Those shoes
A year or so ago I was, as usual, in an airport when I spotted a very tall, shabbily-dressed man wearing red tennis shoes. As it happened, I was talking on the phone with Hugh Fitzgerald at that moment, and so I told him: “I just passed by Garrison Keillor.” Hugh urged me to go up to him and talk to him, but I, being a shy, retiring type, balked: “What on earth would I talk with him about?”
“Ask him what he thinks of jihad. Tell him about the site,” Hugh said, but I wouldn’t. Now, however, I think Hugh may have been right. Or at very least, if I had had with me a copy of my book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), it might have been worthwhile to slip it into Keillor’s hand without a word. It probably would have ended up in an airport trash bin, but maybe, just maybe, it would have headed this off.
Here (scroll down to November 27) is Keillor’s take on the Crusades, from his “Writer’s Almanac” (thanks to Curt):
It was on this day in 1095 that Pope Urban II, while on a speaking tour in France, called for the first Crusade to recapture Jerusalem from the Turks. There was no imminent threat. Muslims had occupied Jerusalem for hundreds of years. But Urban II had noticed that Europe was becoming an increasingly violent place, with low-level knights killing each other over their land rights, and he thought that he could bring peace to the Christian world by directing all that violence against an outside enemy. So he made up stories of how Turks in Jerusalem were torturing and killing Christians, and anyone who was willing to join the fight against them would go to heaven.
About 100,000 men from France, Germany, and Italy answered the call, formed into several large groups, and marched across Asia Minor to the Middle East. Nearly half of them died from exhaustion and sickness before they ever reached their destination. They began sacking cities along the way, and they fought among each other for the spoils of each battle. When they reached the trading city of Antioch, they killed almost everyone, including the Christians who lived there. By the time they got to Jerusalem, it had recently fallen into the hands of Egyptians, who were friendly with the Vatican. But the crusaders attacked anyway, killing every Muslim they could find. The Jews in the city gathered in the temple, and the crusaders set it on fire.
Pope Urban II died two weeks later, never hearing the news. But the crusading would go on for the next 200 years. In the fourth and last Crusade, in 1202, the crusaders never even made it to Jerusalem, but got sidetracked and wound up destroying Constantinople, which was at the time the last great city left over from the Roman Empire.
Okay. Here we go again.
There was no imminent threat. Muslims had occupied Jerusalem for hundreds of years.
Yes, and how had they come to occupy Jerusalem? By means of an invading army, of course. And other invading armies, animated by the same jihad ideology, had also occupied much of the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain. They had entered France and besieged Constantinople. The Seljuk Turks’ victory over the Byzantines at Manzikert in 1071, when they took the Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes prisoner, opened all of Asia Minor to them. In 1076, they conquered Syria; in 1077, Jerusalem. The Seljuk Emir Atsiz bin Uwaq promised not to harm the inhabitants of Jerusalem, but once his men had entered the city, they murdered 3,000 people. The same year the Seljuks established the sultanate of Rum (Rome, referring to the New Rome, Constantinople) in Nicaea, perilously close to Constantinople itself; from here they continued to threaten the Byzantines and harass the Christians all over their new domains. The Christian Empire of Byzantium, which before Islam’s wars of conquest had ruled over a vast expanse including southern Italy, North Africa, the Middle East, and Arabia, was reduced to little more than Greece. It looked as if its death at the hands of the Seljuks was imminent. The Church of Constantinople considered the pope a schismatic and had squabbled with him for centuries, but the new Emperor Alexius I Comnenus (1081-1118) swallowed his pride and appealed for help. And that is how the First Crusade came about: it was a response to the Byzantine Emperor’s call for help. There was no imminent threat? Alexius I Comnenus thought there was.
But Urban II had noticed that Europe was becoming an increasingly violent place, with low-level knights killing each other over their land rights, and he thought that he could bring peace to the Christian world by directing all that violence against an outside enemy. So he made up stories of how Turks in Jerusalem were torturing and killing Christians, and anyone who was willing to join the fight against them would go to heaven.
These stories were not made up. The persecution of Christians had been going on in the Holy Land for a long time. In 1004, the sixth Fatimid Caliph, al-Hakim (985-1021), ordered the destruction of churches, the burning of crosses, and the seizure of church property. He moved against the Jews with similar ferocity. Over the next ten years thirty thousand churches were destroyed, and untold numbers of Christians converted to Islam simply to save their lives. In 1009, al-Hakim gave his most spectacular anti-Christian order: he commanded that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem be destroyed, along with several other churches (including the Church of the Resurrection). Al-Hakim commanded that the tomb inside be cut down to the bedrock. He ordered Christians to wear heavy crosses around their necks (and Jews heavy blocks of wood in the shape of a calf). He piled on other humiliating decrees, culminating in the order that they accept Islam or leave his dominions.
The erratic caliph ultimately relaxed his persecution and even returned much of the property he had seized from the Church. Thanks to al-Hakim’s change of policy, which continued after his death, in 1027 the Byzantines were allowed to rebuild the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Nevertheless, Christians were in a precarious position and pilgrims remained under threat. In 1056, the Muslims expelled three hundred Christians from Jerusalem and forbade European Christians from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. After the Seljuk conquest, this situation only worsened.
About 100,000 men from France, Germany, and Italy answered the call, formed into several large groups, and marched across Asia Minor to the Middle East. Nearly half of them died from exhaustion and sickness before they ever reached their destination. They began sacking cities along the way, and they fought among each other for the spoils of each battle. When they reached the trading city of Antioch, they killed almost everyone, including the Christians who lived there. By the time they got to Jerusalem, it had recently fallen into the hands of Egyptians, who were friendly with the Vatican.
The Vatican? An anachronistic term for the 11th century, but why should a Scandinavian Lutheran know that?
But the crusaders attacked anyway, killing every Muslim they could find. The Jews in the city gathered in the temple, and the crusaders set it on fire.
Yes, and for this brutality, as common as it was in the conduct of warfare at the time, and not singular as it is frequently portrayed today, there is no excuse.
Pope Urban II died two weeks later, never hearing the news. But the crusading would go on for the next 200 years. In the fourth and last Crusade, in 1202, the crusaders never even made it to Jerusalem, but got sidetracked and wound up destroying Constantinople, which was at the time the last great city left over from the Roman Empire.
Four Crusades? Even in the Wikipedia article linked in Keillor’s post, there is reference to nine Crusades, and other lesser crusading operations. And of course neither Wikipedia nor Keillor mentions that during the 200-year period in which the Crusaders were most active, there were no Muslim incursions into Europe, although there were many such incursions both before and after this period. That 200-year interruption may have saved Europe and Western civilization from being completely conquered and Islamized, and thus made it possible for Keillor to make a career out of being affectionately condescending toward his family and childhood friends and neighbors, and featuring their charmingly naif music. But does he thank the Crusaders, without excusing their crimes? Would he dare? Not on your life!