OK, I’ll bite. . . Fiorina and the Middle Ages

Last updated on: January 26, 2016 at 7:44 pm by Jane the Actuary

OK, I’ll bite. . . Fiorina and the Middle Ages 2016-01-26T19:44:13-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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So reports are that Fiorina is using as an applause line, the claim that her undergraduate degree in medieval history gives her a special understanding of ISIS and how to respond to them. It goes like this, according to ABC News:

“Finally my degree in medieval history and philosophy has come in handy,” Fiorina said Sunday night, “because what ISIS wants to do is drive us back to the Middle Ages, literally.” . . .

Pressed to explain how her bachelor’s degree in medieval history will help her in dealing with ISIS, Fiorina listed off a number of brutal techniques that ISIS is using that were common in medieval times and said it is not an exaggeration to say that the group is operating under a mentality based in the Middle Ages.

“Every single one of the techniques that ISIS is using, the crucifixion, the beheadings, the burning alive, those were commonly used techniques in the Middle Ages,” Fiorina told reporters during a media availability, “so we can’t avert our eyes and pretend it’s an exaggeration that ISIS wants to take its territory back to the Middle Ages but that is in truth what they want to do and are attempting to do.”

Now, as you can imagine, it didn’t take long for columns to appear criticizing her (and for my old Medievalist grad school friends to start sharing these links on facebook):

The Guardian published, “No, Carly Fiorina, a degree in medieval history doesn’t qualify you to fight Isis,” by David M Perry, who says he’s a professor, though The Guardian doesn’t provide his credentials — it’s likely, though, that he’s a professor of history at Dominican University in Illinois. His main complaint is that

It’s vital to recognize, though, as John Terry writes in Slate, that the viciousness of Isis emerges from its modernity, not its artificial links to the past. Terry writes: “Isis is not re-enacting the seventh-century Arab conquests, even though some among its ranks may think they are. They’re nostalgic for a make-believe past, and those among them who know plenty about Islam’s first decades have conveniently revised medieval history to fit modern ideological needs.”

Isis depends on modernity. Their growth was made possible by modern wars – from the division of the Middle East post-World War I to the most recent wars in Iraq and Syria. It’s only in this ultra-modern context that a group like Isis could grow and flourish. They expertly deploy modern technology to recruit and communicate. Some of their recruits even purchased Islam for Dummies before trying to head to the war zone. Now there’s an ultra-modern “fake it until you make it” mentality.

And the New York Times published, “Carly Fiorina Goes Medieval,” by Bruce Holsinger, professor of English at the University of Virginia, who has three gripes: first, the fact that Fiorina ignores the very “modern” nature of ISIS, e.g., their use of social media; second, her seeming rationale that if ISIS is “primitive” they do not deserve Geneva Convention protections; and third, the fact that she maligns this world which she studied, during which the university developed, where torture, common misperceptions aside, fell into disuse, and in which Muslim-ruled Spain is hailed as tolerant of diverse religions.

So: to begin with, let’s understand Fiorina’s central point. Really all she’d doing is saying, “don’t pretend these things are all exaggerations; recognize that human being are indeed capable of horrifying brutality and this is what’s happening here.” She’s labeling this as “middle ages” to make a connection to her degree, but she’s saying that we have a responsibility to recognize what ISIS is doing. Everyone likes to say of the Holocaust, “never again,” but no one actually wants to sacrifice the lives of our countrymen to do anything about it. (Not that there are necessarily any good answers in every case.)

But let’s think about this further: is there a better sound bite Fiorina could have adopted, a better way to connect the study of Medieval history to the present-day situation with ISIS?

Let’s start with the fact that the straw-man/knee-jerk “liberal” explanation for all manner of unhappiness is that the Middle East is angry and resentful because the West colonized them. It’s true that countries such as Britain were quite busy creating colonies all over the world in the 1800s, but the British controlled Iraq for only a brief period of time, after the defeat of the Ottomans in World War I; the French stuck around somewhat longer in Syria, until the end of World War II, but in both cases this is only a small piece of a much larger history of rule by one empire after the next, from the Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians, to Alexander the Great and the Macedonians, the Roman Empire, to the first Islamic Empires, to the Mongols and the Ottoman Turks.

