23rd May, 2005

PAUL GRAY

George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden agree on one thing. The Crusades still matter.

The epic wars between Christianity and Islam took place more than 600 years ago.

Yet today bin Laden and his imitators accuse Westerners in Iraq (including Australians) of being "crusaders".

"I have no wish to defend or excuse the often atrocious behaviour of the crusaders," says a leading historical scholar, Professor Bernard Lewis, "but the imperialist parallel is highly misleading.

A CRUSADER'S LOT? Orlando Bloom stars as Balian of Ibelin in 'KIngdom of Heaven'. PICTURE: Twentieth Century Fox.   "Kingdom of Heaven becomes directly and dangerously political - sharpening that fault-line where Islam today meets the West - by over-stating the historic virtue of one side (the Muslims) and exaggerating the evils of the other (the Christians)."

"The Crusades could more accurately be described as a limited, belated and, in the last analysis, ineffectual response to the jihad - a failed attempt to recover by a Christian holy war what had been lost to a Muslim holy war."

So they started it, and we finished it?

History is seldom that simple, but Kingdom of Heaven - the new box-office-leading movie about the Crusades by Gladiator director Ridley Scott - over-simplifies history to a massive degree.

Because of their powerful emotional reach, movies can transform people's attitudes to history.

This hardly matters when the question is whether an obscure French knight played by Orlando Bloom did or didn't have a love affair with a one-time Queen of Jerusalem played by Eva Green. (In real life, they didn't.)

But Kingdom of Heaven becomes directly and dangerously political - sharpening that fault-line where Islam today meets the West - by over-stating the historic virtue of one side (the Muslims) and exaggerating the evils of the other (the Christians).

For example, in history, the legendary Muslim leader against the crusaders, Saladin, was often ruthless towards captives, crucifying many and beheading many more of those he defeated in battle.

But Saladin is shown in Scott's movie as the soul of kindness towards all his Christian enemies, soldiers and non-combatant alike.

While the real Saladin was certainly capable of occasional generosity after battle, this was largely tactical, as a medieval Muslim military manual, probably commissioned by Saladin himself, points out.

"Kindness towards non-combatants can be used as a demonstration of power, which may help intimidate the enemy," the manual says.

Exaggerating Muslim respect for Christianity, the movie shows Saladin gently picking up a Christian cross knocked over in the heat of battle for a city.

This cinematic gesture of religious tolerance, unfortunately, is at odds with the facts.

Like the fact that after taking Jerusalem in 1187, Saladin's forces pulled down the cross from the historic Dome of the Rock and dragged it around Jerusalem for two days, beating it with clubs.

The movie correctly mentions how the Christians massacred Muslims and Jews after the first Crusade in 1099.

Scott contrasts this with Muslim generosity in allowing the defeated Christians to leave the city without massacring them.

But in reality, the Christian crusaders were capable of magnanimity, too.

For example, after winning the battle for the city of Ascalon in 1153, the city's Muslim inhabitants were allowed to evacuate with their movable possessions.

In Kingdom of Heaven though, the Christians are evil - or else they are Christians who have lost their faith.

This is nowhere more so than in Scott's depiction of the famous Christian warrior-knights, the Templars. Scott depicts the Templars as insanely evil psychopaths bent on murdering all Muslims and anyone who is nice to Muslims.

But the real Templars, though fierce in battle, were also capable of tolerance on the street.

One medieval Muslim dignitary of the 12th century, Osama ibn-Munqidh, recorded in his memoirs how his "Templar friends" had invited him to pray in one of their churches.

When a passer-by tried to stop the Muslim praying, the Templars twice beat the intruder off and apologised to their guest.

Such real-life courtesy simply could not get a look-in in Kingdom of Heaven.

As one American journalist puts it: "There is not a single Westerner in the movie who believes in his Christian faith."

Historians take a different view. As Piers Paul Read says in his incisive history, The Templars: "The consensus among historians, which once saw crusading as a feeble pretext for pillage and rapine, has now shifted in favour of penitential motivation."

In other words, Christians of the Crusades, for all their faults, were motivated by a genuine belief in spiritual ideals.

In misrepresenting this truth, Kingdom of Heaven entrenches a misunderstanding with real importance in today's world.

History is the lifeblood of humanity's memory.

In getting the Crusades wrong, Hollywood poisons the bloodstream.

This article was first published in Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper (www.heraldsun.com.au) and is reproduced with the author's permission. Paul Gray can be heard on Christian radio stations with his weekly show - Gray Matter, an analysis of political, social, and religious issues that impact our community.