Jerusalem's Role in Crusades: Not That Important

1099 Siege of Jerusalem. Taken from commons.wikimedia.org

Jerusalem is a holy city for all three of the world's largest Abrahamic religions: Jews, Christianity, and Islam. This created at least nine attempts of the Christians to take over the city since the First Crusade (1096-1099); nine more major crusades. However, while being a target in many crusades, as in any other conflict, there were many more factors which trigger a war (where indeed, religion took most of the blame). As such, the role of Jerusalem in these crusades are still debatable; to say that the crusades were called only to retake Jerusalem and the Holy Land is quite limited.

The applicable definition of a crusade here comes from the Plurals of said debate, which state that the most important part of a crusade is the spiritual one, and not the retaking of Jerusalem. The crusades were a pilgrimage, but the very definition of a "pilgrimage" has become twisted by the Crusaders (Madigan, 2015). Here, Jerusalem was no longer a main goal, rather a justification of the real causes of the crusades: racism and power, both taken in the cover of a pilgrimage by those days' Christians.

The first main cause of the crusades is, without a doubt, discrimination between religions. The Christians, mainly, were aggressors to the other religions, thinking that they are the enlightened, the rightest. When Pope Urban II called for a crusade to retake Jerusalem at 1096, the built-up tension of discrimination to the East were released (Constable, 2001). It was clearly seen during the harassment to the Jews during and in between the crusades, two of the most prominent examples being the Rhineland Massacre of 1096 in the Rhineland, West Germany, and the Peoples' Crusade of 1096 in Asia Minor. Those crimes against humanity were done by fanatics who, in their desire to destroy the enemies of God, strayed from the goal of a crusade to bring "justice" to the Jews, thought as guilty in bringing Christ to the cross (American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, 2016). 

Cultural harassment did not happen solely to Jews. The fanatical beliefs of Christianity then were also shown to the Muslims. The Muslims (and also Jews) of Jerusalem were treated much harsher than how they treat Christian prisoners (History World, n.d.) Certainly, none of these harassments have any contribution to the goal to retake the Holy Land, and were only the results of the discrimination that made up the burning spirit of the crusaders, the main cause that kept the war ongoing.

The next important factor that started the holy wars were, like other wars, political reasons. The Byzantine Empire asking for help was a great chance for Pope Urban II to bring together the fragmented feudal world of Europe, against a common enemy. The crusaders, most notably the nobles, were enticed to the call to search for new lands and more recognition, in short more power an influence (Runciman, 1995). 

While Jerusalem itself was made as a Crusader State, the crusaders did not limit their search for land just near Jerusalem and the Holy Land. This was most notably seen in the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204) which, due to political reasons, strayed from the Holy Land to take Constantinople, leading to the Latin Empire. This proves that they were merely searching for land and power, and the Holy Land is but one land available to be taken then.

In the end, Jerusalem was made as a target for war merely as a justification. The Just War concept was already accepted that time, which mainly states that a war must only be called if and only if other, more peaceful and humane methods to achieve a morally right goal have been exhausted. The discrimination to other religions were certainly not a morally correct goal, nor was the forceful takeover of land and power. Thus, Jerusalem and its surrounding lands, as an important holy city was actually not the main goal of the crusades, but rather merely a front for the many different factors that started the war.

References - Further reading

American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. (2016). The Crusades. Retrieved from Jewish Virtual Library: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/crusades.html

Bugnion, F. (2004, Oktober 28). Jus ad Bellum, Jus in Bello, and Non-International Armed Conflicts. Retrieved from International Comittee of the Red Cross: https://www.icrc.org/

Constable, G. (2001). The Historiography of the Crusades. The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World, 1-22.

History World. (n.d.). The Crusades. Retrieved from Historyworld website: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?ParagraphID=fob

Madigan, K. (2015). Medieval Christianity: A New History. New Haven: Yale University.

