Mea culpa

Hairdresser from Brandenburg, Ilona Fugmann, whose protege from Syria, Mohammad Hussain Rashwani, whom she gave job and shelter, attacked her with a knife. According to her, she is (may be) to blame, for doing too much, telling her opinion and having a strong personality.

Nobody is as efficient in effacing themselves as the Germans. In itself, it is a commendable trait. What, in the beginning, was seen as a true sign of decency – compassion, empathy, being true to one’s principles, is starting to turn people into kind of zombies, whose behavior is largely dictated by the media or the politics. To be sure, every time something terrible happens, the entire world stands tall and bravely offers the other cheek. But the Germans seem to take the cake.

What I am writing now was inspired by recent developments in Europe, as well by a book by Dieter Zimmerling “German Order of the Knights” (“Der Deutsche Ritterorden”), 1999. Having read the first ten pages of this literary self-flagellation of epic proportions, I experienced my first “Aha!” moment. Since years now, when venturing to discuss the current political situation in Europe and the role of the Islamic State in it with local intelligentsia, I invariably get a reply:” But what about the crusades? Were they better? The drunken, pilfering and raping Knights, their rude and uncouth lay followers, the corrupt clergy? The amount of victims they left on their way?” If you listen to them and haven’t paid attention at school, you may think that the Middle ages was the time of lire –playing maidens, whom the bad Knights have clad in their chastity belts while they went off chasing the poor, peace loving Muslims, who were sitting quietly, drinking tea and weaving rugs, all the while suffering at the hands of murderous crusaders.

In actual fact, the spread of Islam in the 12th century was almost unstoppable. In 1121 in far north-western Africa, a religious movement among the Berber tribes, led by Abdallah ibn Tumart, has taken power, overthrowing the Almoravids, who had been strict interpreters of the Koran. Tumart founds the Almohad state, proclaiming himself a promised messianic figure, the Mahdi. An administrative structure is created to enforce piety. This includes a keeper of morals, the mizwar, whose duties include punishing the users of alcohol and destroying musical instruments.

In 1144 a Muslim warlord in northern Mesopotamia, Imad al-Din Zangi, is trying to extend his power against other Muslims. Presenting himself as a champion of Islam he captures the weakest of the Latinized crusader states, Edessa, in northern Mesopotamia (or southern Asia Minor). Tripoli, at this time is a base for Muslim pirates.

In 1147 The German emperor, Conrad II, and French monarch, Louis VII, lead hundreds of thousands on a crusade – the Second Crusade – to retake Edessa. Seljuk Turks battle the crusaders. Another croup sails to the Iberian Peninsula and help King Alfonso's move southward where the Muslims threaten Lisbon. Alfonso captures Lisbon, which is to become the capital of Portugal.

1175 In Egypt, Salah al-Din, to be known in the West as Saladin, declares his independence. In Egypt, the Shiite Fatimid dynasty no longer rules. Saladin, a Kurd who arose in the service of the Seljuk Turks, is sultan and military leader. He mentions the Abbasid caliph (in Baghdad) in his prayers, and he is interested in a Sunni ideological revival in Egypt and in driving the crusaders out of the Middle East. By the time of the Third Crusade, he has already torn through most of Tripoli and Tyre, took in Jerusalem (where he kindly agreed to allow the inhabitants to leave once they had paid a ransom, the rest were sold into slavery) and continues his conquests in the north. The majority of the 100-year-old Latin establishment in the Levant is lost.

1193, Muslim warriors from Afghanistan are pushing into India, not just to raid but to stay. They reach Delhi, overwhelming fierce Hindu opposition. In 1199 Muslims led by Ikhtivar Khilihi raze the Odantapura monastery at Nalanda, a Buddhist center of learning and a famous university, in the state of Bihār. Monastery monks are killed. Muslims have contempt for Buddhism and have been destroying Buddhist temples for decades. Buddhism is being driven out of India. Survivors of the Odantapura monastery scatter with a few holy texts, most of them to Nepal and Tibet.

By 1214 Genghis Khan and his army overrun Beijing. They ravage the countryside, gathering information and booty. Then they pull back to northern frontier passes. By

1223 Genghis Khan has pushed into Persia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, defeating Christian knights and capturing a Genoese trading fortress in the Crimea. He has invaded Russia, and on his way back home in 1223 he routes a Slavic army at the battle of Kalka River.

By 1232 The son of Ghenghis Khan, Ogodei, is in Korea to police defiance of an agreement with them, and the Koreans start a rebellion against Mongol rule. By 1234 Ogedei completes this conquest of northern China. 1238 Ogodei's army, has pushed into Russia and overruns the cities of Vladimir, Kolmna and Moscow, destroys Kiev, and deeper into Europe, at Liegnitz, although outnumbered, the Mongols destroy a German army of heavily armoured knights reaching Vienna by 1241.

