[-empyre-] Crusading

["Ana Valdes" <agora158@gmail.com>]

I wanted to thank Loretta for her article about Crusading and Jihad.
My approach to the topic Crusades is very much related to the fact of
"crossing", crossing borders, crossing lines, transgressing, making
new networks. The Crusades were the historical framework of a colonial
enterprise but they were as well the encounter with "the Other". It
was the Muslim world "otherness" who has been a beacon for
intellectuals and artists for many hundreds of years.
But for me as a writer and a activist the encounter doesn't to be a
clash but a recognizing of the similarities, the likeness more than
the differences.
I spent a few days now in Karosta, Lettland, together with Jan-Erik
Lundström and people from the Spanish groups of Hackitectura,
http://www.hackitectura.net, Straddle, http://www.straddle3.net and
OVNI, http://www.desorg.org/intro_arxius.php
Another guest was the filmmaker Paul Jenkins, who did a serie of films
about Al Qaida supported by the BBC.
What is the link between Al Qaida, Crusading, the refugees from Africa
living in inhuman conditions in the woods of Marocco, trying to go
into Europe to get a job and the Indians from Argentina and Chile
fighting Benettons multinational?
For me it's a kind of red thread going all these extremes groups and
actions where many of today's artists (writers and visual artists)
find new arenas and patterns.
I am curious about -empyre-'s own reflexions about these topics.
Ana

--
"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth
with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you
will always long to return.
— Leonardo da Vinci