![]() It depicted the immediately preceding centuries as a barren period characterized by darkness and ignorance, in comparison with the earlier glories of Greece and Rome. ![]() ![]() The mediaeval as an historical period and cultural characteristic was invented in the European Renaissance-which we treat in the next Section of the Foundation Year Programme. When we study and evaluate the mediaeval, we are engaged simultaneously in a confrontation with what we represent as an external enemy and with ourselves. Thus Westerners accusing their adversaries of being mediaeval are attacking something in their own formative history, something about themselves and their past they fear and hate. Significantly, however, the “Middle Ages” or “Dark Ages” is a period only within European history. On the other side, modern Westerners label their Muslim opposition as “mediaeval,” a name evoking the dark and backward, a confusion of religion and the secular bringing cruelty and ignorance. On the one side, as in the Middle Ages, Islam thinks itself attacked by a new group of invasive Christian Crusaders, once again desecrating their holy places, occupying their homelands, and massacring them. ![]() It belongs to their war of words both sides hurl the mediaeval as an abuse. The mediaeval is present to both sides in the current conflicts between the Anglo-American Protestant powers, who depict themselves as the defenders of our Western Christian Civilization, on the one hand, and the Islamic Middle East, on the other. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |