Altogether now: 'We apologize'
March 28, 2005
Editor's note: Michael Ackley's columns may include satire and parody based on current events, and thus mix fact with fiction. He assumes informed readers will be able to tell which is which.
News item: The world's highest Sunni Muslim authority has demanded an official apology from the pope for the medieval Christian crusades. The Morocco Times reported that Sheikh Fawzi Zafzaf, president of the Interfaith Dialogue Committee of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, said his panel sent the request to the Vatican in February. ...
Well ... OK. But as Pope John Paul II is unwell and cannot really speak for himself, let me apologize on his behalf.
After all, the papacy was behind the crusades from the beginning, with Pope Urban II and popes Eugenius III, Gregory VIII and Innocent III urging Christian attacks in what we laughingly call "the Holy Land." (I have the feeling I'm leaving out somebody else, so let me apologize for them, as well.)
And while I'm apologizing to the Muslims, let me also apologize to the Jews, because the Christian crusaders were rather hard on them. For that matter, I might as well apologize to all Christians, because while the crusaders – over the long haul – were failures militarily, they proved to be rather adept at sacking Christian cities, when the opportunity presented itself.
However, the Muslim's also need to apologize. Maybe Sheikh Fawzi Zafzaf would suffice as overall spokesman for the religion and apologize for Islam's military conquests and subjugation of the Jews and Christians of "the Holy Land," as well as those territories now masquerading as Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
And let's not forget Turkey. The Turks should apologize for conquering the eastern Mediterranean and a swath of Europe, creating an empire so large that you couldn't move without tripping over an Ottoman.
In fact, I tripped over an ottoman in my living room the other night while groping for the light switch, and an apology for this obstruction doesn't seem too much to ask.
But back to the crusades: Pope Urban II wouldn't have been so agitated if Caliph al-Hakam hadn't prohibited Christian pilgrimages around the end of the 10th century.
(This action likely contributed to al-Hakam's appellation, The Mad Caliph, though – as Grouch Marx might have said – he "wasn't mad, just terribly hurt.")
Al-Hakam started picking on Christians, so guys with names like Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless whipped up the First Crusade. Their relative success led to the popularity of nicknames in other lawless circles that persists to this day. (Thus we have "Jimmy the Weasel," "Willie the Dip" and "Tommy the Clod," as well as their Levantine counterparts, like "Ali the Oily" and "Hakim the Handless," an epithet attesting his ineptitude as a thief.)
After the Christians and the Muslims have finished apologizing, the Jews can apologize for taking over "the Holy Land" after their sojourn in the desert, the Assyrians can apologize for their depredations, and the Babylonians can apologize for enslaving the Jews.
The Persians can apologize for antagonizing the Greeks, the Greeks can apologize for inventing the strigil, the descendants of the Khans can apologize for terrorizing Asia and eastern Europe, the Spanish can apologize for wiping out the Aztecs, the Aztecs can apologize for subjugating Mexico.
The Japanese, Italians and Germans can apologize again for World War II, the United States can apologize for the fact everybody in the world doesn't live here, the Chinese can apologize for conquering Tibet, the Romans can apologize for becoming Italians, and Stephen Sondheim can apologize for "Into the Woods" and "Sweeny Todd."
And if all of this apologizing sounds like meaningless nonsense, it is, and for that I apologize – except for the part about Sondheim.
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Michael P. Ackley has worked more than three decades as a journalist, the majority of that time at the Sacramento Union. His experience includes reporting, editing and writing commentary. Recently, he retired from teaching journalism for California State University at Hayward.
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