited in Kingdom of Heaven to conclude that nothing is worth fighting for. Bloom's character, Balian, surveying a massacre in the Holy Land, declares: "If this is the kingdom of heaven, then God can keep it."
Sir Ridley explains: "Balian is an agnostic, just like me." Yet there were no agnostics in the 12th century. That might sound ridiculous, but the word "agnostic" is a 19th-century invention (1869), just like the word "homosexual" (1892). There were sex acts between men in the Middle Ages, just as men and women doubted their faith, but neither fact defined a personal ideology.
Sir Ridley's problem is that he links agnosticism and tolerance as joint forces of good in his film, and he makes true believers - either Muslim or Christian - baddies. That is an impossible historical pill to swallow. And - groan - the Knights Templar (with their baggage from The Da Vinci Code and The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail) become the "Right-wing or Christian fundamentalists of their day", in Sir Ridley's words.
"If we could just take God out of the equation," says Sir Ridley, like John Lennon in Imagine, "there'd be no f---ing problem." A more realistic view of history requires less retrospective fantasy and more brain work. It means forcing our heads round to see what motivated men and women centuries ago. Try thinking the unthinkable - that the Crusaders were right, and that we should be grateful to them.
The First Crusade won back Jerusalem (pro sola devotione, "for the sake of devotion alone", in the idealistic terms in which it was launched) from Muslim control in 1099, not as an isolated incident but as part of a centuries-long effort to roll back the map of territory overrun by warlike Islamic expansionism since the seventh century.
The jihad of Mohammed's followers first won the Arabian peninsula (killing or subjugating Jewish and Christian rulers and tribes) and its programme had no end but the conquest of the whole world under unified Islamic rule. There was no tolerant agnosticism there...
Read it all.
Posted by Rebecca at May 5, 2005 3:09 PM
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From the article
" A knight is a fighting man. Sir Ridley Scott was dubbed with a sword.'
I may be in a minority but I believe that a knight who despises chivalry should be stripped of his knighthood. The irony is of course that it is Sir Ridley Scott, and not the majority of the crusaders, who believe that his knighthood is a coin for the purpose of networking, a way to bring him more wealth and not a responsibility.
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at May 5, 2005 3:37 PM
No kidding? He actually published this in England?
Good for him. Now for the death threats.
Posted by: BillR at May 5, 2005 3:53 PM
Published in England. Death threats and prosecution for hate speech.
The Crusaders were right after all. Unfortunately few living today know enough about the Crusades to spot the inaccuracies.
Posted by: epg at May 5, 2005 4:06 PM
This Crusades movie really is a riff off of "Lord of the Rings" it seems. With a cast of thousands and thousands of horses. And a horse's ass for a director who turned politically correct coward on us.
Posted by: dennisw at May 5, 2005 4:43 PM
Sir Ridley explains: "Balian is an agnostic, just like me."
How special is this! I feel like a group hug with Sir Ridley and his Ceceil B DeMille cast of thousands. Posted by: dennisw at May 5, 2005 4:46 PM
At the risk of being jailed for copyright infringement, here is a Michael Coren column in today's National Post on the Crusades. It's a pay site but I'll try linking anyway.
National Post, May 5, 2005
"Tomorrow brings the release of Kingdom of Heaven, an all-star epic movie about the Crusades from the director of Gladiator, Ridley Scott. It has already provoked controversy, because it concerns one of the great modern taboos. For the uninformed and the over-zealous alike, "crusade" is a code word either for Christian and European barbarism or Islamic and Arab martyrdom. Or both.
The truth is somewhat different. But there is nothing easier to attack in these addled times than an enterprise with its origins in Europe or Christendom, particularly if the alleged victims are members of another religion or ethnicity. George W. Bush was obliged to remove the word "crusade" from his speeches about the war on terror. In Arab rhetoric, it is a standard insult to call opponents "Crusaders" and to claim that the Crusades have never ended.
Odd really, in that the Muslims started these wars in the first place. The Crusades were largely an attempt to gain back Christian lands that had been conquered by an Islamic army. Palestine, Syria and Egypt were at one point almost entirely Christian; indeed, they were the very epicentre of Christian thought and energy. But as of the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered the Middle East, North Africa and most of Spain, and were determined to move into the remaining Christian territories. Strangely, though Islam frequently pours guilt over the West by referring to the Crusades, the unprovoked Islamic invasions that preceded them are never wielded as a historical stick with which to beat Islam.
In the 11th century, shortly before the Crusades, the Seljuk Turks invaded Asia Minor, modern Turkey, which was then part of the Byzantine empire and had been Christian for close to a thousand years. This was part of a prolonged and deliberate world war, started by a loose coalition of Islamic states. In response to an appeal by the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople, in 1095 Pope Urban II called on Western Europeans to help take back these Christian lands. The Crusades that followed were a series of attempts over more than a century, some successful and some ludicrous, to win back large chunks of the Middle East for Christianity.
The last Crusaders were expelled from the region by 1291, but for a while they experienced success as well as defeat. Jerusalem was captured, a Christian kingdom was established, and new orders of Christian knights were developed. There had been horror and heroism, grace and grime.
Our sound-bite culture, however, is allergic to nuance. It is far easier and more politically convenient to depict Christians as festering warlords and Muslims as perennial victims.
When Islamic armies first invaded Christian lands in the 600s and 700s, they permitted the practice of Christianity and Judaism, and respected some if not all of the holy places of these faiths. But no new churches were to be built, the public display of Christian symbols was banned, and Christians had to pay tolls to enter churches and holy sites. Non-Muslims were second-class citizens and were often treated appallingly. Massacres and horrors, though not official state policy, were all too common.
In the years leading up to the First Crusade, Turkish warlords killed unarmed pilgrims, forbade Christian services and destroyed churches. And on a larger scale, there is no serious doubt of Islam's long-term intention to move further west and take all of Europe. In fact, Muslims might have done so if the sieges of Vienna by the Ottoman Turks in 1529 and 1683 had not failed.
We have been led to believe that the Crusaders were impoverished thugs. But new research shows them to have generally been wealthy people who left land and power behind in Europe. Many were devoutly religious and saw crusading as a pilgrimage.
Holy people, however, sometimes commit unholy acts. Some Crusaders certainly attacked and murdered Jews in Europe on the way to the Middle East, though the pope and the Church repeatedly and strongly condemned these actions.
Once in what is now Israel, Syria and Lebanon, war was waged as it was in that era: with terrible loss of life and enormous suffering. Certainly, the Crusaders were merciless when they took Jerusalem in 1099. No quarter was given and innocent people were slaughtered. But this was similar to what happened all over the world, as when the Muslims themselves broke through in any number of cities after prolonged and painful sieges.
That is no excuse for such actions. But unless we place these events in their correct historical and psychological context, we merely play politics and exploit history.
Once established, the Crusader states had substantial Muslim populations -- as well as numerous Christian Arabs -- and Muslims were allowed to practice their faith. There were no major attempts to convert them to Christianity. Apart from one brief, non-violent and largely unsuccessful campaign by the Franciscans, Muslims were seldom the targets of proselytizing.
The region returned to Muslim rule and eventually to the Ottoman Turks, who united large parts of the Islamic world and were the most thorough imperialists of the Middle East. By contrast, there was never any Western Christian empire in the region. When the Western powers conquered the Middle East for a brief period following the First World War, after hundreds of years of Turkish control, it was done out of geopolitical imperative rather than religious motivation, and the lands were soon relinquished.
Today, the Christians of what was once the hub of Christianity and the place of its birth are declining in number and are often persecuted. In Egypt, the Christian community is marginalized and frightened, with murder and discrimination achingly common. In Israel and Palestine there is confusion and ambivalence, with towns such as Nazareth and Bethlehem hemorrhaging young Christian men and women.
The Crusades should not have happened. But the same is true about the Islamic wars of conquest, which did much harm to Christians and Christianity, and which provoked the Crusades. While Christian leaders, including Pope John Paul II, have apologized for the wrongs done so many years ago, others have distorted the facts for their own ends. With the release of Kingdom of Heaven, and the attendant focus on this era, I can only expect the pattern will continue."
Michael Coren is an author and broadcaster. His Web site is www.michaelcoren.com
Posted by: johnb at May 5, 2005 5:16 PM
The Crusaders were right after all. Yes they were.
at May 5, 2005 7:08 PM
And - groan - the Knights Templar (with their baggage from The Da Vinci Code and The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail) become the "Right-wing or Christian fundamentalists of their day", in Sir Ridley's words.Of all the errors in both books, this is one of the biggest. The Knights Templar did find 'secrets' relating to Jesus in Jerusalem, but it had nothing to do with a family tree. Saint Saul (Paul), the "spouter of lies", meet Nasorean beliefs. It must have shocked the Knights of Solomon when the sacred scrolls were translated.
at May 5, 2005 8:14 PM
Here is a good article about the "Kingdom of Heaven" from WorldNetDaily.com
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44122
Here are some excrepts
A new movie about the Crusades was just released by acclaimed director Sir Ridley Scott. The movie's main characters, the Crusaders, are � in Scott's words � the "bad guys."
Need I say more?
Yeah, no, but I will say more anyway.
In interviews, Scott said he wasn't worried about offending Arabs or Muslims, because he was aiming for "historical accuracy." Scott said he felt the best way to ensure historical accuracy was to consult Muslim scholars so that he would "present a balanced portrait."
Incredible.
The conflict over Jerusalem during the Crusades was an effort to push back Islam's steady drive of conquest toward the West and prevent the Islamic goal of the destruction of Christianity
The conflict over Jerusalem today is over Islam's effort to push the Jews into the Mediterranean. What lesson does Bloom think we need to learn? Accept Islamic domination and get it over with?
Good ol' Saladin and the noble Islamic warriors who dedicated their lives to the destruction of all "infidels." What a shame those ignorant and ignoble Christians couldn't leave the proud and chivalrous Saladin and his Islamic warriors alone!
The following is from an eyewitness account of Saladin's chivalry at the Battle of Hattin in 1187, as recorded by Ernoul, a Frankish prisoner who survived the battle:
Saladin asked him: "Prince Raynald, if you held me in your prison as I now hold you in mine, what, by your law, would you do to me?"
"So help me God," he replied, "I would cut off your head."
Saladin was greatly enraged at this most insolent reply, and said: "Pig! You are my prisoner, yet you answer me so arrogantly?"
He took a sword in his hand and thrust it right through his body.
The [military slaves] who were standing by rushed at him and cut off his head. Saladin took some of the blood and sprinkled it on his head in recognition that he had taken vengeance on him. Then he ordered that they carry the head to Damascus, and it was dragged along the ground to show the Saracens whom the prince had wronged what vengeance he had had.
The historian Gibbon noted that, except for the Crusades, "the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet."
As Bloom's character, Balian, declares in the film: "If this is the kingdom of heaven, then God can keep it."
Now a word on what Prince Raynald said. It would be fair to say that Saladin the oppresive occupier of Christian Holy lands might deserve the punishment that Raynald said he would inflict. You have to remember that the Muslims are the real invaders, not the Christian crusaders.
Another possibility is that Raynald just said that as a last defiant stand.
And whatever was the case, even if Raynald really meant what he said, Saladin couldn't calim to be any better than Raynald and the crusaders, as is portrayed in the movie and in false history books. In fact Saladin is worst because Raynald likely would not have dragged Saladin's head along in the sand.
