ABOUT THE IDENTITY OF EUROPE : WHY IT IS A PROBLEM ? (1)
Hans-Peter Geissen
Turquie Europeenne, France
Oct 25 2006
Certainly, we may assume that everybody who speaks about Europe
knows that "Erep" is an ancient Syrian (Semitic) term meaning sunset,
or west; and that its opposite is "Assu", the sunrise, or east.
Hans-Peter Geissen lives in Koblenz (Germany), at the confluence of the
Rhine and Moselle rivers. Interested in all what concerns faunistics
(data about animal species) of the Midrhine region, he is the author
of many scientific publications on these issues. He bent on the Turkish
issue with a very specific approach so as "to prevent a self-definition
of Europe on the grounds of historical or religious mythologies."
It is therefore clear that Europe is not Asia, just as East is
not West. Moreover, there is no difficulty to understand that the
term means a direction on the surface on the earth and therefore is
geographical. The difficulty lies in the fact that it is a relative
term, depending on the viewpoint of the observer. From a North
American viewpoint, for instance, Erep is what we commonly call
Japan and China, and Assu may start in Iceland or France. But for
orientation as to what may be meant in global terms we may take the
ancient city of Assur, which is in today’s northern Iraq.
The "Christian Club" It may then seem astonishing that quite a many of
people claim that Europe’s identity would be harmed by a religion,
Islam. Or that "the European Union must decide whether it is a
Christian Club", as Mr. Erdogan had put it some times ago. Religion is
not a geographical term. Then, how can it determine or harm something
geographical ?
That seems quite nonsensical.
Nevertheless, we may look at this from an empirical viewpoint and
establish that here the term has been shifted from a geographical to
a spiritual meaning.
We cannot henceforth discuss the issue in geographic terms, and
it would mean a serious confusion of mind were we to determine
geographical borders of spirit.
As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had it: "The Spirit blows wherever it
wants so." Or not, as we might add.
However, we might move to a common denominator of geography and human
spirit, which we may find in history. It may reveal which spirit was
blowing where, and even when. And more.
Of course, then, we must restrict ourselves to times when Christianity
at least was in existence. In this sense, Cesar or Cicero, Socrates
or Aristoteles, Vercingetorix or Armin(ius) were not European. And
in fact, the term "European" was not in use in these times.
It came into use in the Middle Ages, when indeed spiritual and
geographical terms mingled. It is difficult for us today, to understand
what exactly the term "Holy Roman Empire" meant. Perhaps, it would
be wrong to search for accuracy in this context. But it is clear that
"holy" is a spiritual term and "Rome" a geographical one.
And "empire" relates to space, too, at least in effect.
However, "European" did not just relate to that empire, which roughly
contained what today is Germany and (north to central) Italy, and some
neighboring regions. "Europe" in this sense also contained France,
Britain and (northern) Spain as well. "European" was a political term
meaning those lands who provided warriors for crusades against the
Muslims, then established in what was not "Europe".
The very term "crusade", of course, related to the Christian cross,
so we may guess that the spiritual meaning is quite obvious.
"Europe", then, is a bigger "Holy Empire", or, in German, a "Reich".
Moreover, it is anti-Islamic by definition. But if we look at crusades
in a broader context, they were, at times, also directed against
the "pagans" in eastern regions of what then became "Europe", and
against the Orthodox church. "Crusades" were also directed against
deviant Western Christian groups like the Catharians, Albigensians,
or Waldensians.
We can, thus, not describe this Europe as simply Christian. It is
more precisely Roman-Christian.
The Problem
We may then ask why this should be a problem today. Didn’t we have
developments like Humanism and Enlightenment, which surpassed the
boundaries of (Western) Christianity. Hadn’t already the Anglicans,
the Lutherans and Calvinists, and finally the French Revolution
succeeded in breaking free of Roman domination? Hadn’t the popes
even been removed from Rome to Avignon and then, already in 1338,
even been denied a role in the elevation of the "Holy Roman" emperor?
Don’t we include Orthodox Christianity in Europe, relate our thinking
to Aristotle and Cicero, or even mention a "Jewo"-Christian heritage?
Aren’t we secularists today, isn’t even the Roman Church in favor
of secularism?
Yes. And yet, we inherited antiislamism. It is this inherited
antiislamism that is motivating the fundamental-opposition against
Turkey’s EU-accession, and it is in many of the more subtle forms of
opposition or even of apparent approval.