And it’s true, though a trivial observation, to say that ISIS says, and believes, that they are on a mission to reclaim for Islam all territory that had ever been under Islamic rule — and don’t forget that this includes Spain, in the Middle Ages, and included the Balkans and significant portions of present-day Hungary during the Ottoman expansion. (No, I’m not sourcing this — go read Wikipedia. Fun fact: the reason why there were ethnic Germans in Hungary was because the country had lost a significant portion of its population by the beginning of the 1700s when the Ottomans were kicked out.) There is also, consequently, a long history of Muslim vs. Christian warfare, though generally in the form of Muslim conquest and Christian reconquest (e.g., Spain, Sicily, and, attempted, in the Holy Land, during the Middle Ages; Greece and Ottoman Turkish Europe later), if for no other reason than because the Christians were there first, and one might reasonably question to what extent the desire to propagate Islam was a motivator, vs. waves of conquering tribes who just happened to be, or became, Muslim.

Now, to be sure, the varying Muslim rulers did not compel their subjects to convert to Islam, though the record of tolerance is clearer in some times and places than others. In places such as Spain or Greece, the Moors and the Turks, respectively, were the ruling elite with the mass of the population largely remaining Christian. In other places, a significant minority of Christians remained until comparatively recently (e.g., ,the Coptic and Chaldean Christians, and even Christian Palestinians). But in the western half of North Africa, existing Christian churches were in fact wiped off the map, not immediately, but within a couple centuries of the Islamic conquest (see here for my prior post, or go to your local library).

Besides which, does it do any good to say, “oh, no, ISIS misunderstands the history of Islam, which is replete with tolerance”? Whether the Caliphate they seek is a real historical event or wholly imaginary, it does no good to deny what they’re up to, or to treat them as inconsequential. Remember that idiotic Margaret Mead-attributed quote? “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” (Perhaps it shows my age to even mention it; all sorts of activists friends in college loved this quote.)

But remember that whole Arc of History bit? Well, you probably don’t, but Obama was on a kick about saying that “history does not belong” to the Bad Guys because we, the Good Guys, will inevitably win, and I was on a kick about this, blogging-wise, last fall, here and here.

What history ought to teach us is that there’s a whole parade of empires, nations, rulers, elected officials, and over and over again they’ve thought that the brutality of the past is over with, only to discover that it reappears. After all, how was it that the Nazis succeeded? In part, because to so many people, what they were doing was incomprehensible in a civilized society. German Jews who could have fled, didn’t, because the path the Nazis planned was unimaginable. All over Europe, Jews reported for “resettlement” because no one could fathom it being anything other than what the Germans claimed it was.

And, yes, every such empire ultimately disappears and we can imagine it was because Good Won Out, but only if we ignore the tremendous human cost in the meantime.

Now, does History teach us the precise strategy to use with respect to ISIS, or, now, with respect to Putin? No, not really. As much as there are common themes, there is also no one single template such a war takes. Does History tell us to Stay the Hell Out? Only if you deliberately choose that interpretation. What about “don’t go to war in the Middle East without a good exit plan”, as the Guardian writer counsels? No, there is nothing unique about the Middle East except that we’ve created an image in our minds — the Romans, Arabs, Mongols and the Turks had no problem “going to war” there, though admittedly they had no interest in “exiting”. (Places such as Afghanistan may be a different story, though not because of history so much as geography.)

What about with respect to the masses flowing from the Middle East and beyond into Germany — does History allow us to predict the end result? Can we say, “just as Germanic tribes flowing into the Roman Empire caused its fall, so too these new invaders will destroy Germany”? No, not really. The fate of Germany is in its leaders’ hands, not a matter of some relentless force called History.

Now, I’ll grant you this, though: Putin’s entry into the conflict in Syria shouldn’t have been the least bit of a surprise, and it’s a reminder that a wait-and-see dithering about isn’t going to make the problem go away of its own accord.

What the study of history can offer are potential paths, pitfalls, directions, patterns, and reminders that nothing’s as easy as it looks. It’s a cautionary tale, and, most of all, it’s a reminder that there is a bigger picture and a larger context to current affairs than a simply decade or even century look back.

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