By the way, parading heads along as trophies is nothing unusal in Islam. When Constantinople (Now the Muslim occupied city of Istanbul) fell to the Turks, the last Byzantium Empor's head was paraded as well. Well you see them even today in places such as in Iraq.
Actually I think Reynald just said that because the sadist Saladin was toying with his captured Christian dhimmi and trying to "humiliate" him as is commanded in the unholy Koran (Sura 9:29). Maybe Reynald just got pissed off with this humilitiation and so said those words, never really meaning it and perhaps those words were used as a pretext by Saladin. You know provoke first and then use the reaction as an excuse. I don't know. Could be. Anyone know more?
at May 5, 2005 9:28 PM
IC:
A proud man would rather die on his feet than live on his knees.
at May 5, 2005 11:34 PM
epg:
'Published in England. Death threats and prosecution for hate speech.'
Another sweeping generalisation about the UK, the increasing number of which on this site are starting to irritate me. The Telegraph is probably the least dhimmi quality newspaper in the world.
There is, as yet, no religious hatred law on the books. The proposed legislation was dropped and, now that Phony Tony's majority has been slashed, is unlikely to be passed.
Some awful news, though - that evil Saddam-loving, anti-semitic thug 'Georgeous' George Galloway has managed to arouse the anti-Jewish vote amongst the Muslims in Bethnal Green and has defeated the labour candidate Oona King (half Jewish). This guy is pure evil.
Posted by: Interested at May 6, 2005 5:57 AM
From 700AD to 1000 AD the muslims ravaged and razed all the christian communities before them.
They sacked Rome and the Vatican, occupied and enslaved parts of iTALY and took untold thousands of Italian slaves captive.
The crusades were launched as an answer to this barbarous imperialism and protect the pilgrims and christian communities that had not been wiped out. But even the Knight templars and the Hospitalers could not match the barabarity of the muslim comquerors.
BUt the worse excesses of Islam were to be reserved for the muslim invasion of the Indian Continent, which made the horrors of the Arab Muslim excwsses seem relatively mild.
"The massacres perpetuated by Muslims in India are unparalleled in history, bigger than the Holocaust of the Jews by the Nazis; or the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks; more extensive even than the slaughter of the South American native populations by the invading Spanish and Portuguese."
- Francois Gautier
ANd it is this forgotten history which is the most painful to bear as it has been purposefully eradicated from British history books in a collaborative effort between historians and muslims for political reasons.
http://hindutva.org/holocaust1.html
at May 6, 2005 6:08 AM
According to Scott, the Crusaders were the "Right-wing or Christian fundamentalists of their day"
I still recall when 'right-wing' was the epithet the BBC applied to anti-reformers in the Gorbachev-era Soviet Union. Describing diehard communists as right-wing seemed a tad bizarre at the time, but since then it has been used on countless other occasions to (metaphorically) spell out in crayon: 'deez guys are da baddies'
Through his statement Scott appears to be deliberately discouraging film-goers from thinking for themselves. The Crusaders were no more or less right-wing than Saladin's mob - the terminology is utterly redundant. Anyway, how left-wing does he think Hizb-ut-Tahrir is? Or the Muslim Brotherhood?
at May 6, 2005 10:01 AM
Effractor:
By the way KoH is described (I ain't likely to pay to see it and I'm not even very likely to waste the time if was free), I'd say the whole exercise of watching would require the viewer to suspend all brain activity to accept what is presented as anything other than product manufactured for the purpose of getting people into movie houses.
If anyone out there is inclined to go watch, I hear from a film reviewer friend that the movie is a real dud, painful to sit through, in the same class as Oliver Stone's recent opus on Alexander the Great.
Posted by: waterdragon52 at May 6, 2005 12:44 PM
Waterdragon52
You and me both will be giving it a wide berth. I'm actually disappointed in Ridley Scott because Blade Runner and Gladiator are two of my favourite films. I would love to have seen Kubrick tackle this subject...
Posted by: Effractor at May 6, 2005 5:32 PM
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