The Lone Crusade
Sam Aurelius Milam III
If
Biblical accounts have any credibility, then people have been fighting
over the Holy Land for longer than recorded history can reveal. It
isn't clear that Solomon's Temple was the first such structure to be built
there. Supposedly, the Jebusites built a temple in that location,
even before King David's conquest of the region. The Jebusites' temple
was destroyed for the construction of Solomon's Temple. I wouldn't
be surprised to learn that the Jebusites had previously destroyed some
earlier temple, built there by some earlier occupants of the land, and
that their destruction of that earlier temple wasn't the first such event
to occur in the region. Whatever such events might be lost in the
distant past, beyond the reach of even legend or myth, it's clear that
the struggle to occupy and to control the Holy Land has been going on for
a very long time.
The
Crusades were a particularly distasteful episode in the long and sorry
history of the place. According to historians, the Crusades began
in 1095 and ended in 1291. Presumably, they were fought mainly by
Roman Catholics against Muslims and Greek Orthodox Christians but there
were other campaigns waged against pagan Slavs, pagan Balts, Mongols, Christian
heretics, and peoples under the ban of excommunication. Altogether,
there were a lot of other conflicts in addition to the nine Crusades that
are traditionally recognized. Subsequent campaigns continued until
the 16th century. Allegedly, the last vestiges of the Crusaders didn't
disappear until Napoleon defeated the Knights Hospitaller on Malta, in
1798. Depending upon how you define the boundaries of the region
and which conflicts you want to designate as crusades, you might still
point to Christian forces killing Muslims in the Holy Land, even today.
Whether or not you want to regard present conflicts as Crusades, whether
or not you want to consider them all to be taking place in the Holy Land,
it's a fact that George W. Bush called his response a crusade after the
attacks of September 11, 2001, attacks that were blamed on Muslims.
The
attempts of historians to organize the accounts of things don't disguise
the fact that it's been a long and mostly continuous conflict. For
centuries, people have been committing brutality and murder in the name
of one god or another for the possession and control of a place that they
all declare to be Holy. Yet, the participants all seem to be much
more interested in the killing than in the place. If the place is
indeed Holy, and it very well might be, then the behavior of those who've
fought there constitutes just about the most atrocious desecration of a
Holy Place that can be imagined.
A
Holy Place, if such there is, doesn't belong to the Christians. It
doesn't belong to the Jews. It doesn't belong to the Muslims.
It doesn't belong to any man or to any group of men. A Holy Place
belongs to God. Atrocities and murder committed merely for the possession
of a Holy Place suggest that, where mankind is involved, nothing is unthinkable.
It reminds us that organized religion is a good example of man's inhumanity
to man. Wars are not Holy. Slaughter in the name of God isn't
Holy. The men who've fought and killed for the possession of the
Holy Land are, among all men, the least Holy and the most dishonorable.
Avoid
what is evil; do what is good; purify the mind — this is the
teaching of the Awakened One [Buddha].
—Suttapitaka. Dhammapada, 14:183
The Pali Canon
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I
believe that it's possible for us to rise above the sorry legacy of our
evil past but I believe that it can be done only as individuals.
Anyone who seeks enlightenment must do so in his own time and in his own
way. Enlightenment is an individual accomplishment. Organized
religion doesn't deliver it.
May
God grant us the will to seek the light, the skill to find it, the courage
to choose it, and the wisdom to make it endure.
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Society
is a mob. Religion is a disease. Only individuals can become
enlightened.![10x5 Page Background GIF Image](../../Images/10x5_Page_Background.gif)
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October 2011 |
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