Well, I have to say that I did not exactly enjoy these chapters. They were (in my opinion) the most confusing of all of them because she was trying to do a more blended historical context of more recent events that have led to the current conflict and situation in Jerusalem. There were some interesting points that she made, or rather things that she said. One of them was "if charity and loving kindness were indeed the hallmarks of faith, Christianity had clearly failed in Jerusalem." I think that this is an important quote to pay attention to because it reinforced my feeling that she was much harder on the Christians in this narrative than she was the Muslims or the Jews. I think there are several reasons for this, one of them being that she herself is Christian and to avoid appearing biased or ignorant she obviously wanted to be extra critical of the Christians role in all of this.
I thought something else that was interesting (and that Dr. Horowitz also mentioned in class) was the fact that a Muslim family has been and is still responsible for the key to the sepulcher. I found this to be surprising and sad. Surprising that the Jews would let a Muslim family have it and sad that the Jews couldn't be trusted with it themselves. The main theme that I drew from this book was this:
religion is corruptive and causes division; things done in the name of God are quite often wrong; and that everyone in this situation is guilty. Everyone committed atrocities and drew blood. No one's hands are clean and no one should be exempt from that blame. I think that the only way to ever live in peace with other people, no matter where one might be in the world or what religion one practices, is to take responsibility for your actions and to accept that the mistakes of the past do not have to dictate the choices made in the future. This book is exhausting, troubling, and frustrating, as is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. All people want to do is talk and talk.. and talk. Although communication is vital to the resolution of any disagreement, actions (like the hand-in-hand schools for example) are the ONLY way to come to an understanding.
There were definitely times in the book I thought she was hardest on the Christians and I agree it most likely has something to do with her being Christian and im sure with her vast and intimate knowledge of the religion she maybe felt more comfortable critizing Christianity. I like that you added actions are the only way to really change the situation and I think that books like this one, while very confusing, need to be read and history needs to be learned before action can take place because it is only by really understanding another culture that we can effectively communicate with one!
ReplyDeleteI too agree with your point about her interpretation of Christian involvement in Jerusalem. As we discussed at the beginning of class, her efforts to remain un-biased might actually result in a very real bias. This isn't to say that Christians weren't responsible for a lot of bad things in the area, but I don't think it's as cut and dry as "Christian rule was bad, Muslim rule was good". If we were able to go back in time I think the reality would show good and bad leaders on both sides.
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