Runciman, S. (1995). A History of the Crusades, Volume I: The First Crusade. Melbourne: University of Cambridge.

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This was the final essay for this year's World History class. Translated and edited from Indonesian. This is a response paper, and by no means have been thoroughly studied and accepted as a fact; thus all debates and comments are welcome.

Chinese Diaspora: Not How China Survived

As a Chinese descendant myself, I find it interesting to find out about my culture's past, whatever remains of it now. Thus, I present this essay, a reviewed translation of a part of my World History paper about half a year ago. There was a 500 word limit, and there were further discussion on the implications for Indonesian students, but I'll simply stick to the more interesting part.

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Throughout history, numerous civilizations rise and fall. Ancient Egypt, Greece, and the Roman Empire were but three such civilizations whose impacts are still felt until this day, but could only be seen through archeological finds and ancient texts. Meanwhile, the Chinese culture and civilization, as old and as far-reaching as Egypt, Greek, and Latin, found their way to the light of globalization. Some would argue that the Chinese diaspora, or people originating from the same Chinese culture that spread across the world, was what made China survive as a civilization for longer than most. However, by comparing and contrasting China's history with those of the other cultures, factors for the survival of a civilization could be found.

The main cause of the decline of the Egyptian kingdoms was that they never expanded far out from their origins on the banks of the Nile. After being conquered by Alexander the Great at 323 BC, Egyptian culture, one that has developed for more than a thousand years, were covered under the Greek culture brought by the Ptolemaic pharaohs. 

With the submission of all Egypt for a very long time--in fact, no Egyptian pharaohs shall ever be restored to the throne--the Egyptians slowly forgot their old ways, to be assimilated into the Greco-Egyptian culture (Dodson, 2011). From here, we could conclude that the end of a culture would happen only if all its people were conquered under a different civilization.

Meanwhile, the Greek colonies, either Doric or Attic or any other branch of Greek culture throughout the Mediterranean were also conquered by Rome. The Latin culture brought by the Romans was not all that different from the Greeks, as Rome was a Greek colony, over time influenced by Etruscan and other Italian cultures, (Gill, 2015). After the split of the Roman Empire, the West was quickly overran by Frankish, Celtic, and Germanic peoples, and all that was left were an assimilation of cultures: French, Spanish, German, and British as we know today. 

The remains of old Greco-Latin culture could still be seen in the Byzantine Empire, however after Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks at 1431, only traces of Greek culture could be seen (History.com, 2010; Toynbee, 1981). From here, we could conclude that if the conquering civilization is not that different, then the change would not be drastic enough, such that it could be said that the people still follow the same culture.

China, on the other hand, did fall into the Mongols under the Yuan dynasty of the 13th century, but they reigned for merely a century, until being deposed by the Han Chinese (China Highlights, 2015). During the Qing dynasty, the last of the line of dynasties, the Manchurians that held power also was not all that different from the Han Chinese, so that they changed so little. Furthermore, it was during the Qing dynasty that the Chinese spread throughout the world, partly due to the European colonization that invited them. (Theobald, 2000; Jacques, 2011)

The fact that Chinese diaspora mostly colonized the world when and after they were ruled by foreign powers proves that it wasn't them, the diaspora, which helped restore China. On the contrary, China simply never fell to foreigners for a time long enough that their essence and culture changed enough to be unrecognizable, unlike Egypt and the Greco-Latin world.

However, while the diaspora played but a little role in the history of Chinese culture and civilization, currently, China faces an economic problem in the near future, one which the diaspora could help restore the 'glory' of old. 

China has the largest population which makes it an economic powerhouse, but its long-standing one child policy, though already revised, caused their numerous population to grow old; in reality, they face a shortage of working-age people. (Shorbert, 2013; McElroy, 2008). This time, with the advent of globalization, China could muster its equally numerous diaspora in other countries, unhampered by this law, to establish a strong economic connection. Indeed, the diaspora wasn't the reason how China survived, but it might well be the reason how they will survive.