Culture – Page 10 – Pat the Expat

Everything You Know is Wrong (IX): The Spanish Inquisition

Ever heard of the Spanish Inquisition? I thought you’d be surprised! You know, how it demonstrated the horror of imposing one’s religious beliefs on others, not to mention the danger inherent in believing one knows exactly what God intends, which can lead to all manner of extremism. It’s a popular view, almost a trope, partly based on that well-established English bias about history that North Americans imbibe, and partly based on, well:

but you KNEW this was coming

The Good News (pun intended) is that the Catholic Church, being the world’s longest-running, most successful bureaucracy (among other things) has excellent data on the Spanish Inquisition. Not only that, the data are reliable, because the inquisidores really believed they were doing God’s work (however bizarre that may seem to modern sensibilities), and lying about their work would have undermined the “good” they thought they were doing. And the Vatican released the data in the late 1990s.

If you asked an average person what they knew about the Spanish Inquisition, the key points would boil down to: (1) many innocent people were tortured to confess, (2 ) they were burned at the stake, (3) all to force people to accept the Catholic faith. So let’s get past Monty Python’s “comfy pillow” sketch and look at the facts!

How many people died at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition? None. Well, that’s a quibble. See the Office of the Holy Inquisition had no authority to execute anyone; only a King did. So the Inquisition passed off the condemned to the King’s executioners. Setting aside the quibble, early estimates ranged upward of millions of victims killed. But there are those pesky records, and modern historians have pored over them and determined the total to be at most 5,000 people (during the period 1478-1834, about 350 years), or a little more than one a month. There were periods of more and fewer executions, and long periods with none, as no trials were held. Hardly an enormity in the true sense of the word, or even a blip in the mortality statistics of the day!

Why the quibble about the role of the King in all this? It may be hard to understand in modern-day terms, but back then the government and religion were one-and-the-same: it was called Christendom for a reason. Denying the true faith demanded penitence, but refusing to admit the sin was a challenge to the sovereign, who was after all God’s chosen leader (the Divine Right of Kings), and thus was a capital offense. That’s what cost the accused their life. There was a continuing disagreement between Spanish royalty and Rome, with the former seeking harsh punishment (for the challenge to the throne) and the latter granting mercy as long as those charged repented at any point.

What about torture? Yes, the Inquisition practiced torture. They literally wrote books about it: when to do it, for how long, under what circumstances, etc. These tracts would be very familiar to anyone who read the Department of Justice memos regarding “enhanced interrogation techniques” under the Bush administration. Where do you think “waterboarding” came from originally? Here’s the rub: all countries, and all legal systems, allowed torture at that time. The Roman legal system practiced it, and bequeathed it everywhere Romans went. Islam developed its own version. Charging the Inquisition with torture is “like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500.”

Napalm - Imgflip — actually Kurtz said it

For the Inquisition, torture could only be employed after guilt was established, to elicit a full confession and further information about co-conspirators, heretics, etc. (again, sound familiar?). There were limits on how long, what types, how painful, the need for a doctor present; it’s eerie reading. And none of these rules applied in the regular government legal system. There, torture was practiced freely without restraints and often used early in the investigation to get a confession and complete the case. How bad was “justice” at the time? The records show criminal or civil defendants requesting to be transferred to the Inquisition for trial! So guilty as charged on torture, with a huge asterisk as that was nothing unusual at the time.

What about forcing others to become Catholic? See, here’s the problem with that odd charge: anyone could avoid the Inquisition by simply stating they were not Catholic. The Inquisition had no authority over Jews, Muslims, or pagans. The Church had long accepted the notion that one could not be forced to accept a different religion; thus the Inquisition was adopted to weed out heretics and false believers. Spain was in the process of the Reconquista, the expulsion of the remaining Muslim forces on the Iberian peninsula. As Catholic Spanish forces gradually occupied the lands, they had the problem of ruling these lands. Their solution was to allow freedom of religion, but to place limits on land ownership, positions of authority, and to impose heavy taxes, thus encouraging–but not mandating–conversion. Incidentally, these were the same rules Islamic leaders developed when they ruled Al Andalus, rules which some historians called even-handed and far-sighted!

Some Muslims and Jews became conversos, but a very small number only did so for the financial and political advantages it held. These false conversions became a target for the Inquisition, often based on secret tips from faithful Muslims and Jews who were annoyed by the success of their one-time fellow adherents. Add in ethnic rivalries, the ability of the Crown and local leaders to profit from seized property, and petty jealousies and you get a deadly mix of accusations. One redeeming quality: the inquisidores were intrepid detectives, and most charges brought to court were dropped. One set of records shows about one percent of the 125,000 heresy cases brought to trial under the Spanish Inquisition resulted in executions.

What about the procedures involved with the Spanish Inquisition? The Inquisition was all about process: there were hundreds of pages of rules and policies and procedures, all of which were lacking in European justice systems at the time. That is why many ordinary people and local leaders welcomed the Inquisition. All throughout the process there were opportunities for those charged to confess and seek forgiveness through some act of penitence. The arrival of an inquisidor started a thirty day Grace Period (literally) where anyone could simply admit guilt, be given a penance, and be forgiven. Then began a period of accusations and investigation, a trial and verdict, then sentencing or release. The final act was the auto da fé, which has come to mean “burning at the stake” in English, but actually means act of faith. This was a religious ceremony–including a mass and a procession–where the inquisidor and local prelates related the results of the trial to a public. At the end of the process, the accused, having been given another opportunity to repent publicly, was handed over to the civil authorities for punishment.

Why is there such a dark cloud of misinformation hovering over the Spanish Inquisition? Partially it is so foreign to our ideals today, but mostly it is a hangover from the “Black Legend.” In the 16th century, Spain was the wealthiest, most powerful Catholic nation in the emergent struggle over the Protestant Reformation. Thus it was the target of propaganda, the most effective of which was a campaign known as the “Black Legend” which depicted Spain in the harshest terms as a land full of violence, corruption, sexual excess and worse: sort of like California today (I kid, I kid). Many of the stories involved the Spanish Inquisition, and England was the chief source (in its ongoing rivalry with Spain). And those legends got past along with English history.

None of which is to say the Spanish Inquisition was good. Saint Pope John Paul II apologized for the violence it enacted. Moreover, while heresy was a continuous problem in those days, the threat posed by conversos was greatly exaggerated and never merited an inquisition, as demonstrated by the numbers of trials, exonerations, and executions.

