 Okay, we're back. We're live. This is stink tech. I'm J. Fidel the handsome young man on the screen is Peter Hoffenberg and our esteemed guest is Tamara Albertini of the UH what history department I get that right philosophy Philosophy, you know, you know, I always thought that philosophy was more important in history But that's just me and I would never admit that to Peter either. I'm leaving now. Yeah, the handsome guy is coming Thank you. Have you not had some guy will return. So we're going to talk about the crusades and their effect on modern-day Middle East and Central Asia They're very important because we need to connect the dots and understand About how history is here to help. Peter. Can you please give us a proper introduction for Tamara Albertini? It's a great pleasure. Dr. Albertini is one of the real jewels of UH Minoa her expertise it goes beyond Islamic philosophy, I suppose that's what the certificate probably says She's chair of the philosophy department. She's an expert not just in Islamic philosophy But also the Renaissance era well versed in ancient Western philosophy And she's been on hand for the last several years to contribute to a meaningful discussion Across what is often seems to be an absurd division between East and West She's been very helpful the students and faculty to get us to understand Islamic and Muslim history and philosophy and Understand its important connections This is not to whitewash difficulties and she confronts difficulties But she confronts them with integrity and asks us really to to know what is often simply called the East And rather than just fall prey to those presumptions. So I'd like to turn it over to her Jay will have some questions about trying to I'll have some questions right now We just had a show, you know commemorating 9 11 and probably the best recent documentary I've seen is the one called Turning Point which examines world history for 20 years before 9 11 and of course world history for 20 years after 9 11 And the question I would put to you given you your academic interest in the subject is What are your reactions 20 years after 9 11, you know in terms of the effect of the crusades and the relationship between East and West Thank you. Um, first of all, thank you for inviting me Jay, thank you for the beautiful and proudly undeserved introduction that peter gave me here um, yes 9 11 Has been a turning point in many ways And 9 11 is actually what helped me understand From where came all that language having to do with modern crusaders that is Widely spread in in some publications and on many websites In the Islamic world, you see I grew up in Tunisia in north Africa I went there to school public schools until the age of 14 And I don't recall anyone ever mentioned the crusades our history teacher brought it up and and that was something of the past but then When 9 11 started I realized that whatever I happened to know about the past of Islam its history its religion its philosophy really mattered today And I started to look more and more at the fundamentalist language That um, you know was being disseminated all over the internet and I was intrigued by it. I was trying to understand Why why this return to presumably something very pristine and to keep it short? I mean what I did understand after a while is that The masterminds of Islamic fundamentalism I'm talking about the aggressive sword the terrorist sword Like to give themselves the appearance of being scholarly and of respecting the principles of Islamic theology But then as soon as you started digging you would find that they were Masters at manipulating classical Islamic theology They they knew how to make things look good Although they were actually against the principles of Islam And in that context I start to see more and more text referring to the west as crusaders And to Jews generally as Zionists and it was very much about the The cooperation between modern crusaders and Zionists and I was wondering for a long time um Why is the language of the crusaders so important today? because if you look at Historic sources Islamic historic sources Once Jerusalem was back in Islamic hands and the crusaders didn't come up To the holy land didn't come to the holy land anymore Islamic historians are actually mostly silence Silent about the crusades They won the crusaders didn't come back and that's all that mattered right and Then I found out that um, but the names associated with modern crusades Where the military leaders who captured Jerusalem at the beginning of the 20th century? So we're talking here about british general allen who entered Jerusalem in 1917 We're talking about a french commander um, uh, all the guru And they made very strange comments Strange from our perspective, but very revealing for where they stood and how they looked at history I mean a very famous statement that general allen we made was and this this is the wording the war of the crusades is now The wars of the crusades are now complete I mean goodness this is what over 600 years after the last crusades And that's the first thing that comes to mind When entering Jerusalem, right? And then um, uh, the french commander, right said, uh, apparently The crusades have ended now Awake saladin right the famous leader salah had been who um, you know Conquered Jerusalem and so forth so This type of statements Were repeated and repeated and disseminated and uh, basically most of the european press Use this as titles on their first pages, right? And that's something that i think europeans have forgotten right, but um, um modern day Arabs and muslims more more generally um We're kind of intrigued by these statements and then there is a whole thing about you know the the redesigning of the borders The cycles picot map and all of that and I think that's the context where the language of the crusades became again very important as a way to um Protest, you know, i'm using a very weak word here to protest against what is considered to be um, a western supremacy european imperialism Neocolonialism and and so forth, right? um, and that is something that i think that no one could have predicted right that that the um, rather misguided wars Referred to as the crusades and the middle ages came back in a very different setting