Root Out This Sinister Cultural Flaw

Root out this sinister cultural flaw

Even vote-hungry politicians fail to see anti-semitism for what it is

Karen Armstrong, Wednesday April 6, 2005, The Guardian

In 1492, the year that is often said to inaugurate the modern era,
three very important events happened in Spain. In January, the Catholic
monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella conquered the city of Granada, the last
Muslim stronghold in Europe; later, Muslims were given the choice of
conversion to Christianity or exile. In March, the Jews of Spain were
also forced to choose between baptism and deportation. Finally, in
August, Christopher Columbus, a Jewish convert to Catholicism and a
protege of Ferdinand and Isabella, crossed the Atlantic and discovered
the West Indies. One of his objectives had been to find a new route to
India, where Christians could establish a military base for another
crusade against Islam. As they sailed into the new world, western
people carried a complex burden of prejudice that was central to their
identity.

Western Europe found it impossible to live side by side with people of
other faiths. Islamic Spain had been the great exception. As was
customary in the Muslim world, Jews, Christians and Muslims had
coexisted there for centuries in relative harmony. But the Catholic
monarchs brought their ingrained anti-semitism to the Iberian
peninsula, and the chief targets of their Spanish Inquisition were
Jews. Ever since the armies of the First Crusade conquered Jerusalem in
1099, Jews and Muslims had become the epitome of everything that
western Christians believed they were not.

Almost every time a pope called for a crusade to the Middle East, Jews
were attacked at home. Christians seemed to find it psychologically
impossible to accept the Jewish roots of their religion. At the same
time, Islam was stigmatised as a religion of the sword, addicted to
jihad, at a time when Christians were fighting their own brutal holy
wars. Christians blamed Muslims for giving too much power to menials
and women at a time when the social structure of Europe was deeply
hierarchical.

It would be wrong to imagine that we have left these hag-ridden
prejudices behind. They may take new forms, but even in the
post-Enlightenment era anti-semitism and Islamophobia are alive and
well. We recently witnessed the extraordinary spectacle of a government
that had proposed legislation outlawing religious hatred comparing
Michael Howard to Fagin. We also saw Ken Livingstone comparing a Jewish
reporter to a Nazi guard in a concentration camp.

We have not absorbed the lessons of the past; already - at some level
- we seem to have forgotten Auschwitz. Prince Harry found it acceptable
to go to a fancy dress party as a Nazi; is this attitude common among
the young? After the Fagin debacle, the government added insult to
injury by branding Howard a pig and a mongrel, jibes that come straight
out of Nazi propaganda, and Howard himself lost the moral high ground
by attacking the Gypsies, who were also victims of Nazi persecution.

This is a sinister development. Racial and religious stereotyping
became a chronic disease in Europe at the time of the Crusades. We
developed the habit of projecting our own fears and anxieties on to
other people, who thus became a distorted mirror image of ourselves.
This led to some of the most shameful incidents in western history.

September 11 has, perhaps inevitably, stirred up the old Islamophobia.
The action of an extremist minority has confirmed the old violent image
of Islam. The government is right to be concerned about religious
hatred; what is worrying is that it failed to connect this with its own
behaviour. These episodes are a reminder that anti-semitism is still so
ingrained in our culture that even vote-hungry politicians can fail to
see it for what it is. We cannot continue to ignore this deep cultural
flaw, which can surface in the most unexpected ways.

So entrenched is our anti-semitism that even support for the Jewish
people can be tainted by prejudice. Lord Balfour, who crafted the
declaration in favour of a Jewish homeland in 1917, had anti-semitic
feelings, which, his daughter recalled, greatly disturbed him.

Christian fundamentalists in the United States, who strongly influence
American policy in the Middle East, are also prey to anti-semitic
fantasies. They are zealous supporters of Israel, because they believe
that unless Jews are living in the Holy Land and fulfilling the ancient
prophecies, the second coming of Christ will be delayed. But the
Israelis are simply there in a "holding" capacity, because once the
last days have begun, the Antichrist will massacre them all.

We cannot ask other nations to dismantle their habits of hatred when
we fail to be aware of our own cultural bias. Muslims are well aware of
this anti-semitic strain in the Christian Zionism of the US. How can we
expect them to abandon their resentment of Israel when our own ideology
is so muddled? Why should they be impressed by our liberal culture when
we persistently cultivate an inaccurate image of Islam that has its
roots in the medieval prejudice of the crusaders? And how can Israelis
feel secure enough to make peace when they see that anti-semitism is
still rife among the British establishment?

For centuries, Jews and Muslims were the shadow-self of Europe. Sadly,
we have passed our anti-semitism to the Muslim world. Until the 20th
century, anti-semitism was not part of Islamic culture. The Qur'an
speaks respectfully of all the "people of the Book" and honours the
Jewish prophets. But now our anti-semitic mythology is one of the few
western products that Muslim extremists are happy to import. It is
another sad twist in the tragic and convoluted history of the three
religions of Abraham.

Karen Armstrong is the author of The Battle for God, A History of
Fundamentalism.