George Santayana said “those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I would add that those who don’t know the truth about history are condemned to repeating falsehoods.

Money . . . Get Back!

A challenge for expats anywhere is how to access your funds. This is especially true in most of Mexico, where credit cards may not be accepted or come with a handy processing fee (the same fee usually paid by the vendor elsewhere) tacked on. Luckily for expats, Mexico does have many cajeros automaticos, or as you know them: ATMs.

Expats become accustomed to knowing (and sharing) advice about banks and their ATM machines: for example, which ones have both ingles and espanol options, which banks charge what as a transaction fee, what the various per day and per transaction limits are, which machines “swallow” your card whole versus holding it where you can retrieve it manually (important where power might suddenly fail).

Lately, expats have had to master the bank-managed “service fee” scam called dynamic currency conversion. This is where the bank machine “offers” you to convert your peso request to dollars at the point of conversion (how helpful) but gives you an incredibly poor exchange rate. The trick is the “offer” seems to be like the transactions fee, in that it says you can accept or decline, but most people assume that if they decline they won’t be able to get their pesos (like the transaction fee, which if you decline, the machine ends your transaction). Untrue! If you decline, you still receive your pesos, but the bank or financial institution you use at home does the conversion, usually at a much better rate. This service has been a standard rip-off among restaurants and retailers in Europe for years, but it has recently migrated to ATMs worldwide: avoid it! I would note that if your domestic bank has a really bad reputation for its currency conversion rates, you might be better off using the ATM conversion rate. But you probably would be best off changing banks!

Some expats go the extra step by getting a Mexican bank account and credit cards, allowing them to transfer money from their previous home to here. Mexican banks are, shall we say, picky. Sometimes just opening an account can involve some of that famous Mexican bureaucracy, such as “no, that’s a color copy, we don’t accept it” or “(today) we’re not opening accounts for gringos.” Oh, and writing checks? Every item must be letter perfect, including your full name and day/month/year (not month/day/year) and the spelled-out sum in español, por favor. Oh, and most importantly, such accounts are not federally insured, so there is always the possibility your money could just disappear.

Not all of this is Mexican banks’ fault: Americans should know that the US government applies its own rules to foreign banks, making them responsible for various reporting requirements! Some banks and brokerages–even American ones–now shun American expat accounts as not worth the trouble. If you’re an American expat, you must report foreign financial accounts if (1) you have signature authority on the account and (2) if the aggregate value of all your foreign accounts exceeds $10,000 USD at any time during the year (there are exceptions). The important document to file is called a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) on FinCEN Form 114. It is only a report: it is not used to check whether you owe taxes, which of course you must pay on any income received via these accounts. And don’t try to get cute by intentionally hedging just below the $10,000 USD limit; one recent court case found such activity to also be against the law! You can see why some American expats never bother with foreign accounts.

What about the need for larger sums that would never be available via ATM, like to buy a car, furniture, or a down payment on a house? There are a growing number of options. Our American bank allows us to do a direct wire transfer to foreign recipients for around $50 USD ($25 for any wire transfer, an additional $25 for international recipients). If the transfer is not going to a financial institution–for example to a private individual–the bank sends us several warnings letting us know it can’t verify the recipient and it is not responsible once the money goes out, which just means we have to make sure we have the account info correct on our end.

We’ve also used Xoom (pronounced the same way as the videoconferencing service), a division of PayPal which facilitates international financial transfers. We’ve used Xoom to pay for some services like home repair or contracting. Most often we have not been charged a transaction fee, and the exchange rates have generally been good. There is a transaction fee if you’re using a credit card, not a bank account as the source. It takes a little time (and info) to add a new recipient, but once “in the system” the transactions are immediate (hours, not days). One extra (and very nice) feature is Xoom allows you to request confirmations (text or otherwise) for both the sender and recipient, so you get a running series of money sent/received notices. Also, if the transfer fails for any reason, Xoom will notify you of that, too. I know there are other international transfer services with similar features, but Xoom is one for which we can personally vouch.

Some brokerage accounts (like Charles Schwab) also allow international transfers without extra charges, so that is another way to have money secure in one place but still be able to move it where you need it. There are exceptions, so make sure you read the fine print!

Finally, a related issue with financial transfers (of any sort) could be the need for notarization. I knew of expat friends who were forced to fly back to the States to get notarization of financial documents. We recently had a similar situation, and discovered online notaries who could meet all our requirements for about $30 USD and ten minutes of online consultation!

Some expats get all wrapped up in exchange rates and trying to game when they transfer larger sums to gain an advantage. Sometimes this is because they are on a budget and a few pesos matter; sometimes it’s just the thrill of getting a deal. In any event, there are myriad ways to move money internationally these days, and more coming along every day. While having money is a key factor in being an expat, getting your money shouldn’t be.

A Family Visit

There are few joys more profound for an expat than when family comes to visit. Especially when family is skeptical about the whole “why are Gramps & Meemo living in Mexico?” story. So my dear wife and I were very excited when our younger daughter, her husband, and their young son and daughter decided to join us on our return trip from a family visit to South Bend!

They came for a solid week, and of course, we had the first full week of rain I can remember in four years. We got a lot of ribbing about “unlimited sunshine” and where was it? However, when reminded that back home in the Mid-Atlantic it was ninety degrees and ninety percent humidity at nine o’clock in the morning, they admitted it was still better here.

We went to the pool & the club and hit several local favorite restaurants. What was surprising to these first-time visitors to real Mexico? Not much. They were a little surprised by how inexpensive things were, especially booze and food. They noted the prevalence of barbed wire and broken glass on the tops of the walls, and the amount of roadside trash and shrines, all sad things we had to explain. Pick-up truck loads of standing laborers, families on scooters, and people riding horses while talking on cell phones brought surprised smiles.

We took a day trip to the Guadalajara Zoo, which I highly recommend. It has a variety of passes for different sets of exhibits, is nicely laid out with abundant shade, and the animals seem well-cared for. We also used the services of Mex-ECO tours for a private visit with friends to the town of Magdalena, near Tequila, for a afternoon of opal mining. Kids, hardhats, and pick-axes: what could go wrong? I asked about dynamite, but none was available. We did find a few opal and quartz stones suitable for polishing and great as keepsakes of the day. We also spent a fine Sunday visiting Juan Diego and his wife Laura at the goat farm (Galo de Allende) near Mezcala, where the grand-kids got to milk a goat and mix with the herd.

