But it is one of the juicy tidbits that can be found in the riveting text of James Reston Jr entitled Warriors of God. It's the story of the Third Crusade (Crusades totaled about 7 in all and occurred from 1100AD-1350AD) but somehow it seems nobody is studying the lessons learned. It turns out that the world has been battling over the heart of the Middle East for a rather long time. The battles of the Third Crusade occur across modern Libya, Syria, Palestine, Israel, Jordan and Cyprus. All of the Crusades are focused on a clash between the Christian and Islamic worlds, territories changing hands in recurring drama. There were five major crusades but only the first can be seen as successful for the Christians. If by successful I mean they took Jerusalem, the constant target, and the battles as usual over the Wailing Wall, the Dome of the Rock, etc.
The question is whether we are part of a very long history (thousands of years of recurring conflict in the region) or a single event (bring democracy to Iraq). Interpretations of the neo-conservative agenda in Washington range from pragmatic prevention to Holy War. Probably the greatest universal fear of all stakeholders in the drama unfolding in Iraq - save the fanatics on all sides - is that the relatively isolated conflict will explode into a global religious war, suddenly unified from Chechnya to Yemen, Iraq to Afghanistan, Iran to Pakistan.
The Crusades accepted no quarter, one spiritual philosophy would survive and the other would be vanquished. In the case of Saladin and King Richard, the Islamic hero was amazed to see women in full battle gear taken before him as prisoners of war, dressed in the enemy armor. He questioned them and then summarily cut off their heads (reminiscent of anything?). Not just the women of course. And not just Saladin. After an exhausting siege of the city of Acre Richard tired of Saladin's negotiations for surrender and executed the thousands within. The streets run with blood in these stories. Blood and bravery really as fighters on both sides declare Jihad and run each other through. All very grotesque and modern. The current scenes from the school in Chechnya, headcutters in Iraq, burning buildings in Sadr City, and suicide bombs in Jerusalem sound more like a reverberation of an old echo than a neo-tune.
My favorite story of the crusades strikes a different chord. I heard it as a political science student at Herstmonceux Castle in Surrey, England. A guy who looked like James Dean told it around a pub fire and there was rapture. A prince is born in a battling kingdom. His father is a fighter but he is a poet. He takes jousting lessons but also takes walks in the forest to observe nature. One day he is walking in the forest when he comes upon an apparition holding a cup more beautiful then anything he has ever seen. The Prince reaches out to grab the cup and when he does he looks straight into it and burns his hands and eyes from the heat and light. As he looks back through a bleary gaze the cup has disappeared. He returns to his kingdom eager to tell his father what he has seen only to find that the King has died in his absence and his coronation is scheduled for the next day. The King is dead. Long live the King. So the Prince who is now King comes to his throne obsessed with the cup he has seen. Contrary to his poetic nature he sends his best and brightest knights all over the world, Crusading to find the elusive Holy Grail. They burn and they plunder in their pursuits but the cup is nowhere to be found. The Prince who would be King grows older and the burns on his hands and the blindness in his eyes worsens with each passing day. One day he sits on his thrown, frustrated and bored with his darkening world: "Fool," he shouts. "Get me a glass of water!" jester in the court retrieves water and brings it to the Prince who would be King. As he brings the cup to his lips the King finds his burns on his hands healing and his sight returning. He looks at the cup in his hands and realizes he is drinking from the same cup he saw in the forest. Less shiny, scrubby really, but the cup nonetheless: "Fool! Fool! How can you have found what my best and brightest knights have searched every corner of the world in pursuit?"
"Sire," the fool explains warily. "All I knew was that you were thirsty."
I love that story. Let's quench our thirst for water before blood. People are dying every day in pursuit of shiny cups that turn dull on receipt. And not for the first time.
Labels: literature
