Apartheid

48
beyond redemption, or simply as entirely de-humanized obstacles to the aggressive settlement
of western European population segments. 49
I have not yet found any explicit references to Outremer as an apartheid society, but
the following quote, referring to the status of the worst-off Europeans in the kingdom, who
were not serfs as they would have been back in Europe, to me sums up a typical, and indeed
almost defining, apartheid situation: ‘Though hierarchic, it was a society of free men, where
even the poorest and most destitute were not only free [i.e. not serfs] but enjoyed a higher
legal standing than the richest among the conquered native population’. 50 As in the USA,
South Africa, and elsewhere, economic class was not the main dividing force in this society,
and neither was religion. Ethnicity was.
The crusader kingdom can thus be compared in structure, if not in detail, with
apartheid South Africa, as well as with the other main example of apartheid in the modern
world, with Israel. According to the Israeli intellectual, Uri Avnery, ‘…every Arab child
learns this history and compares us with them’, i.e. Israelis or Zionists with the crusaders. 51
We have in each case the invasion by western Europeans in a place outside Europe,
and brutal subjugation of and systematic discrimination against the indigenous majority. In
each case independent states, run by invaders who claim the country as theirs by divine right,
and who carry out and profit from the oppression, but so does a considerable population of
semi-civilian western settlers and visitors.
One of the most striking similarities to me is the likeness between civilian and semicivilian
Jews, whether settlers or visitors, in the occupied West Bank today and the following
description of westerners and their situation in almost exactly the same places nine centuries
ago:
[T]he distinction between pilgrim and crusader remained imprecise. These
not only prayed [in Jerusalem], but set out on a tour of various shrines of
Judaea and Samaria [today’s West Bank] which a familiarity with the
Scriptures and indifference to historicity made a theme park of the…religion.
. . . Because of the nature of the terrain and the disaffection of the Muslims
among the inhabitants, the route was no safer than it had been in the days of
the Good Samaritan. From the moment when they landed at Jaffa or
Caesarea, the pilgrims were vulnerable to attack by Saracen marauders and
Bedouin brigands… 52
There are also similarities, and indeed identities, when it comes to ideology. With time
apartheid, colonialist, and even genocidal invaders – using their fantasy – invariably attempt
to convince themselves and others, including of course the indigenous people, that it is
(somehow) beneficial for the indigenous people just to be exposed to the culture of the
invaders. 53
The Biblical invasion of Cana’an by the ancient Jews, as described in the Old
Testament’s Book of Joshua and elsewhere, is a tale of ethnic cleansing and genocide of the
Cana’anites by the invading Israelites. We will take a look at the importance of this story for
the modern state of Israel in Chapter II.9.3. The modern Israelis, however, are not the first to
use this tale as inspiration and justification for ethnic cleansing. The white South Africans did
so (see Chapter II.9.2), as did the crusaders. It is ironic that Jews in medieval Palestine – who
saw themselves as the descendants of the ancient Israelites – would be murdered
49 3
Maalouf 2003 (1983): 184; Read 1999: 217, quote 212; Prawer: Social Classes in the Crusader States: the
“Minorities”, 1985: 61
50
Prawer: The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages, 1973: 504, quoted in
Read 1999: 129. For a more comprehensive definition of apartheid, see Chapter I.7. below.
51
Avnery: Salaam or Salami: Israeli Unilateralism and Peace, 2005
52
Read 1999: 90
53
Löwstedt: Selling Colonialism, 2005