The kids and grand-kids got to experience that overnight tropical deluge along with prodigious thunder and lightning, eat from a molcajete, and try the Mexican versions of their favorite American cereals (“not quite right” was their considered opinion). After a week (the approved limit for all family visits), we took them to Soriana for the ritual covid tests and they flew back to the States.

We missed the opportunity to get fresh chicharrónes, go horse-back riding, attend lucha libre, or see downtown Guadalajara, but they did get to see our new home (more on that later). Most importantly, everybody stayed healthy & unhurt and had a good time. They’ll be back, although it may be difficult to pry them loose when they move to Vicenza, Italy, later this year. Guess we’ll just have to pay them a return visit first (the things we do for our grand-kids)!

The Guadalajara zoo backs up on the Barranca de Oblatos, the amazing canyon you see when flying into the area.

Moving on (up)

When we first mentioned our intention to retire to Mexico some nine years ago, we faced a variety of reactions. Family thought we were joking, or crazy, or both. Friends were astounded, and couldn’t understand. A few of my work associates (who were familiar with Mexico–so to speak) congratulated us on an excellent choice, but most told me I was too young to retire. Some told me to hedge my bets, since I would undoubtedly be back soon, having “missed the game.”

Despite the concern and astonishment, we bought the house in Mexico, and (literally) counted down the days during those last five work years, waiting to retire early. We sold nearly everything, loaded up the FJ with the family dog, and set out for the retired expat life. Four years later, we have no regrets. Expat retirement has been a wonderful experience, and even the pandemic has only reinforced our belief we made the right choice.

But change happens, as they say. You get older if not wiser. Things once new become commonplace. So we decided to put the house up for sale and move again. Now don’t panic: no, we’re not returning to the States. We just finally decided to get another place here in Ajijic, but this time a house with a view. And what a view!

The home selling and buying process in expat land is quite familiar. First, there are numerous real estate agencies here that specialize in expats, often staffed with former NOB real estate agents. Many homes are priced in dollars, although the final sale must be made in Mexican Pesos, so there is the possibility of an exchange rate issue, but that is understood going in. One complication is that Mexico has a capital gains tax on properties, which could result in a large tax bill if your house really appreciated or if these is a major change in the dollar-peso exchange rate. However, Mexico also has an exemption for primary residences (you can claim it once every three years).

You select an agency, sign a listing contract, have showings and put up a “For Sale” sign. Many people don’t stage their properties, but some do. You make an offer, there is some negotiation and counters, and you go “under contract.” You agree on a settlement date, the lawyers (abogados) do their thing and make sure the property is free of liens, not in ejido land (indigenous lands can’t be transferred), nor is it in the federally-protected coastal lands (a legal hangover from way-back-when the government thought the US might invade again, now resolved through a long-duration fideicomiso or bank trust), and –presto–you sell/buy a house.

What’s different? Many expats move down here for life, furnishing their homes after arriving, so it is not uncommon to find properties for sale fully furnished (and by that I mean fully, like silverware and linens and tchotchkes!) You’ll find people buying homes sight unseen, from far away NOB, based on a local friend or agent. Some people put homes up for sale, over-priced, then leave them on the market forever. The cost of maintaining a property here is minimal, so there is little incentive (if you don’t need the cash to buy another property) to do a fire-sale price reduction. Mexico doesn’t have a mortgage system, so you bring cash to the table. Our agent told us on more than one occasion he had faced someone walking in to the settlement office with a suitcase full of pesos. It’s possible to arrange private (i.e., personal) financing but the interest rate runs north of ten percent with a guaranteed year’s interest.

We just started thinking seriously about a new place, mountainside with a lake view, a few weeks back. Then we stumbled on just the right place, which greatly accelerated our efforts. We are midway through the process, having put our home on the market and having recorded a contract to buy the new house. Now we are “on the clock” to sell or arrange financing to complete the purchase. Somewhere in there we need to arrange the settlements, schedule some movers, and do the local move. Oh, and we’re visiting the family & friends in the States twice in the next few months!

If all goes to plan, what changes? We’re going from a small gated community (seventy homes) to an even smaller gated community (thirty homes). We’re moving from the west end of Ajijic and practically on the lake to the centro, but right up against the mountains. Losing a walk to the lakeshore, gaining a million-dollar view and las brisas (breezes). Trading the sounds of the countryside (cohetes and roosters) for those of the village (cohetes and gas trucks), although an out-of-the-way part of the village. We’ll be part way up the mountain and just steps away from the Tepalo trailhead.

Friends always characterize our current, single-storey, two-thousand square foot home as “cozy” and that it is: from the central courtyard you can reach any room in under ten steps. The new place is, well, a little different. It’s six-thousand square feet on three levels (with an elevator), each level the same size as our current home. Judy and I joke that we’re buying the new house just for the main level, and the guest level and garage level are bonus spaces.

Here’s the sales video for our current home:

I’ll update the blog on the move, the closing(s), and especially the new house as things progress!

A Mexican Driver’s License Test

Having recently prepared for this test, even though I was never asked to take it when renewing my licensia, I decided to make a helpful practice test so you can play along at home. Make sure to keep track of whether you guessed the legal or real answers. Enjoy!

This sign indicates:

Don’t go there
Don’t even think of going there
🎵 Don’t stop, believing 🎵
Don’t stop

The legal answer, and the real answer, is (4).

If you see this sign, you should:

Drive no more than 110 miles per hour
Drive no more than 68 miles per hour
Wonder what the difference between kilometers and miles is
Ignore it like everybody else on the road.

The legal answer is (2), the real answer is (4), but let’s face it, you’ll probably do (3).

You stop to let a pedestrian cross the road; he does this toward you. It means:

“¡Muchas Gracias!”
“Talk to the mano, gringo.”
“What’s the modal finger?”
“If I only had my gun!”

There is no legal answer, but the real answer is (1).

The car in front of you has its left turn signal on. It means:

The driver will turn left
The driver is indicating it is clear for you to pass on the left
The driver is a gringo who turned his signal on in 2019
The car only has one working light bulb

Both (1) and (2) are legally correct, but (3) and (4) are also real. Best to ignore the blinking left signal in all cases!

In Mexico, this is:

Likely to occur on any highway
Why you don’t drive at night
Not going to happen where the sign says
All the above

You already know it’s (4).

You come upon this sign. It indicates:

You are approaching a roundabout
You can’t get there from here
We are all part of the circle of life
You do you.

The legal answer is (1), but all answers are equally real.