and came to do a political job So this is all about becoming The tool of a new ideology So that in a nutshell is where the crusades fit in today in what we call the middle east How does it get baked in that way? I mean we know that um These people went from europe to the middle east and the they rode horses and they all look like Knights and I guess they had a lot of people with shields and spears and they weren't out to help anyone There was no soft power or smart power Uh, i'm not sure what they were after though or what they achieved probably nothing Um, but they did alienate people and i'm wondering that or that you know that alienation somehow stuck All these years and it got baked into the way people think in the middle east think about europeans for generation after generation passed on down in the culture uh in the religion of course uh in the literature in in the in the um the family table if you will that europeans did bad things but how how it seemed like it's lasting a long time and Is question question um Is it really over Right. I mean, you know, you you look at the fundamentalist press and it's not over And and i'm not saying that it is necessarily all all erroneous and misguided It's actually a call for us western intellectuals and generally western politicians To uh wonder about that it says something about how we're being perceived and if if that's how many um modern day Muslims think of the west as kind of like neocrusaders Well, we we better change that as much as we can But we because i don't think that um europeans and americans have any desire being seen as crusaders Any any decent person would recognize that it was a mistake in the middle ages and there is no way to get it right In any other setting, right? How it started in the middle ages. Well, you see that you always have villains on every side So the the villain from the christian point of view from the european point of view was a fatimid ruler um There was a time when there was also a shia kingdom that was very important very powerful The fatimids coming from the line of fatima the daughter of mohammed. Um, they were shiites and they they were Governing egypt and much of what is today north africa and they were also controlling jerusalem in the 10th 11 centuries um So one of the fatimid rulers fans sent himself a messianic figure that the arabic term is mehdi He thought of himself as the mehdi Maybe he didn't believe it himself, but he surely knew how to depict himself as as a messianic figure So we're talking here about the fatimid caliph and hakim He became enraged With christians and jews in jerusalem and not only in the city of jerusalem The story goes that a monk so a christian monk had approached him and told him that that holy fire that Is said to appear In the eastern night and the church of the holy sepulcher was all a fraud and it was just a chemical thing and so forth And so presumably that's what this fatimid Halif got angry about and then he decided to destroy Churches and synagogues and religious artifacts and Torah Torahs were burned and so forth So that is kind of like the villain now on the on the islamic side And i must say he was really the exception. I'm not aware of any other rulers Who were controlling? Jerusalem and the holy land who acted that way typically pilgrims were allowed into the city and They even enjoyed some protection and and so forth. So this is this is a unique figure And now naturally The european powers of the day were Infuriated by this news So the church of the holy sepulcher was destroyed and so forth and that's when the idea of Going to Jerusalem and recapturing the city and the holy sites Became became active But you know interestingly it took about a hundred years before the first crusade was was launched, right? So i'm i always wonder i mean can you still be that angry a hundred years later? but the fact is that that's always right the the the the The reason that's being talked about they destroyed our holy sites and we have to go back and try to prevent that But you know as it is with many wars um, it it i think it was a way for europe to export its its Lower ranking aristocrats the ones who are not going to inherit Crowns and principalities and so forth. These guys had needed to have something to do So they were sent to the holy land go back get to Jerusalem and what have you and they did horrible things I really want to be in your class tamara. I hope you let me come around Anytime So um couple couple of things you know you mentioned earlier That you know that part of islam had kind of gone gone gone violent And um, I wonder the things you're talking about the crusades and and the violence surrounding the crusades both sides um Is that a factor in the development of this this split off islam where? People in islam are sort of Incorporating violence into their approach terrorism and the like The crusades that the crusades exacerbate that aspect of the religion Um, the memory of the crusades were brought back In recent days in or let's say in something like the last 50 years The memory of the crusades was not something in the islamic world I mean, you know highly trained historians, of course knew about it and knew about the atrocities committed My christians against against muslims. Um, you look at the records and it's very clear That um when when the christian army entered jerusalem There was a bloodbath that was unheard of in that part of the world I mean the story goes that as the the knights entered the city of jerusalem On their horses that their horses were wading in blood up to their knees They killed indiscriminately everybody including christians You know armenian christians any other christians who lived in the holy city and who thought that you know, they might be safe Um, and that it was a scale of brutality That that was new to to a part of the world that in its long history had seen plenty of horrible things happen um And just to give you a contrast when when muslims We conquered jerusalem, you know the famous saladin salah deen There was an agreement reached that the population the christian population could leave jerusalem and even carry away some of their property and and and wealth And that no one would be harmed And salah deen did honor that