In short, for every handful of marauding crusaders, there has been an army of rug-weaving, tea -drinking, polite Muslims, who by then have almost conquered the world by love alone. My intention is not to wash the Order clean here. It is clear to everyone, that any organization, no matter how honorable its origins are (Templars congregated in 1099 for the purpose of protecting pilgrims on the road to Jerusalem), is going to go bad after amassing the power and financial means the like of Templars. After all, they were also only human, and the true representatives of their times, which have not been called “Dark Ages” for nothing.

I am sure Dieter Zimmerling was perfectly aware of all these developments as he was writing his book. Curiously, all data about the author was removed from the internet, I wasn’t able to find anything about him, apart from the list of his works. His writing style is good, catching, spiked with humour and managing to keep attention on the plot, providing this is your area of interest. But the information, seemingly well researched and well – referenced, was clearly a research in defamation of one’s own heritage and representing the crusades from the point of view of the Muslims.

Moreover, some of the Zimmerling quotes, allegedly by Saladin, are a disturbing reminder of the IS ideology today, except he blatantly alludes them to the Crusaders. “Islam obviously has to deal with the people, who love Death…They follow their Chosen One, they wish to die for his grave and to burn for their dirty infidel Church…They fly to their death with such fervor, like moths into the fire”. “These people announce a truce when the going gets tough, only to immediately break it, as soon as they feel stronger…To break a word given to the unbeliever is fine for them.” This sounds darkly familiar, but not in the way described by Zimmerling. Instead, I found a letter from Saladin to the caliph in Bagdad, where the former loudly complains that he had shown his willingness to wage a holy war against the Latins, but was constantly distracted from this cause by the threat of Zangid aggression – urgent necessity demanded Islamic unity and Saladin demanded that he be empowered to subjugate any Muslims who refused to join him in the jihad. What this means, can be left to the reader’s imagination.

The above mentioned Saladin, has been a shining example of political prowess, aptly manipulating his own folks, to achieve a position of power. In his attempts to claim political as well as spiritual power, he didn’t shrink back from backstabbing the Azzubids, the rules of Mosul at that time. In another letter to Caliph of Bagdad, he claimed, that if only Bagdad would endorse his claim to Mosul, “…he would be in a position to conquer Jerusalem, Constantinople, Georgia and Morocco”. At the same time he deviously contacted Imad al-Din Zangi to warn him that the ruler of Mossul had supposedly offered to ally with the Ayyubids against Aleppo. In a flash, comes today’s attempt by Turkey’s president Erdogan, to manipulate elections in Germany, by ordering all Turks living here not to support the Greens, the Christian Democrats or the SPD, because all of these fractions are supposedly “the enemies of Turkey”. I wonder how Zimmerling would describe such machinations, were he describing today’s politics as a historian. I guess it would be something like “The weak, evil, perpetually high debauchers from the shattered by internal strife German government, have conspired against president Erdogan and Turkey by refusing to hand out terrorists, threatening Turkey’s stability. “

The funny part is, that those weak debauchers would probably even agree. They also seem to have grown up on the fruitful turf of Zimmerling and his cronies, just waiting for someone to throw the stone, so that they could readily jump in its direction, trying to catch it with their foreheads. Numbed by the collective guilt of the WWII atrocities, frightened to speak their mind for the fear of being labelled populist, completely paralyzed as a community by the political correctness and dreams of equality that doesn’t exist, they willingly give up their democratic right to think, talk and act according to what common sense dictates them, embracing the idea of neo-functionalism without fully understanding it’s meaning. Just like most of them once thought that when Marx said “materialism”, he meant “things”. Hoping that once those elusive EC rules are in place, a process of institutionalization will mysteriously ensue, somehow provoking “integration”, a concept that every one in our society translates differently. Which makes it doomed in my books.

Page after vitriolic page unfolds Zimmerling’s account of the unfortunate campaign of “Der Deutsche Ritterorden”. Filled with sarcasm and hate, inexplicable for a person who displays so much interest in the topic, he continues to spill his bile till the point when he can finally report of the inglorious transformation of the Order into a purely priestly one at the end of WWI. The reader can virtually see him licking his chops at the thought of their downfall. Unsurprisingly, there seems to be a great following for such people, ever ready to throw overboard all their ancestors painstakingly brought together. Crumb by crumb, a dowry chest that is called 'Tradition", "national pride" and something that people coming to Europe bring with them from their home countries and cherish, carefully passing on to their descendants. God help a nation that does that.