If the first image means “right turn” and the second image means “left turn,” the third image means:

🎵All my friends know the low rider 🎵
Slowing down or stopping
Left turn but my arm got tired
Look, I can drive with one hand

Legally, (2), but quien sabe?

If you see this sign, you should:

Slow down because there are topes ahead
Slow down because once upon a time there were topes ahead
Slow down because the road has a ditch in it
Slow down for the topless beach

The legal answer is (1), but for God’s sake, just slow down!

This sign indicates:

You are now entering El Paso
Yield
You’re not in Kansas anymore
You took a wrong turn in Albuquerque

(2) is the legal answer; (3) & (4) may also be real.

What does this symbol indicate?

No hat zone
Sombrero only zone
Inspection site ahead
Can you say mordita? Sure, I knew you could.

The legal answer is (3). ‘Nuff said.

In Mexico, this is:

Exemplary helmet-wearing
HOV-4 compliant
Cheaper than a minivan
Everyday, everywhere

Who knows, legally? All four are real!

If you see this view in Mexico, you should:

Look for the hidden tope
Have gassed up earlier
Watch out for cows disguised as tumbleweeds
Check for the motorbike about to pass you on the right

Only (3) is wrong. Mexican cows don’t bother with camouflage.

The cross street you are approaching is ______; you should ______:

One way to the right; turn right only
One way to the right; turn right if that is where you want to go
real; stop and ask for directions
whatever; do you

The legal answer is (1). (2) is a real answer. (4) is always correct. (3) is a trick: you never, never, NEVER ask directions in Mexico. Mexicans want to be helpful. They will offer directions even if (1) they don’t understand you, (2) they don’t know where you want to go, or (3) they don’t know where the destination is.

This shows:

Room for more riders
Mexico invented ride-sharing
Sear belts are theoretically required
Nothing to see here

Probably (2), and long before smart phones!

How did you do? If you tried to keep score, you have already failed! In Mexico, scores are arbitrary and you have missed the point. If you guessed (most of) the real answers, consider yourself ready to drive here.

“Licenses? We ain’t got no licenses. We don’t need no stinkin’ licenses!”

Passing a final test

As we’ve now lived here more than four years (how time flies under a facemask!), Judy and I have experienced most of the peculiarities of expat life in Mexico. And by peculiarities, I mean those little distractions, annoyances, or absurdities that make you go “what the . . . ” before shrugging your shoulders and finishing the thought with “solo en México” (only in Mexico).

There was the driver’s test–on computer–wherein it didn’t matter how we answered, we still passed. The time that we got a red light at customs and got to unpack our entire luggage, one item at a time, and explain what it is and why we have it, which of course coincided with my wife importing a year’s supply of make-up. The time the government refused to reimburse the temporary importation visa for my US car, and wanted me to prove I still had the car in the US, when it had never entered Mexico.

As you may have noticed, these events all involve government bureaucracy. Now, we have had many good stories to tell about visas approved, licenses renewed, taxes paid. But those stories are boring; the fun ones involve the trouble. So many went smoothly, some went poorly . . . and then there was SIMAPA.

SIMAPA stands for the Sistema Municipal de Agua Potable y Alcantarillado (de Chapala), that is the municipal water and sanitation authority. And in my opinion, they are the gold medalist in the bureaucratic olympiad. Before I explain why, it is fair to note that water has a history in Mexico, and that history plays a part. Being an arid country, water has always been a scarce resource. Those who had access to water often used it to control the poor, to seek advantage over rivals, or simply to lord it over those without access.

So as Mexico went through its various wars of independence and revolution, access to water came to be seen by the people as a fundamental right: and so it is, in the Mexican constitution. It is so fundamental that access to water cannot be totally shut off even if the recipient does not pay for it. Water bills are sometimes paid collectively by a home-owners association, and talk to any HOA board and you’ll find stories of owners who haven’t paid water dues for years. You can reduce the flow to some small amount, but you can’t shut it off; and that goes for the government, as well.

Likewise for sewage. If you’re hooked into municipal sewer lines, there’s an initial fee for accessing, and a yearly fee. But here’s the rub: there’s no way to shut the sewage flow off. So again, non-payment is a problem.

Our condominio (roughly, our development) has its own well, so we don’t use SIMAPA for fresh water. But we are hooked up to the municipal sewer lines. Our house was built in 2012, and round about late 2019 our condominio received notice from SIMAPA that, “hey, y’all are hooked up to the sewer lines, but you haven’t paid anything, so please do so.” My wife dutifully took a copy of the e-mail down to the local SIMAPA office, where she explained (in Spanish) that we needed to pay. The ladies working there looked at the e-mail (in English), looked at our address, then explained we didn’t have an account, so we could not pay. At that, they went back to their busy desks. One might assume a municipal authority would be interested in receiving seven years of back payments; one would be wrong (in Mexico).

Time passed and the quarantine hit, and since our sewage kept flowing away, we sort of forgot all about it. Finally we talked with a neighbor who reminded us we were supposed to go to the SIMAPA office and ask to “start an account.” The magic words (in Spanish) were not “pay a bill” but “start an account” and we needed a copy of our identification papers and a copy of our deed. We collected the pesos (in cash, naturally) and all the documents and copies and went back to SIMAPA.

Round Two began as a replay of Round One. We said we needed to start an account, but the SIMAPA ladies checked their online records and assured us we didn’t have an account. Yes, we knew that, but we produced our documentation and they threw up their hands and called the supervisor, who spoke English–up to that point, we had engaged in Spanish. The supervisor reviewed our deed copy and explained it was not an official copy, so we would have to return with an official copy in order to start an account. One might assume a municipal authority would be more interested in collecting now nine years of back payments, and was there really a problem in Mexico with people showing up to fraudulently pay OTHER PEOPLE’S DELINQUENT SEWAGE BILLS? One would be mistaken.

Weeks later, we collected an official deed copy, the pesos, copies of every bill and identification we could muster, extra copies of all these, and went back to SIMAPA for Round Three. We entered the office and cheerfully greeted the SIMAPA ladies; Judy even complimented one woman on her embroidered blouse (smiles all around). We explained that we did not have an account, but we needed to start one and pay our arrears. The SIMAPA ladies quickly checked online and confirmed we did not have an account (*sigh*–an unsettling déjà vu descended on us).

The supervisor reviewed our official deed, then used it just to provide our address to the woman at the keyboard. She began the (apparently) laborious process of opening a new account. Now everybody should have an account, but one felt like this was the first time an account had ever been opened. There was discussion about how to enter the address, how to print the bill, and even (no kidding) how much to charge us. The supervisor even asked us if we had an e-mail from the condominio stating what the charges were for this year! Wasn’t SIMAPA the ones who determined the charges, I thought? I told him “no” initially, but Judy checked her account and did find it.

