Rageh Omaar and the Crusades

Last night I watched the latest episode in Channel 4’s series about the history of Christianity. Even by the low standards of this series, this programme was awful. It was one of the most intellectually dishonest productions I have seen.

“War reporter” Rageh Omaar told us about the crusades – except that he didn’t. He told us a lot of half-truths, sixty-year-old versions of history and so many anachronisms I found myself saying “you idiot” out-loud to the television set. If this is the standard of accuracy Rageh Omaar works towards I will never trust another word he says.

Anachronism is when we judge a previous era by the standards of our own time. It is the one thing that historians (and also people claiming to present an accurate version of history) must never do. Instead you have to work hard to understand the mentalité of past generations, and see the world as they saw it (and if you can’t understand them, you should say honestly that you can’t understand them instead of pretending that you can).

Rageh Omaar made no attempt to understand the mentalité of either the crusaders or the medieval Islamic forces. Instead he told us how the crusades are perceived in the Middle East today, and then gave a very shallow “history” of the crusades that seemingly justified this view. There were so many errors I don’t really know where to begin.

The Rageh Omaar thesis is that the crusades were an early example of European colonialism. That they were horrifyingly violent and exactly comparable with the “holy war” of al qaeda today (this point was made repeatedly throughout the programme). That “the West” has only itself to blame for Islamic terrorism today because the crusades provoked it (oh, and Europeans are so ignorant they have “forgotten” the crusades – and therefore need the wise and enlightened Rageh Omaar to tell them how stupid and insensitive they are).

Rageh Omaar couldn’t make up his mind whether the crusades were nine hundred or a thousand years ago. He confidently asserted the crusades ended with the victory of Saladin (and were then “forgotten” in the West - whereas crusades probably continued until the 18th century). He seemed confused about the Knights Templars (crusaders were secular warriors who had taken a specific religious vow whereas the Templars were an order of fighting monks). He portrayed the initial impetus for the crusades as coming from Pope Urban II whereas they were a response to an appeal by the Emperor of Byzantium (the Byzantine territories were being over-run by expansionist Islamic forces). He was confused about what defines a “crusade” (utterances by President Bush do not count). He focused exclusively on the crusades as a clash between Christendom and the Islamic world.

This last point really needs to be challenged, as the idea of a clash between “East” and “West” is so erroneous as to completely undermine any credibility the programme might aspire to. The concept of “crusade” was a response by medieval Europe to the forces that threatened it from all directions. There were crusades to liberate the Holy Land (seen in terms of “patrimony”) but also crusades against the Islamic invasion of Spain, and crusades against the “pagan” Baltic areas. There were crusades against internal enemies such as the Cathars in southern France. The crusades did not stop after the victory of Saladin but continued for centuries afterwards (Chaucer’s Knight was a crusader; Henry IV went on a crusade to the Baltic before becoming king; there was a pre-emptive crusade against Egypt in 1365 etc). Riley-Smith has uncovered evidence of crusading (as legally defined, not the President Bush version) into the 18th century.

Various “experts” appeared in the programme, but the only one who had any credence was Christopher Tyerman (and why did the programme not include Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith, the greatest living authority on the crusades?). Rageh Omaar quoted “the chronicles” without understanding that medieval chronicles are not impartial historical accounts but often deliberately exaggerated (or even entirely false). He doesn’t even seem to have read the Damascus Chronicle of Ibn al-Qalanisi.

Does any of this matter? Isn’t history these days just a smorgasbord of “facts”, opinions and impressions picked from whatever Google throws up? Isn’t one person’s view just as valid as anyone else’s?

I don’t have the answer to these questions. Rageh Omaar is right that the West has become ignorant of its own history (as he unintentionally demonstrated through his own production). But he also revealed that the Islamic world is equally ignorant (but in a different way).

Just when you think Channel 4 can’t go any lower it has a habit of surprising you. This programme is the sort of trash you would think had been produced by the crazies of Channel EMTV (Channel 200 on Sky). How much longer is Channel 4 going to receive a public subsidy?

You can see the garbage for yourself: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/christianity-a-history

More on mentalité: http://seis.bris.ac.uk/~clndgm/approaches/MENTAL.DOC

PS for such a self-proclaimed exponent of cultural sensitivity wasn’t it hypocritical of Rageh Omaar to point his cameras at the hooded Armenians in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre during their divine service – or is he ignorant about just how offensive this is to them?