Wake Up & Smell the Holy War

Does anyone remember the Crusades from history?   Perhaps Texas has cut that from history text books as well!   Well briefly the Crusades were a military sanctioned war by Christian Europe against Middle East Muslims.   The crusades lasted from the 11^th thru the 13^th centuries.  Now in the 21^st century we have seen Jihad by Islamic radicals against non-Muslims and now I feel the tide is turning back the pages of history and we are getting ready to see another Crusade era.   The rhetoric surrounding the proposed mosque in NYC near Ground Zero, and the most recent media ploy by some two bit pastor in Florida claiming to burn the Qur’an on the anniversary of 9/11 is bringing about a hint of the Crusades to my ears.

Some may argue that we entered a holy war the minute we sat foot in Iraq.   It is true that anti-Islamic sentiments have been growing in volume since we declared war.   In return it has become easier for Americans to lump Islamic radicals in with Islam because it is a religion not understood in our largely Judeo-Christian society.  

There is no denying that everything changed on 9/11.  Americans definitely became more aware of Islam.   However aware we became the dialogue about the Middle East and Muslims since then surrounding Islam I think like most things in our society we allowed to become politicized reducing it all down to quick, easy sound bytes instead of full fledged informed conversations.

It is interesting that Christians conveniently forget about the Crusades the same way they tend to forget more recent history like The Salem Witch trials, slavery, the KKK, Fred Phelps in Kansas.   So called “witches,” were hung in Salem, Mass. By Christians out of situations we have since learned were ignorant misunderstandings.  Many Slave owners justified owning slaves thru selected text in the Bible.  More recently the KKK claims to burn crosses and terrorizes African Americans and people of Jewish faith in the name of God and even more beguiling is the pastor in Kansas that believes in hating soldiers and homosexuals.   So Christians have their radicals too.  

I won’t go into core beliefs held by both religious faiths that they both share; but it is sad that most that spread this kind of hatred are ignorant of some of the really beautiful tenets both Christians and Muslims share.   I have long maintained that ignorance is the biggest weapon of mass destruction known to man.   Ignorance begets misunderstanding, lies, and ultimately hate.

The past decade we have seen our precious American society go backwards in time.   Forgetting history and repeating it.   We have seen the all too eerie return to a war type mentality that closely resembles the horrific Vietnam War era.   In the latter years of this decade we have seen our own consumer based desires and Bush economics bring us back to a time that closely resembles the Great Depression.   

I believe that we chance a return back in our history time machine again to a time reminiscent of the Crusades if we continue to spread this anti-Islamic rhetoric.   Repeating history as we have seen in the past ten years is a costly and deadly course of direction.   Repeating history is a very harmful symptom of the disease of Ignorance.   The less we know the easier it gets to let those with their own greedy agendas to knock the foundation out from under a society and inject their own venom.   The New York City mosque debate & the nut job pastor in Florida calling for Americans to burn a Qur’an may seem like headlines that we take for granted will disappear in a few days but for me they are red flags that something more uglier is festering and boiling underneath and I’m afraid if we don’t recall our history we might just be gearing up for another holy war.