The Unidentifiable Beauty of romanticizing facts

Our history is drowned with dark moments, some we do remember, some we don’t like to remember but most important is that we should remember the events where humanity took a wrong turn. We should teach the next generations about them, learn them to put dreadful happenings in the right context and hope history doesn’t repeat itself. It seems that over centuries the absolutely inhumane behaviour and excesses of crime against humanity are easily romanticized. Sometimes with commercial reason, pirates where just adventures people who didn’t harm anybody according to the Disney Studio’s, sometimes with evil propaganda in mind. The controversy about removing statues of Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney Johnston and other Confederate “heroes” in the southern states of America is almost getting to the same proportions as the violent discussion about the Black Piet in The Netherlands. I remember the American soldiers tearing down a statue of Saddam Hussein, because “the bad guys” should be erased out of history. Statues of Lenin were sold by the weight of the concrete and one of them turned up standing in the North-East of Groningen.

It’s important to preserve and study history, learn to acknowledge the dark moments and that the statues in the former confederate states represent the subjugation of African-Americans. If a statue had a plague with the historic facts, it could be a monument that learns next generations about the evil events of the past. Today, for white supremacists, these statues symbolize the hatred and bigotry, they feel and express so violently. It’s not just an American problem, this racism and worship of the symbols that stand for it. Nazi’s are marching openly, carriing their flags with swastikas, in more than just one country in Europe. Most people are appalled, remembering the outcome of the actions by the nazi’s in the second world war, by seeing these symbols rising again. A few are informed about the first World War and when it comes to the awful crimes their forefathers committed they don’t want to remember. It’s the length of time that seems to make history less important. There’s still so much anger that the Turks don’t want to commit to the word genocide when looking at the history of Armenia, but when it comes to the genocide of native Americans, nobody, except the ancestors of the victims, seems to care.

After many decades the Dutch gouvernment still has problems to recognize and apologize for the inhuman slaughters in their former colony Indonesia, when it comes to their role in the world wide business of slavery they still use incoherent words to describe one of the worse acts of crimes against humanity. It’s a subject where the Portuguese, so called brothers in arms, of the Dutch, could spent just a little more effort to teach that dark period of the country’s history their children. Of course there’s always a few sides to the same story. As Robert E. Lee is a hero to the uneducated and presidentially supported white supremacists in the southern states, Lenin’s ideology is still subscribed by many communists politicians, desperate young brainwashed muslims still walk around with Bin-Laden on their T-shirts and a new wave of German brown boots is worshipping one of the most evil minds in history, others are silent, maybe because of the fear of confrontation, or just not knowing how to stand up to all those threads to humanity. There are obvious solutions as to speak out against all forms of racism and bigotry, but if even politicians and gouvernments “go with the populist flow” that’s a scary thing to do. One of the other things we could do is stop romanticizing history and keep to the facts, teach our children the truth about Pirates, Templar Knights, Ninja’s and other murdering historic figures. Spiderman, Batman and Archie the man of Steel won’t come to the rescue, that’s for sure. The world that Asterix and Obelisk lived in wasn’t just an adventures time.

If you would ask any educated person nowadays what they think of the Isis terrorism, they will condemn all their actions and extreme religious explanations of their Koran. But they are a large organization of extreme devout Muslims with a mission: to protect the land from other religious influences and to spread their evil beliefs all over the world by killing innocent people and brainwash youngsters to be a part of their mission. They are financially supported by unknown “dark forces” but these people behind it are to important for business worldwide, so they are protected by most gouvernments in the world, money comes always first. So Isis is (maybe was by now) a wealthy, powerful and mysterious terrorist group that will fascinated historians for centuries in the future, their financial acumen, their blunt guerilla prowess and their killing on behalf of Islam will circulate as a warning example throughout future cultures. As they are supported by influential religious leaders and even certain gouverments, there no telling when they will be defeated. Isis gained enormous financial influence in the regions that they rule. Members seem to live up to rules of poverty, and obedience. They aren’t allowed to drink, gamble or swear, although raping and killing doesn’t be on the list of forbidden behaviour. Prayer seems essential to their daily life, and the members of Isis express a particular adoration for just a few quotes from the prophet Mohammed.
As their members grow in size and status, they are establishing new groups, I guess they are called “cell’s” nowadays,  throughout Western Europe, preparing for even more terrorist attacks. Are they at the height of their influence? Maybe, but with the financial support still coming from certain places, they are boasting a sizable amount of arms and held to no one’s authority, except maybe some secret sheik somewhere in the world.

Now, how will the average day people living in Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria or Afganistan, remember Isis in a few hundred years? Will they have statues? Will they romanticize their actions? Are they going to be condemned for their cruelties against humanity, like Hitler and his Nazi Army? Will there be groups of people marching with Isis flags whenever they need someone else to blame for the problems of those future days, as is happening now? Or will they be embraced as a defenders of the faith when these countries are still under islamic influence. It’s not impossible. There are examples of horrendous historic facts that have been romanticized. In 1139, Pope Innocent II issued a Papal Bull that allowed the Knights Templar special rights. Among them, the Templars were exempt from paying taxes, permitted to build their own oratories, and held to no one’s authority, except for some dark force, head of the Catholic Church, the Pope. They were old fashioned terrorists (the didn’t know the word though back then), who, after Christian armies in 1099 captured Jerusalem from Muslim control during the Crusades, defended groups of pilgrims from across Western Europe who started visiting the Holy Land, the first missioners for whom Christianity was the only way to avoid a life in hell. Though its original purpose was to protect pilgrims from danger, the Knights Templars progressively expanded their duties. They became defenders of the Crusader states in the Holy Land and were known as highly skilled warriors. The group developed a reputation as fierce fighters during the Crusades, driven by religious fervor and forbidden from retreating unless significantly outnumbered. The Templars built numerous castles and fought, and often won, battles against Muslim armies. Their fearless style of fighting became a model for other military and terrorist later on..  Well, soon it would be Catholicism that would claim “the truth”. Centuries later, they proved to be real religious terrorist by killing al Jews, or more gently ban them, from Spain and Portugal, the reason there were so many Jews living in Amsterdam when the next hunt by Nazi Germany started. By now half of the world prays in Catholic Churches, even in the middle of Africa or the Rainforests of Southern America. Sometimes converted with the help of knowledge but more often by blunt force and genocide.

How people will look on Isis in a few hundred years, who knows? It all depends on how history will evolve. If you are on the winners side of history, facts are soon forgotten! Still today, Templar Knights are worshipped in the region of Portugal where they build most of their castles and left a dominant footprint, a good reason to have celebrations, festivals and parades. It’s good for commercial reasons, tourists are attracted by the medieval scenery, and especially foreign immigrants invented a romantic ointment over the horrific and violent truth. The Cubans got the Castro Family, Russia has Stalin, The French have Napoleon, The Dutch got, together with Portugal there slave merchants and colonizing history, all historic times that turned out to be hard to appologize for.  At least the Germans found away to handle their history, but then again a new generations of Nazi’s is growing. The Portuguese seem to have a thicker skin and came up with a solution for a dark part of their history, giving it a touch of romance and glitter... but then again, “God” already punished them with a big earthquake, tsunami, and hell’s fire, killing thousands of church going people on All Saint’s day in 1755.