Historical Figures are my Friends

Historians have the habit of being gay for whoever they are studying. In, and of itself, this may not be a bad thing and it may fuel the type of intelllectual love that creates the best works of scholarship. But, it occasionally leads historians to gloss over the truth and romantacize those from days of yore who were just bastards.

Case in point: Jefferson Gray's article http://www.historynet.com/holy-terror-the-rise-of-the-order-of-assassins.htm/1f-the-order-of-assassins.htm/1 on The Order of Assassins. The Order were 11th century Persian holy warriors following a frigging awesome offshot of Shiiteism. They killed those who had previously targeted them. In this article, Gray says

There is little doubt they would have viewed the tactics employed by modern Middle Eastern terrorist groups—particularly their targeting of unarmed civilians—with incomprehension and disdain.

Here is a case where we have something contemporary and therefore easily hateable like suicide bombers being distanced from other historical and therefore more intellectually interesting terrorists like The Order of Assasins. In other parts of his article, Gray reveals that

Whenever possible, The Order won over other fortified places through missionary activity called "propaganda." But The Order was equally prepared to resort to coups or direct assault, to "slaughter, ravishment, pillage, bloodshed, and war," reported Juvaini, the 13th-century Persian historian who participated in the Mongol destruction of Alamut in 1256, "and wherever he found a suitable rock he built a castle upon it.

Its difficult to take a positive spin on slaughter, ravishment and pillage that The Order participated in. Are we to believe they only performed these actions on armed soldiers? Did members of the order never kill innocent people? If that is the case, then pillage is certainly the wrong word. Pillaging holds a lot of nasty connotations. In this case, Gray doesn't seem interested in exploring them.

Looking back historically does funny things to our sense of right and wrong. It has done great things for Genghis Khan's PR for one. And, the guy who commisioned the builiding of the Taj Mahal is remembered as a sweet old romantic for building a masoleum for his wife; not a Kim Jong Il-like psycho who plucked out the eyes of the building's chief engineer.

Of course, people say things were different then. Really? Was having your arm lopped off by Richard the Lion Heart while he engaged on a rollicking adventure for treasure and glory any less painful then getting your arm lopped off by child-soldiers in today's Africa. Perhaps. I would say its less painful today, though. We have better drugs.

I have no qualms about condemning suicide bombers or other terrorists. Equally, I have no qualms with romanticizing swashbuckling assasinary groups from the past (Romanticizing makes for the best reading). But to twist history to try to use violent groups from the past as moral exemplars and equally violent groups of now as moral heins seems wrong. And disingenious.

Possible Equations:

Tyranny + Violence + Letting Centuries Pass + No Violations of Politcal Correctness (Slavery is Still Culpable except if you are building a Great Pyramid)= Moral Absolution in Modern Eyes

Violence + Tyranny + Now = Moral Condemnation