Peter Brown wrote:OlivierK wrote:So...
What does that tell you about the quality of the video?
That it has a heavy religious slant, but the evangelising does give that away anyhow.
I still think the basic premise is true that history can be distorted by not informing just as much as by informing only in spin doctoring.
I definitely agree that history may be distorted by the non-telling of some bits of it, but that is not the same kind of claim as of it not being told because of an agenda.
European writers have largely been preoccupied with European happenings; same is true in China about Chinese happenings, Thailand of Thai happenings, and so on. The bias in favour of tales in English about Christian Crusades would seem to me to be the product of a research bias, a linguistic bias, a cultural bias, and probably a market bias.
I am not even going to attempt to look up books in Arabic about the expansion of Islam, but I find it very difficult to believe that no such books exist in Arabic and other languages within the Islamic sphere. Although, I would expect that Muslim books in India, Persia/Iran, and the ex-Khaganates will be more specific to the Muslim conquest of Asia than N Africa.
What is of interest is how the guy on the video keeps mentioning N Africa, because it was part of the Christian sphere.
However, when you look at that claim a little closer, you'd quickly see how problematic, and even self-defeating that is for him when N Africa has clearly been under an Islamic sphere for far longer than it ever was under a Christian one.
He specifically mentioned Augustine - he's still harping about the loss of the bishopric of Hippo Regius over 1500 years later!
It begs poking at... exactly how long had Hippo Regius been Christian? Officially, since 380 CE after the Emperor Theodosius I legislated a state religion - the entire empire was now officially Christian. The Christian's claim to spiritual rights in this land are the product of a tyrant's decree!
Even that didn't last long, just 50 years later, the Vandals invaded Hippo Regius as the Western Roman Empire begun to crumble and Augustine died during the siege. Not that Geseric's Vandal Kingdom lasted long either as problems then began due to internecine conflict between the ruling elite Arian-Christian vandals, and their Trinitarian subjects.
This is where push really comes to shove for Western Christians, and is at the root of the divide between them and the Orthodox Christians: Augustine had effectively created the basis for the rights of the Catholic Church - the Trinitarians (essentially all of Western Christians) employed Augustine's writings as the basis for the rights of many aspects of their Church in Rome, and its role in society. You can see why this nettles somewhat!
Onwards it goes as the city's captured back briefly before once again falling under the 'wrong' type of Christianity after being conquered by the Eastern Roman in 534 AD, and then remained under Byzantine rule until 698 AD when it finally fell to the Umayyad Caliphate.
The Christians who lost it to the Muslims were the 'wrong' Christians!
But if we return to the first point: there are many bits of history not told, and history can indeed be distorted by the not telling of it. But why don't we regularly see books on this period of history? (Actually, I expect we would find plenty if we really looked - I've got a couple!) Now, I expect there is actually an element of the Catholic Church's power over the ages in there when everyone in Europe was Catholic by decree, and learning was largely the remit of the Church and its clergy - that's not to say they didn't know of these tales, but 'they' represented only a tiny fraction of the population of Europe.
But I expect why we don't really see much about it today is the same reasons I gave earlier: The bias against tales in English about the Christian period in Africa would seem to me to be the product of a research bias, a linguistic bias, a cultural bias, and probably a market bias. Europeans no longer see North Africa as part of their sphere, so they're just not as interested in it.
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