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Subject: 
Re: Military Lego Sets
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Tue, 4 Sep 2001 23:58:21 GMT
Viewed: 
1000 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Lindsay Frederick Braun writes:
In lugnet.dear-lego, Victor Knight writes:
In lugnet.dear-lego, Pedro Silva writes:

<snippage>

Um did you forget the Arabs came to the Iberian peninsula via war and rape?
Talk about one-sided historical revisionism.

  If you're trolling, you just caught a live one.

  <sarcasm>

  Talk about value-laden throwaway lines!  Yes, through rape,
  the Muslim armies of Tarikh ibn Zayid conquered the mighty
  and highly moral Visigothic kingdoms in Iberia, which were
  just paragons of high and holy virtues (just don't look
  over there at that noisy pogrom or the other).  And it was
  only by brutality that they stayed in power for 780+ years
  (over *six times longer* than the reign of the Visigoths they
  displaced, and longer than the Western Roman Empire existed,
  period).  That whole peace and scholarship thing is a sham,
  because the Arabs got there through war!

  </sarcasm>

  What exactly is Pedro's line a revision *of*?  Ever since
  Watt's history in 1967, if not before, that's been the accepted
  scholarly view on Islamic Spain by people who know a heck of a
  lot more about it than most everyone else and have spent
  their lives in the archives and documents.  Cordova and
  Gran Granada were a good lot better administratively, in terms of
  religious tolerance, educationally, and even economically than
  anywhere in Europe until the the fifteenth century, when, as
  "war and rape" would have it, they were ejected by the "new"
  Iberians in one of the bloodiest campaigns ever waged on the
  peninsula. Read your history books about just what happened to
  groups like the Jews, who had been protected under the Muslims
  (though not granted equal status), once the Reconquista was
  complete.  And, of course, never mind the fate of Muslims who
  fell into Christian hands.  NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition,
  which was first created in 1478 with the blessing of Pope Sixtus V
  for the express purpose of "cleansing" Iberia of those pesky
  unbelievers.

  And how on Earth is Pedro's view one-sided?  How could *anything*
  be more one-sided than an essentialized image of vicious Arab
  thugs and virtuous, moral, peaceful Visigoths (hang on, let me
  finish laughing)?  It sounds like you're reading the past with the
  values of the present, which is plausible for 1900 AD but not
  even *slightly* so for 711 AD.  It might not even be so for 1492.

  One-sided historical revisionism indeed.


Lindsay,

Since you are knocking down a straw man of your own creation, it's no wonder
that you come out best in this exchange. Victor made NO value judgment on
the vices or virtues of any of the combatants on the Iberian peninsula. He
simply reminded us that the Arabs were there as colonizers, having arrived
through armed force. That the colonized would not appreciate the incursion
and would fight back should not surprize us -- the pattern has been followed
the world over (ie Moguls in India, Ottomans in Hungary, Europeans just
about everywhere).

Alan



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Military Lego Sets
 
(...) This isn't a straw man--reading the context and understanding the implications of the charges made, he's faulting Pedro for not invalidating Muslim Spain's relatively peaceful and prosperous existence during even the late stages of the (...) (23 years ago, 5-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Military Lego Sets
 
(...) If you're trolling, you just caught a live one. <sarcasm> Talk about value-laden throwaway lines! Yes, through rape, the Muslim armies of Tarikh ibn Zayid conquered the mighty and highly moral Visigothic kingdoms in Iberia, which were just (...) (23 years ago, 3-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

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