They proceeded to develop a receipt, but I could see the supervisor and the lady on the keyboard were a little concerned by the size of the bill. It was, after all, for many years, and I am sure they have had some surly customers come in and go ballistic over a large bill. I told them they had approximated the bill for us once before, so we were ready for it, which seemed to alleviate their concerns. I even joked that we only wanted to pay our bill, not purchase all of SIMAPA (I got a little smile for that Dad-joke).

Finally, we paid the bill, got signed originals of the account statement, and went on our way, safe in the knowledge we were no longer sewage outlaws.

Solo en México.

Frames of Reference

Ever take a good hard look at your frames of reference? By that I mean the experiences, education, travel, lifestyle and intellectual pursuits that are not necessarily unique to you, but frame how you process and make sense of what’s going on around you. Some might call them your biases, but I think that’s a little too pejorative: we all have them, so why automatically think of them as negative?

For example, I grew up in a small town in the Midwest. I had a frame of reference that people were basically honest and friendly, schools were competent, the local authorities honest, and opportunities abounded. Americana 101. I also believed large cities were dirty, and people there were rude or potentially violent. Their schools were ramshackle. Their police might entrap you. Their government was corrupt.

I eventually lived in or near big cities, where I confirmed everything I previously held about them! I also learned the big cities were cosmopolitan, held cultural treasures, and had even more opportunities. And small towns could be somewhat provincial; imagine that!

The entire concept of generational cohorts (think “The Greatest Generation” or Baby-Boomers, Gen-Xers, Millennials) involves frames of reference. People who go through the same major events (say WWII) at around the same age tend to develop a common way of thinking. It’s not universal, but it is useful as a way to generalize about them. My grandmother, who survived the Great Depression as a young woman, always kept on hand a large supply of canned goods and other things, and retained a profound distrust of banks. Those characteristics were common among her generation, and persisted long after the cause for them ended: for example, when banks became federally insured.

What about your unconscious frames? If you grew up in the States, you most likely imbibed an English cultural frame. Which does not mean an understanding of English History; good heavens no! Most Americans think The War of the Roses was a 1989 divorce flick. No, I mean an English view of history and culture. France and the French: weak, decadent, presumptuous. Spain and the Spanish: corrupt, untrustworthy, nefarious. Germany and the Germans: autocratic, efficient, and of course Nazis. China and Chinese: inscrutable. India and the Indians: Servile. England and the English: indefatigable, educated, and enterprising. Hmmmmm, one of these things is not like the others! Where did Americans, who originally had little contact with many of these countries, get these stereotypes, some of which were contradicted by early American experience (France and Spain sided with us in the revolution against England)?

Frames are hard to identify simply by introspection; new experiences–or encountering other frames–make it easier. As an expat, I often laugh at some aspects of the US history I once learned: all about Plymouth Plantation and the English colony of Jamestown. Only after living in Latin America did I stop and reconsider that the Spanish settlement of St. Augustine, Florida, was forty-two years old when the English got to Jamestown, and the only reason Jamestown survived was the Spanish decided not to attack it.

As an expat, you bring a lifetime of frames to your new home. Expect police to be well-paid, well-trained public servants dedicated to the rule of law? Government to be efficient and transparent? Law to be impartial? Depending on where you land, maybe, maybe not. The reverse is also true. Where you once might have experienced people judged implicitly by their skin color, you might find those judgments applied to shades, or accents, or even facial structures!

Whether for good or ill, frames exist and affect us everyday. For expats, identifying your frames may be critical to whether you can ever fit in your new community. Change in cultural frames happens slowly, and almost never by external forces (I’m thinking the pacification of Germany and Japan as exceptions that prove the rule). When you come from somewhere else, you’re free to observe, to comment with courtesy, but most of all to respect the new culture. It may welcome you, but you sought it; it didn’t seek you.

What ails America?

It seems like Americans agree on few things these days. Perhaps the one thing almost all Americans agree on is something is wrong in America. Even there, the agreement is only skin-deep: progressives and conservatives have decidedly different opinions on what is wrong, yet agree that something is wrong.

For conservatives, America has lost its moral bearings, forgotten its past, and seems dead set on atomizing into various victim-groups competing for an ever more debt-fueled federal largess. Progressives see a people unwilling to remember its failings, unable to accept new rights claimants, blind to racism, sexism, and ever-greater economic inequality. For the moment, I’m willing to stipulate that both are correct, and at the same time, totally irrelevant. Why? Because both are focused on symptoms, not the problem.

America is unique among nations because it is a nation based on a notion. That notion is a complex mix of individual liberty, collective responsibility, and the right to be left alone. It was heavily influenced by English common law and traditions, and deeply embedded in a Judeo-Christian background. I would characterize that background as America’s Soul. The Founders, from a variety of religious backgrounds, were clear:

Washington: Religion is “a necessary spring of popular government.”
Adams: Leaders “may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.” and “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Franklin: “the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this Truth–that God governs in the Affairs of Men. . . . I also believe that without his concurring Aid, we shall succeed in this political Building no better than the Builders of Babel.”

I am not engaging in the tiresome “is America a Judeo-Christian nation?” argument. I am stating that the notion that is America rests upon a Judeo-Christian heritage, which is now only tenuous. The Deism that animated so many of the Founding Fathers was a Christian heresy (technical term, not derogatory). Their ‘Watchmaker’ God was not Zeus; He only makes sense as a derivative of Yahweh. And that connection is practically lost today.

The notion of America has changed subtly over time. Jefferson foresaw a nation of land-owning farmer-gentlemen. Lincoln envisioned a born-again Republic free from its original sin. Roosevelt sought solidarity among the classes and the birth of a world power. Reagan proclaimed the triumph of that power and renewed personal freedom.

All different, all variations on a theme.

The American people are once again in the process of debating that theme. During our recent visit to the States (grandkids & vaccinations), Gallup released poll data showing, for the first time, Church membership in the United States fell below fifty percent. As recently as the turn of the century, almost seventy percent of Americans belonged to a Church, and the decline since has been precipitous. This is something new: the theme is up for discussion, but so is the background.

The answer is not simply a call to return to the pews (as much as I would welcome that). America experienced a series of Great Awakenings, Protestant revivals that corresponded to various American crises. But today’s problem is not simply the dramatic decline in American Protestantism, but the deeper loss of any American connection to its Judeo-Christian heritage.