Right and and that's that's something that today plays a role again because the events of the crusades Have found a new political context it it is um obviously um a historic fact that it happened that um muslims died by the thousands um because of the christian presence in and we're talking here european christian presence And there were always christians in the middle east, right? But these were outsiders, right? um because of how they conducted themselves in in in that part of the world So again, it's it's a rather new phenomenon, right? And and I understand the background I understand how that is symbolic, right of a position that is clearly being perceived as as imperialistic Well, nobody likes anybody invading his country. No peter your thoughts at this point and questions My thoughts are from the other perspective, which is the western perspective in order to have A dialogue and it's almost diametrically opposed So for example, the crusades and there were several of them We always talk about the first second or third Is embedded in western historiography? embedded in western textbooks So it makes an interesting comparison Dr. Albertini's uh scholarship, which says there's an absence until recently Whereas any school child in the west Learned about and that that included I want to make a look of quick points. Um, that didn't just include the historical events I think that the idea of a crusade is baked into European culture Let's remind ourselves that as horrific as things were in Jerusalem There was the albogenzian crusade Which quite possibly in the middle ages is the first example western genocide and that was a crusade I can promise you that no crusader missed a synagogue on the way to Jerusalem And was quite capable of burning them And when we look historically we can see the concept for crusade In a couple of ways which almost seemed to us Antithetical, but in fact are combined Under this impulse not just for conquest, but for purification So the new imperialism in Africa In the 1880s was in part justified as a crusade against muslim slave owners And it was depicted like that in in engraving the crusade against slavery Uh, the crusade of the invasion of the soviet union by the nazis Was a fascist crusade and you can see the significance of religion and race in that I think as all the old folks would say including myself Uh, if there's smoke there's probably a fire And I think that the americans have inherited Uh, an obsession with Jerusalem It's where Lincoln wanted to go before don welts who put the bullet in his head He and his wife are going to go to Jerusalem It's where general grant went Americans went on a what we would call the levante or near east today We call the middle east that's just because we're more conscious of japan and china And I think it's it's hard to exclude From american foreign policy and I don't mean this in a partisan way Okay, the idea of evangelical christianity In which the middle east Jerusalem will once again be saved And clearly the rhetoric against Particularly sedan mussein and the viewers know I'm no fan of sedan mussein But that was a crusade and you look at the language The u.s. Was not going to go alone. It was going to be crusade of the west So I think we can have a really helpful conversation that the concept of crusade Is baked into western society and it has been present You can just think about uh Richard the lion hearted And all of the epic folklore about his being ransoming Roland and the crusade against Uh muslim wards in order to save crusade is just a commonly term a common use What I'd ask the reviewers to think about the listeners is it's often used with a little seed All right, so A lot of crusades happen right the crusades are what uh tamer has been talking about But the impression of crusade is aggression. It's aggression It's more than a question to invade your land, but it's it's more than that. It's this impulse for purity Right, so it's the impulse that I will invade I will conquer but look you could invade and conquer and just make money That's sensible. Okay, you could invade and conquer and purge And that's really what crusades are about they're about purging and the pursuit of purity and so whenever we see in the west really a drive for purity it is often articulated as a crusade with a little seed So I would say we have a really fruitful I'm sorry go ahead tamer for a minute You know it just seems from this discussion from what you've said what peter says That the crusades went from west to east they went from europe through the middle east And I wonder why it was only one direction I mean these were the the plates of civilization or somebody called it that you know that But it did go in different directions. Remember, uh Islamic muslim troops Were only finally defeated outside of vienna in the 1690s This is something that was generated in the middle east or was it a response To the crusades that had come from europe tamer I don't think the ottoman empire Which was you know the one that got more and more of the eastern european territories Mostly the Balkans. They were there for 500 years. Let's not forget And then yes, and they reached they reached vienna, right? I don't I'm not aware Let me put it this way from my readings that that was a response to the crusades I think that was an imperial move They they were successful. They you know, the the the prize was of course konstantinople And one once konstantinople fell to the ottomans. So like every other empire they kept expanding, right? I I think that's just in the nature of of of an imperial power And also I would say you'd have to look at Uh the different attitudes towards state religion And the ottomans did wrestle with some kind of concept of hierarchical tolerance So the autumn where the ottomans went they were not conquistadors Uh, and the ottoman empire was we call it the multicultural empire Where and this is not to whitewash the ottomans by any means at all, but it was in their interest Not to destroy other communities But to use them to exploit them and to have different for example taxation codes That's quite different and that's not a crusade. That's as tamer says that's empire We might even say just state building because i'm not sure the word empire would have