Crusades, Shmusades.
I think in general terms, the distinguished blogger from Washington has made a sound and polished essay. Buckethead's position is solidly based on historical facts and the cohesive flow of events therefrom. Which is the main reason his arguments are entirely ineffective. Because arguing is not the point.
Islamic terrorists are not interested in what has happened, what took the world to this stage. They are interested in killing you. Even translating your essay into Arabic and putting it across every media outlet in the world will not help the anti-terror cause. The terrorists aren't interested in a factual accounting of the Crusdaes, state supporters of terrorist units aren't interested, and the general population- already conspiracy minded and mistrustful of America- might be interested but won't believe any of it. Because America is the devil. Or something. Unless there's a chance to immigrate here, in which case it's not so bad.
As for the network of ideas, it might be nice if more Arabs were actually in the network. A recent Chronicle of Higher Ed piece points out that more books were translated in Spain last year than were translated into Arabic, across the entire Gulf region, in the last 1,000 years. The Arab world is not included in the network of ideas, largely by their own xenophobic tendencies. Unless by ideas we can include novel ways to exterminate large numbers of Jews. And as we send our children to public schools where they are taught to value and respect difference- indeed are forced to, at the risk of their own academic success- madrassas abroad continue to churn out youthful cadres of tiny terrorists weaned on a diet of "Death to America" diatribe. Children, as the PSAs insist, are the future. Here, moms get bent out of shape over toy guns and games that employ them; there, death and destruction against non-Arabs are cause for joyful celebration, dancing in the streets, random and continual gunfire (with real guns, moms!), and a joie de vive rooted, ironically, in the spectacularly violent deaths of others.
I don't know that culturally it's much different. A NY Times article last week mentioned the latest play for what amounts to off-Broadway in Cairo. A comedy, it takes to task Powell, Rice, Franks, and other military and policy leaders in the Bush administration for the Iraq war. Apparently it's not exactly novel, in that it marries tacky consumerism to military victory, ie soldiers don't fix the water pumps but hand out milkshakes and cheeseburgers, but audineces find it amusing. Oh, and especially the part where a suicide bomber sneaks on stage and attempts to blow up the general during a press conference. THAT part consistently gets a deafening roar of applause and brings audiences to their feet night after night. Like I said, it's a comedy.
I think arguing about the Crusades to Arabs is like arguing anything with a drunk. No one's mind will be changed, but everyone concerned will be annoyed or bloody before bed.
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GL, you are of course
GL, you are of course completely, totally and in all other ways right. Except that that essay is aimed more at the people in this country who don't understand what happened, and think that the history of Western Civilization is an unending narrative of oppression and killing the little brown people so that plutocrats can get oil money for Halliburton. Or something. It probably isn't much more likely that they'll be convinced, but it's a better chance than with the Arabs.
Ah, well THAT makes sense. I
Ah, well THAT makes sense. I applaud your Quixotic attempt to impart knowledge and understanding. And its basis in the frustration at the dullards that surround you.
Too bad that the people who need to be convinced- or at least communicated with in a way other than belicosity and rhetorical violence- are impossible to reach. Which is also Halliburton's fault, I'm sure.
The the problem of "an
The the problem of "an unending narrative of oppression and killing the little brown people" is that not all civilizations fit into it equally. Specifically, Islam was less a victim of the "West" than a rival. These two groupings were in conflict with one another long before the Crusades. And both understood the conflict in terms of faith, human resources (labor being the most widely recognized natural resource at the time) and territorial expansion.
A question that must be answered is how the Crusades took on so much importance. Islamic scholarship does not seem to bear the existence of an extensive and deep literature that deal with the Crusades as a traumatic event. There is no great epic about the defeat (at least not one produced before 1900). Of course, memories are malleable, and even Americans find new ways of remembering the past to meet political contingencies.
NDR,
NDR,
Well I think that's it. The notion of a relentlessly oppresive West, continually seeking to destroy Arabs, is easily digestible and portable. It doesn't take a master of classical Arabic to appreciate it, and can be boiled down to meet immediate situations, as in Afghanistan: "Americans are coming! They are crusadres sent here to destroy Islam! Grap your rifle and let's go!"
As for Islamic scholarship.... well, let's just say that modern Islamic "scholarship" would not hold up real well when it was time to defend it from your committee.