“Who cares about religion, anyway, can’t we just live by the Golden Rule?” That rule exists in nearly all religions and cultures, so I would respond with “how has that worked out for the world so far?” Its secular limits are many and obvious: “others” not defined as people, the narcissist who expects to be taken advantage of, the problem of scale. The Judeo-Christian elaboration on the Golden Rule provided means to address these problems, and provided a check on the way we respond to each other’s disagreements. That people at times violated these rules no more invalidates the rules than a murder invalidates the crime of murder.

This all plays out in complex ways, across a spectrum of issues. The First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion was a rational attempt to avoid favoring one religion over another in order to avoid the religious wars which plagued Europe. Extended today to the relationship between religion and unbelief, it becomes untenable: you can’t interpret law to be neutral to both a positive concept and its denial. This has lead to increasingly complex and contradictory Supreme Court rulings, wherein individuals seek more restrictions on religious activities and various faiths seek more and more exemptions from existing law.

Shorn from the Christian dictum to “care for your neighbor (and who is your neighbor?),” conservatives feel free to ignore family separations and leave the old and sick vulnerable to pandemia. Progressives discover a new Gospel. In their telling, Jesus says to the rich man, “Go, support a huge government program for the poor, use the right #hashtag, and you will inherit the Kingdom of God.”

Science advances apace, but in what direction? Moral questions of whether we should do something are pushed aside in favor of simple utilitarian answers. Scientists in California and China teamed up to create chimeras: embryos that are part monkey, part human. They claim to be addressing the need for more organs to transplant, and deny any ethical issues. Should we follow this science?

The absence of Christian charity in our exchanges should be obvious: it is why we often immediately question the motives of any who disagree, characterize any transgression as evil (I would say mortal sin), and refuse to offer or accept simple forgiveness. Our American system of government is full of checks and balances, and therefor it requires compromise to function. But now both sides seem more interested in scoring points or dominating, not cooperating.

I could cite a thousand examples, from hate crimes to tax policy to road rage to immigration to, well, you get the point. America is losing, perhaps has lost, its Soul. It wasn’t the fault of any faith, political party or movement. It wasn’t simply the aggregation of a trend by millions of individuals deciding just to sit home and watch the NFL on Sunday. It happened over a long period of time, mostly as a result of neglect: a simple lack of understanding of the role our Soul played in the notion of the nation of America.

Am I overstating the role of Soul? Look at the Presidents we most admire, and see how they all intuited, and used, our reliance on Soul. Lincoln, himself not a Christian, was the greatest practitioner: calling on God time and again, citing our better angels, readily pulling memorable quotes from the Bible. Roosevelt’s “nothing to fear” line directly mirrors “Be not afraid” while he characterized the New Deal as “the path of faith, the path of hope, the path of love.” Reagan constantly borrowed the optimistic view characteristic of Christianity.

As Lincoln so well put it, “‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’. . . I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided.” Americans face a choice: what is to be our Soul? There has to be an underlying principle to our notion of a nation, one that all Americans can accept. Just as not all 18th Century Americans were Protestants, our new Soul need not be the creed for every American, but it must be accepted by all.

I recently watched an entertaining debate between Alex O’Connor, a well-followed British atheist who runs The Cosmic Skeptic YouTube channel and Bishop Robert Barron, the prolific Catholic apologist of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and Word on Fire.

Two hours long, and with some high-fallutin’ words!

During the debate, O’Connor noted that as an atheist, he has an advantage in that he need not put forward a rival worldview, but only need point out inconsistencies in the faith-view; the onus was on those who believe. This is absolutely true in such a debate, but I believe the opposite pertains in the argument over America’s Soul. There, the existing connection (to Judeo-Christian beliefs) has been challenged, so the onus is on the challengers: what comprehensive, attractive and feasible concept do you propose?

If we were a nation based on race or ethnicity, this discussion would be unnecessary. But as a nation based on a notion, we must not only have the discussion, we must come to a conclusion. Arguing against the Judeo-Christian background is not enough; in the end, what holds US together?

Data, Numbers, & Hate

A few posts back, I promised to explore the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes. First let me explain two challenges: one is the difference between data and numbers, and the other is the difficulty in determining intent behind an action.

First, I think we all know what numbers are, but how to distinguish them from data? Data are just numbers that have been processed in some way to make them useful in comparing or combining. A simple example: if I told you the temperature in Cincinnati today was 40° but only 20° in Ajijic, you might assume Ohio was warmer than Jalisco, and that would be wrong. Those are numbers, not data. The numbers are in different scales (Fahrenheit and Centigrade); placed in the same scale, they become data and we can compare.

Another example: I just saw a headline (later revised) that said “One hundred fully-vaccinated people in Washington State have gotten Covid” which sounds scary. However, those one-hundred victims came out of a pool of 1.2 million vaccinated people in Washington. With context, the story was that less than .01% of vaccinated people in Washington later got Covid, which is reassuring, not scary. Processing numbers into data is essential!

Second, actions are easier to assess than intent. If I walk past you and don’t greet you on the street, was I angry at you, preoccupied, inconsiderate, unaware, near-sighted or some combination of all of the above. You can easily assess the fact that I did not greet you, but the cause becomes a matter of great conjecture, and I myself may not be able to answer “why?”.

You may have seen the claims of a great increase in the number of anti-Asian (sometimes referred to as anti-Asian/Pacific Islander, hence AAPI) hate incidents. Activists and the media tie the phenomenon back to the Trump administration and his blaming China for the Coronavirus pandemic in 2019. Let’s dig into the numbers (hint). The first point to understand is that the FBI has not published its 2020 crime data, so there is no single, national, data-set for hate crimes. Here is the last FBI graph:

The data are low, and hit an all-time low in 2015 before starting a gradual rise. The FBI data is not comprehensive, as law enforcement elements participate voluntarily, but it does cover more than fifteen thousand organizations representing over three-hundred million Americans.

In the absence of 2020 FBI data, what numbers do we have? The numbers cited in most major media reporting come from StopAAPIHate. Here’s the pull quote from their website: “In response to the alarming escalation in xenophobia and bigotry resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Asian Pacific Planning and Policy Council (A3PCON), Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA), and the Asian American Studies Department of San Francisco State University launched the Stop AAPI Hate reporting center on March 19, 2020.” I’ll set aside the question of using data from a group which set out under the assumption of an “alarming escalation” and just show their results here:

There are several potential issues here. The numbers come from the sixteen largest US cities, so we have an urban skew to the data. The numbers are very small: eleven cities had incident totals in the single digits, and four reported no incidents in 2019, meaning the data could go nowhere but up. The overwhelming number (eighty-eight of one hundred twenty-two) of hate crimes happened in just six cities: New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, and San Jose.