had much meaning But it's definitely state building or state expansion But the west right that's not part of the western expansion where the conquistadors went Christianity went And you either became a christian or let's not discuss what happened to you and I I don't think that was Now this is not to say right that the ottomans were good guys all the time Nobody's going to say that and obviously you could say that the genocide Towards armenians, but that's not the ottoman. That's a turkish republic That has a kind of purification to it right i'm going to destroy an entire community All right, but otherwise that's not baked in To ottoman history conquests But they can Spanish history Is a crusade and let's remember just one final point that the troops That went off to the americas in the 16th century Were precise to the troops that had just finished the re-conquista the re-conquest of spain Which was a crusade within europe Which resulted in as everybody knows not just the defeat and expulsion of Moors and muslims but also the expulsion of the jews that was a crusade And you can't separate that from the inquisition Okay, I want to I want to go to one question that came in from one of our viewers And I think it's really worth exploring You know from this discussion To a certain extent The muslims Then and now think of the of the west it's an east west You know contention as neo crusaders whether it's an accurate definition or not That's what i'm sorry neo crusades. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Neo neo crusades. Sorry. Sorry. So tamaro, you know Learning from all of that learning from what you've said what penis said Um, how can the west in general europe the us especially the us Dispel the image and bridge the gap And make for a more peaceful world Given this historic contention between the east and west we we know so much about what happened You know historically philosophically religious wise What can we pull out of that what lessons can we pull out of that to use I don't want to use foreign policy, but to use in our our embrace or our dealing With the middle east now You know one answer that I have for you or for your viewer Is that we are obviously So obsessed with maps That once borders Show on maps We take them to be final And we take maps to indicate Not just of you know where a country begins or ends But where cultures begin and end And that is actually rather unusual considering the last let's say 2000 years Because in all that period pre roman roman and beyond borders were always shifting And let's say you were within the roman empire that Didn't say much about you as the individual you could be of any race ethnicity or religion You you were a citizen, but you know your culture was defined in very different ways You could go to the public bath and go to the to the arena and watch the gladiators, right? But you could still be a zoroastrian or whatever religion, you know, you were following But it is indeed the case that with the rise of christianity So being in europe meant you had to be a christian And and that is a trend that we see to these days. I'm a christian myself I'm never going to say christians out of anywhere, but We should stop saying well, if you're not a christian, then you cannot be in this territory if you look at Let's say You mentioned spain if you look at the south of spain and the lusia that was islamic for almost 800 years And the territories in north africa that was one world The continental divide was not there You so you could be you could think of yourself as an andelusian living in north africa You were a north african living in andelusia andelusia. You could be an amazigh So the original population of north africa Morocco and its constitution says explicitly that it is the kingdom of Of andelusians as well, right? So this this this notion that you know, your board was defined exactly who you are Is is is a big problem and it has to do with without, you know, with this 19th century obsession about maps and you know, then I mentioned the The cyclist picomap that created countries that never existed before regardless Of how the communities were built and how they're related To other communities hundreds kilometers away and so forth, right? So you you put new borders and basically you think you are creating new nations and you change minds and to some extent you do But it it all happened without the agreement of the people who live there Um, it happened in europe too. Let's face it. You know when the austral hungarian empire Collapsed, I mean there were dozens and dozens of new countries new nations and the big problem was like, okay So what do we do? I mean, are we going to have only checks, right in what became Czechoslovakia? Oh, they're also slovaks. They're hungarians. They're ruminians. What are these people doing in there? Why they're there and the and the slobs they shouldn't be living in let's say in Hungary They should go somewhere where there the majority is is you know speaks a slovak language So you see all these problems without without our obsessions with borders and and that borders define who you are uh, I Think it was a much happier thing to live in the austrian hungarian empire Because these people were were getting along my grandmother was born a citizen of the austral hungarian empire And I know from her that in her generation everybody was multilingual and everybody went to everyone's community We've lost that we think of history being you know progressing, you know, there's a linear way What should we focus on Tamara in terms of? um Having people stop thinking in the terms of uh crusaders and having them divide on borders having them divide on religions How can we soften all of this because it's it is as peter says it baked in How can we un un bake it now in hopefully a more enlightened time? Well, frankly, you know just to add to what peter said We should just stop using the word crusade as a metaphor for anything Um, I may get some people angry here But you know when I first came to the united states is when I saw a poster I was I was uh at the UCLA First and it said campus crusade I had no idea what it was I looked at it and you know thinking what what is a campus crusade and you know somebody explained it to me