People don’t seem to like other people.
I know it sounds cynical. Negative. But it is true. History has given proof of this time and again.
Long. Ago, we humans started drawing lines in the dirt. That’s the reason. These lines were not like artistic lines, or pictures of smiley faces, or happy unicorns. Nope.
The lines people started marking with sticks were lines of “This is my side. That’s yours. You stay on your side. I’ll stay on mine.” But a few minutes later, the person not holding the stick thought, “His side of the line is bigger than my side of the line.” And so it all got started.
The reason for the line doesn’t really matter. It could have been caused by a lot of things. Maybe one guy talked in a different way than the other. Or maybe one guy believed that god was the sun, and the other guy thought that god was the moon. Perhaps there was a farting issue. Nevertheless, the arguing began.
Lines in the dirt. That’s all.
As a result of that first little groove in the mud, millions upon millions of lives have been lost. War is as old as… well. That first scratch across the ground.
I think of this because on this date, November 27, 1095, the head of the Catholic Church, one Pope Urban II, ordered the first crusade.
He stood before his people and gave a speech. It was, perhaps, the most influential speech of the Middle Ages. He called for all the Christians of Europe to strike out against the Muslims. A war. Pope Urban II proclaimed that his people must reclaim the Holy Land. He stood before them and yelled out: “God wills it!”
I can’t imagine what it was like living back then. News traveled only as fast as the donkey could carry it. But. By the end of the 11th century, the word had spread far and wide: The “Holy Land— what is now the Middle East— had become a point of conflict for European Christians. Lines in the dirt.
It started much earlier — around the 6th century. Christians back then used to make frequent pilgrimages to the Holy Land. They regarded it as the birthplace of their religion. Hence the pilgrimages. Souvenirs, maybe.
But at some point, the Turks took control of Jerusalem. And when the Turks drew their line in the dirt, they told the Christians that they were no longer welcome to visit the Holy City.
And that eventually sparked Pope Urban to call those Christians to fight and take back the Holy Land from the Turks.
At the Council of Clermont in France, where several hundred clerics and noblemen gathered, Urban delivered his fervent speech summoning the masses.
About 100,000 Christians answered Urban’s call, and the fighting began. At first, the Christians were beaten back. But more great numbers came along, and they eventually defeated the Turks.
The first crusade. Started by Pope Urban. It would be the first of seven major military campaigns fought over the next two centuries, known as the Crusades. The stories have been passed down. And the hatred over this is still felt today.
Lines in the dirt, I’ll tell you. Lines in the dirt.
I’m not sure the world will ever learn. But if every person would respond to the next with a moment of calm and consideration, with one deep breath of kindness, with a thought of good intention and benevolence — the lines might start to disappear. If only people could realize how witless and ruinous these lines are, we could find a better way. If only.
=====
If we don’t end war, war will end us.
— H. G. Wells
====
War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.
— Thomas Mann
====
Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come.
— Carl Sandburg
====
The lines we draw. We just don’t learn.