A matter of "evil" It may be fatal to underestimate the
consequences. Spiritually, what is inherited here implicates the
eradication of the evil. The physical appearance of the evil may be
Albigensians, Iberian or Balkan Muslims, or witches, or wolves, or the
"Jewish World Conspiracy". Indeed, the "Third Reich" may be explicable
best in terms of this heritage. We may ask wether Stalinism isn’t
just another of its distant consequences, irrespective wether some
historians call it "Asiatic". Stalinism is about eradication of the
(perceived) evil and is quite alien to any Asian culture, as far as
my limited knowledge can reach.
There are more subtle forms of this heritage. Despite we know well
about the importance of Islamic societies in the Iberian peninsula and
Sicily for the development of both European Humanism and Enlightenment,
and we don’t bother to use Arabic numerals and Arabic terms like
algebra and chemistry – "European History" ist mostly described as
if it were without an Islamic heritage. But in fact, its development
is not at all understandable without.
Not without Islamic cultures and not without antiislamism.
That is, we are dealing with an interaction, with synergistic and
antagonistic aspects. This in turn is of course just one of the
interactions that formed Europe, both on a European and global scale.
In fact, Islamic rule in Iberia tolerated large Christian and Jewish
populations, and here it was that ancient Greek and other (Roman,
Persian, Arabic) authors were translated from Arabic to West-European
languages. Ironically, while "the evil" was eradicated in the Iberian
peninsula, it expanded in the Balkan peninsula. And, still, in the
Anatolian peninsula, where however it had started earlier.
The Ottomans Ottoman expansion in the Balkans caused a flood of
antiturkish and antiislamic propaganda that is an essential part of our
"European Heritage". The Ottoman proceedings in this conquest gave
considerable reasons for deepest fears. First, they were militarily
superior due to combined use of the disciplined (and quite Roman)
Jannissary phalanx and Turkmenic light cavallery, superior logistics on
campaign and in finance, and by the early use of cannons and musquets.
Moreover, they allied with and co-opted Christian princes of the
Balkan people, and finally the whole "Byzantine" (Orthodox) church.
For the commoners, things depended on their geographic position. In
the respective borderlands, they were subjected to the never-ending
"Akinci" raids, which were among the reasonable grounds to name
"the Turk" "terrible". "He" indeed was.
Which doesn’t mean that "Christian" raids into Ottoman lands were
much different.
Whatsoever, once inside the Ottoman Empire, the "Pax Ottomanica"
had considerable advantages. Exploitation of the peasantry remained
comparativly low and didn’t imply serfdom. Nor were they forced to
change their religious creed. Even many of those who had been enslaved
in Akinci raids could hope to be manumitted some years later and find
acceptable conditions of life. However, in their case conversion to
Islam was strongly advisable.
Peasants and other commoners living further apart from Ottoman
frontiers could compare the rumours coming in from the "Turkish
empire", relating to the absence of serfdom and of religious
persecution for instance, with their current conditions.
This in turn was probably reason enough to rain down as much defaming
propaganda against "the Turk" on the boorish people as possible. Most
efficiently from the church pulpits and at times in daily rhythm. Not
much fantasy is needed to imagine why the effects may still be seen
easily in Austria and Southern Germany, whereas they are much weaker
in Northern Germany, or in Scandinavia.
Ottoman effects on European Christianity There were several political
effects of Ottoman policies on European Christianity. First, they
inherited from the Seljuks and other Islamic principalities the
sympathy with the monophysite churches, especially the Armenian and
Syrian, and their protection against the impositions of the Greek
(Orthodox) church. Even more importantly, they first weakened but
then protected the Orthodox themselves.
Rather decisive for European history were their wars against Catholic
Habsburg, without which the survival and establishing of Lutheran
and Calvinist Protestantism would in all probability not have been
possible.
And then we have the example of Transsylvania, which under Ottoman
suzerainity saw the Orthodox, Lutherans, Catholics and Calvinists
(and a few Armenians) live together quite peacefully. Which means
that the first peaceful coexistence of the major European Christian
denominations was possible under Ottoman rule, and only under Ottoman
rule it was even thinkable.
One should probably not underestimate the pedagogical effects on the
whole of Europe. The autonomous principality of Transsylvania was at
that time a major trade post between Central and Southeastern Europe,
extending to Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands, Anatolia and the
Balkans, the northern Black Sea region, even to Italy and Sweden.
Unforeseen, or nearly so, here we are back in geography. Once again,
admittedly. History is used here as a common denominator of the two.
Spiritually, there were virtually no Muslims in this "second
convivenza", and Jews were largely excluded from the public sphere.
And nonetheless, it was again Muslim request that enabled coexistence
of Christians.
Next we will see that secular Christians still imagine that they
developed secularism without the help of Muslims, and even against
"Asiatic Despotism". Historically, of course, this is just a silly
and self-serving imagination.
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