And I thought that was a very strange language. I mean you want to attract people to your church Okay, you know But you want to call it a crusade because crusade has all of that brutality, right? And it's it's the connotations are rather atrocious, right? So I I think we should it doesn't take care of the big problems But a good step in the right direction is for us to just stop before that word crusade You know comes to our minds and we want to use it of course metaphorically We're not thinking of knights and shields and whatever But the very word is so loaded and and I think many people in western countries just don't realize it Well, how about the eastern countries? Well, what would you suggest to? soften their view of it Not to consider this a crusade or a neo crusade To take that out of the the conversation now. How do we do that? How do we in the western side? affect that change in the eastern side Well, you know fairness and partnership is the way to go Whether it's, you know business relationships, whether it's educational Exchanges, whether it's artistic exchanges All of that helps tremendously You know when when for the first time Musicians from israel and palestine met to be playing in the same concert Right, that was an amazing experience. That's when musicians just met each other as musicians And the work I saw the documentary it's it's it's it's a beauty to to to watch When when they just realized well, it actually, you know, we all love music, right? And we love our instruments and we love getting together and and the experience that we have and we we generate something together They ended up Loving each other when the the palestinian and the israeli musicians, you know had to, you know Go back to their to their own cities Many of them cried they cried Because they that's when they saw the, you know, a human being first a human being with with common interests With a with a shared desire with a shared love for the arts, right? So I when I hear you saying is that sometimes Peter you're gonna love this Sometimes history is not here to help absolutely History does the opposite But that's why I would say crusades with a capital C never with a little C So Peter we're we're almost out of time and I want to offer you the opportunity to Provide your thoughts and also summarize this discussion Let me try to summarize Tamara's very important and insightful contributions One is that when we talk about the crusades We're really talking about a western story until very recently that the idea the crusades has not until recently taken much for role in Arabic education or Islamic education, but if I'm hearing her correctly It has been used recently in the last generation or so But usually in ways which are are not necessarily Either a correct reading of history or a correct reading of the Quran So in other words, they're they're being exploited the way they would be in the west the concept of a crusade Secondly that a lot of the work that can be done has to be done at the the social level In other words, we have to begin to take seriously a diversity and multiculturalism as a goal in and of itself And so to the idea of the musicians being together that the complement would be schools In which kids and parents from different groups come together The point I would like to raise as a question for the next discussion and I hope you can come back Is I hear what you're saying about borders And even in the 19th century The world was conceived as going beyond the nation or the nation state We haven't gotten there and I'm not sure that We're going to be able to outpace climate change So I think what I ask ask us to think about is slightly rephrasing that recognizing there are borders And recognizing your our national identities How can we have those as inclusive as possible? And not excuse me not relying on a specific ethnic or religious foundation In 1840s there was the idea of utopia nationalism And that was a nationalism Where yes your identity was triumphed and there was a kind of patriotism But the things you talked about the austrian gearing empire were in fact part of that The worm in the ointment, let's remember for the austrian empire among other things Is an american concept and that's ethnic nationalism That's woodrow wilson's little baby And jay and I are going to talk about eastern europe in two weeks And one of the worms in eastern europe is ethnic there's nothing From either the hand of god or as I would say the hand of science Which says your nation has to be based on ethnicity But historically that has been the case I am coming to your class tomorrow. I'll be there Can I add some yeah, please Just one thing and you know, I owe it to a conversation I had with another professor of history a good colleague of Peter's Fabio Lopez Lozaro, he came to talk to my class and you know, he knows a lot about Andalusia and Morocco and so forth And um in the conversation I had the example of a north african suite Which is called reiba It's it looks a little bit like a cone And um when I went to teach Hawaiian students in civillians To the study abroad program uh, I bought for them Classical Andalusian suites that are very famous especially around christmas time And then I told them these are north african suites So it's the amazigh, you know that had this suites first and then you know as Andalusia became islamic. So they were you know taken there And one of my students had was a filipino ancestry And he looked at me he said I swear to god my grandmother makes these suites Because with the spaniards it went to the filipines so So in the in the conversation with Fabio, we said well, we should think of cultures in very different ways or of communities in different ways So let's have the community of the of the eaters of this kind of suites And then he mentioned of course, you know the olive producing Nations, yeah, they have so much in common That's a very different way to look at how communities actually relate. Yeah, sure And you know what they say uh suites for the suite And uh, thank you. I think you're both sweet. Uh, may I say that? Tamara albertini You may not you may not say that but that's okay Really appreciate you coming today. Aloha. Thank you. Thank you. Aloha. Thank you very much. My pleasure