
Originally Posted by
Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
I suppose the idea is that our culture produced these freedoms, and not over the last 3 centuries so much as the last 10 or 20. Remember, there's a huge dose of Roman in our culture, and that brings me to point.
I think Europeans are conditioned to fear Islam, and with good reason. Take a look at a map circa 400 AD, that big red bit is under the Pax Romanum. It's getting a bit ropy, but this is where you have genuinely free and autonomous men, law courts, not only criminal but civil cases, women can hold property and Christianity holds even the Emperor to account.
Fast forward to 700 AD and a big swathe of that has gone Green - sure the Barbarians have taken over Western Europe but they're already learning Latin, Rome still elects magistrates and the Christian bishops are starting to argue over law again. Meanwhile, in the East the Emperor is fighting a losing war against an Alien culture that sweeps all before it. They aren't like the Germans, instead of learning Latin they translate in Arabic, and they destroy whatever doesn't agree with their God with no regard to the past.
Fast Forward again, 1000 AD, and there are now princes who speak adn read in Latin again, Lawyers and law Courts have reestablished themselves not only in Italy but also in France, even the peasants are starting to learn to read their Vulgar Latin. Meanwhile, the March of Islam has continued unabated, roughly 2/3 of the former Roman Empire is either under their sway or threatened. In North Africa Roman Civilisation is just GONE and both the place of Christ's Birth and Death are under sway of an Alien culture.
After this of course came the Crusades, which really should seen less as a war of Conquest and more as an attempt to regain lost ground.
Here's the point: What we think of as "Europe" is the rump of the Roman Empire after North Africa and the Near East are shown off. 2,000 years ago, even 1,500 years ago Morocco was culturally closer to Rome than London, and much wealthier. What changed that is not conquest or Roman collapse, but Islam and Islamic cultural policies.
Fear of Islam is built into our history, Muslims are the ultimate boggy men, worse even that Attila the Hun because Atilla left something Roman in his wake, the Caliphs didn't. So today the unspoken fear is that what happened in Anatolia, Egypt and North Africa can happen in Italy or France and this fear is in no way diminished by the stated belief of a significant number of Muslims that they want to make Europe more sympathetic to Islamic law and customs.
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