StopAAPIHate has other issues. Among the numbers it uses to buttress its claim of increasing hate crimes are: Google Search terms, slurs on Twitter, and any claim that China is possibly responsible for the coronavirus. The last one would make much of the planet guilty of anti-Asian hate crimes, including most of Asia. StopAAPIHate does not acknowledge other explanations or causations (e.g., the non-representative nature of Twitter, or the use of Google search to explain unfamilar words).

It is interesting to note that overall hate crimes declined by seven per cent in 2020, while anti-Asian hate crimes rose by one-hundred forty-nine per cent. It is also relevant to note that anti-Asian hate crimes account for only seven per cent of all hate crimes, and the following groups had more reported victims of hate crimes in 2019: blacks, whites (!), Hispanics, Jews, Muslims, Gays, and LBQT+. On top of that, there is the issue of attributing crimes based solely on the race of the victims. The Anti Defamation League (ADL) discovered a huge increase in anti-Semitic attacks back in 2017 when it included thousands of false, phone-bomb threats (to Jewish Community Centers and schools) conducted by an American-Israeli Jewish student. Still, the purported rise in anti-Asian hate crimes demands attention, even if the numbers are small both in absolute and relative terms. So let’s dig into the phenomenon further. We know who the victims are, but who are the perpetrators and what are the crimes?

According to the New York Times, the NYPD does have data about the identity of perpetrators in 2020. Of the 20 anti-Asian hate crimes in which arrests were made, eleven arrested were black, five were Hispanic, two were Black Hispanic, and two were white. This tracks with the FBI’s 2019 hate crimes data, and it tracks with anecdotal reporting of 2020 and 2021 incidents. And the Times has noted that so many of the perpetrators of these alleged hate crimes are either homeless, mentally ill, or both.

As to the crimes, the vast majority of hate crimes (against all victims) were verbal intimidation/simple assault (eighty percent) or vandalism (seventy-five percent). StopAAPIHate has added the category of “shunning/avoidance” which accounted for twenty percent of its reports.

I will spare my friends a long litany of specific events, categorized as hate crimes by activists and the media, which failed to be so upon further scrutiny. A large number are simple robberies or assaults where no evidence of hate, except for the ethnicity of the victim, was ever introduced. Some attacks do include language which supports a hateful intent, but when the perpetrator is mentally ill, can we rely on their words?

So are all these incidents wrong? No. The most famous ones do not stand up to scrutiny, but there was a trend towards slightly increasing anti-Asian hate incidents going back for four years. Is the trend overblown by activists and the media? Probably.

I have little doubt more people are making more hateful statements today than yesterday. One need only check social media to confirm it. The social fabric in the States is wearing thin, and people are increasingly escalating encounters. Those with whom you disagree are not just wrong, they’re evil, why, maybe even Nazis! If someone looks askance at you, they might be “dissin'” you, and you don’t have to put up with that in 2021, do you? Activists talk about “getting in people’s faces” and even small disagreements become political battlegrounds. The other day in the States, my dear wife made the mistake of asking a woman (at a public park) whether she had lost her face mask; the woman’s response assumed my wife was attacking her for not wearing one, when actually my wife had just found a mask, and the rest of that woman’s family was wearing masks, so she thought she was about to do a good deed. Not in this day and age.

Long ago, I was a daily runner, which meant I ended up running in places like aboard a ship in Kattegat, on the rolling plains of Kansas, in smoggy Budapest and uber-urban Tokyo. In three of those locations, the sight of a lanky, six foot-plus white guy running around merited just odd looks. It was only in the States where I had cars on rural roads cross the centerline toward me, strangers toss trash at me, or carloads of teenagers hang out the windows and swear at me. And that was back in the well-meaning twentieth century! So do I believe there is more hatred now? Sure.

Is there an epidemic of specifically anti-Asian hate? Probably not. And can the increase be tied to former President Trump? Only if you believe in a secretive cabal of New Yorkers, Californians, Blacks, Hispanics and even Asians waiting to follow his lead. No, there is something deeper going on here, and I promise to cover that in the near future.

Everything You Know is Wrong (VIII): The Crusades

Valparaiso University is a small Lutheran school in northern Indiana which recently decided to abandon its athletic team name, the Crusaders, because the term suggests “aggressive religious oppression and violence.” What’s your first reaction to the word “crusade?” What about the term “crusader?”

There have been a series of academic or popular works which have revised public perceptions of the Crusades. First and foremost was Stephen Runciman’s 1950s era, three-volume history of the Crusades. Terry Jones of Monty Python fame relied on this work for his BBC series “Crusades.” And no hall of shame would be complete without Ridley Scott’s execrable movie Kingdom of Heaven (2005). What do they all have in common? “Terrible history yet wonderfully entertaining” as one historian put it.

What is/was the misconception? The Crusades were a series of aggressive wars launched by a backward, religiously-fanatic West against a more peaceful, civilized East. Crusaders were a motley array of Kings in search of new domains, 2nd or 3rd sons of nobles (hence without title or prospects) seeking wealth, and peasants desperate enough to join, spurred on by fanatical clergy eager to make money off the endeavors. This toxic mix made Crusaders an intolerant, blood-thirsty, and rapacious force that broke the laws of war (as they were). Did I miss anything?

The funny thing is, the Crusades lasted 700 years (1095-1798), and happened at a time when common people, nobles, and the Church actually wrote about their lives and kept records. And little of what I described above comports with the historical record.

Let’s start with what was a “Crusade.” Like bowling, there were rules!

There were four rules for a crusade:

The Pope had to call for, or endorse, it.
Participants “took the cross,” an oath that they would not relent, or give up until the specific goal of the Crusade was achieved (and there was a specific goal). The Crusaders then sowed a red cross onto their clothes signifying their oath.
Crusaders were promised that the lands and families they left behind were under protection of the Church (not insignificant when lords were constantly prowling to poach each other’s lands). They were exempt from many tolls and charges en route, and could expect the hospitality of the Church and the faithful on the way.
Upon successful completion, crusaders were awarded an indulgence (a form of pardon for sins).

Why are these formal aspects of a crusade important? Various individuals or groups initiated their own crusades, or tried to tack alongside Crusader armies without “taking the cross.” These unauthorized crusades committed atrocities against Jewish communities, sacked towns, and robbed civilians. The Church criticized these efforts, suppressed them, and excommunicated those participating. Yet some historians started including these events in histories of the Crusades!

Were the Crusades aggressive or defensive? Islam had overrun the Holy Land by force in 637 Christian Era (CE). For the next four centuries, Islamic leaders permitted a steady stream of Christian pilgrims to visit the holy sites in Jerusalem, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In 1009 CE, a Fatimid Caliph ordered the destruction of the Church and other Christian sites, which caused a great outcry in Christian Europe, although the Caliph’s son permitted its rebuilding in 1048 CE. When the Seljuk Turks captured the Holy Land, they commenced persecuting Christian communities, culminating in the slaughter of twelve-thousand defenseless pilgrims outside Jerusalem in 1065 CE. The Seljuks defeated the Orthodox Byzantines at Manzikert and pushed toward Constantinople, and in 1095 CE Pope Urban II called the First Crusade to secure a safe path across Asia Minor to the Holy Land, and to liberate Jerusalem. If not defensive, this Crusade certainly had just cause.

Were the Crusades authentically religious, or was that only a pretense for economic motives? This is one of the most scurrilous charges, one easily believed by moderns, and one overwhelmingly disproved by the records. Over the centuries, Westerners have gone from believing in fighting for religion, to not believing in fighting over religion, to not believing in religion, to not believing anyone could ever believe in fighting over religion. But the Crusades happened during the first of these belief systems.

Runciman et al promulgated the notion that the Crusades were for the extension of kingdoms and the wealth of 2nd and 3rd sons. The problems with these assertions are manifold. First, the historical records show the vast majority of nobles “taking the cross” were eldest sons, those who had the most to lose. Kings and nobles alike went bankrupt just in paying to get their crusader armies to the Holy Land, and this was not unexpected. The many wars of Medieval Europe usually ended with all sides in economic ruin, and at least there, there was a chance to occupy nearby territory. On top of this, armies generally lost more troops to disease than combat, and travel involved inevitable new disease encounters. The most likely outcome for any crusader–rich or poor– was known when they “took the cross”: death by sickness or the sword in a far off place. Of the 60,000 crusaders in the First Crusade, only 300 knights and 2,000 common men lived to occupy Jerusalem.

Why take such a vow? Faith, supplemented by the possibility of an indulgence. Whatever you think of the practice of indulgences, they are only compelling IF one believes in Heaven and Hell. Faith is the consistent refrain in the contemporaneous writings of noble and commoner alike. Could they have been posturing for history? Perhaps. Did some have mixed motives? Probably. But for the vast majority, the cause was simple.

Were the Crusaders uniquely violent? This charge sometimes relies on the actions of the faux crusades and crusaders I mentioned earlier. But the most glaring piece of evidence is the Crusaders’ behavior after they captured Jerusalem, killing everyone in the city until “the streets ran ankle-deep with blood” or the Temple mount ran with blood “up to the knees” as quoted by former President Clinton in a post 9-11 speech at Georgetown University. Historians have demonstrated the mathematical and geometric impossibility of this claim, traced the gradual exaggeration over decades as eyewitness accounts were embellished, and generally debunked them using Muslim sources.

The point remains: many people died after the Crusaders broke through the walls. But this was Medieval siege warfare. Cities were offered the chance to surrender and let inhabitants flee. This happened at Jerusalem. The remaining Muslims and Jews–who fought side-by-side–were considered combatants, and any who surrendered after the walls were breached were subject to summary execution or enslavement. This was the way of war for the Christians and the Muslims in those times: surrender at first, and live as you were with a new ruler. Surrender while besieged and live to suffer the spoils of war. Fight on until the walls are breached and die or be enslaved. While it seems barbaric, remember that the attackers generally suffered huge losses in the breach; the Crusader army at Jerusalem appears to have suffered about thirty percent casualties in the attack. It is unspeakable by modern standards, but was not unique at the time.

How did the First Crusade ever succeed? First and foremost, the Muslim world was rent at the time by a series of deaths which left the various factions at war with one another. Second, the Crusader armies were tough and resilient.The Crusaders spent four years marching from various locations in Europe to regroup in Byzantine territory and set off across modern-day Turkey. There they fought off numerous Seljuk armies, successfully laid siege to several port cities (establishing a sea-line of communication and supply), and ended up outside the walls of Jerusalem almost four years later. After capturing it, they withstood a countersiege by Fatimid armies before establishing the various small Crusader states in the Holy Land. Finally, the Crusaders had a huge advantage in that they were highly motivated by the goal of capturing Jerusalem, while the Muslim defenders were much less so.

Wait, how can that be? Isn’t Jerusalem one of Islam’s holiest sites? Well, yes and no. Jerusalem is not mentioned (by either its Hebrew or Arabic names) in the Qur’an. There is a mention of the Prophet Mohammed’s night journey to the “furthest mosque,” a title accorded to the al-Aqsa mosque on the Dome of the Rock (aka, the Temple Mount) in Jerusalem. The problem with that is that when the Prophet would have journeyed there (610 CE), there was a Byzantine Christian church on the site, but no mosque. The claims of al Quds (Jerusalem) as the “furthest mosque” really began after Muslim armies captured Jerusalem in 638 CE. So while the city had some import, it wasn’t the same for Muslim defenders and Crusader besiegers.

What led to the none-too-subtle shading of Crusades history? Salah al-din (a Kurd, by the way) famously emasculated the Crusader presence in the Holy Land in 1187 CE, and Islamic histories treated the period as a minor footnote, likening the Crusader presence to a temporary event of little significance. Likewise, Christian Europe lauded the individual crusaders but eventually came to see the overall enterprise as a failure. The Crusades became a historical trivia item, both East and West.

During the post World War II movement toward decolonization, however, activist academics cited the existing European colonies as modern-day Crusader states, and Arab nationalists grabbed hold of the claim, using it to bolster the cause of self-determination. The Crusades became a lens for arguing modern discontents, well beyond the historical record. Modern secular academics had a perfect foil in the Crusades: violent Catholic religious fanatics bent on subjugation against a peaceful, more enlightened Muslim opponent, who eventually prevailed.

So, the Crusaders certainly share a unique spot in military history. Are the Crusades something worth celebrating, or not? That is certainly a point for debate, but one that should be informed by the actual record, not a Monty Python skit version of history.