religion

ISRAEL: The Holy Land / The silliest religious conflict of them all

Kate , , , ,

Israel is, of course, jam-packed with religious sites – it is the Holy Land. There’s Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Baha’i, Druze, and many more. Sometimes they overlap or are shared (or not, as in the Temple Mount), and some of them are in direct competition with each other.

I’m not really religious, and I was raised Protestant, so to me Bible stories were intended mainly a moral or a metaphor. I didn’t grow up with any devotion to sites or relics, so for me, the idea that many Biblical stories are set in real locations in Israel that you can visit was hard to get my head around. (This is the polar opposite to Jewish readings of the same stories in the Torah – it’s a story of their own people in their own land.)

We went to the Garden of Gethsemane on our first day – it, and the Mount of Olives, where it stands – are not just real places, but contested East Jerusalem sites within eyeshot of the Old City and the Temple Mount.

The “young” olive trees of Gethsemane, not even a millennia old

Likewise, the Sea of Galilee is not just a real place, but it’s a real lake – beaches, restaurants, and Wayze warning of of a fender bender. We stopped at the Catholic monastery at the site that’s held to be the “Pope-ing” of Peter by Jesus – families were zipping by on skidoos, and the shoreline has risen due to dams on the Jordan River downstream (it’s killing the Dead Sea, though.)

Deeper down along the Jordan River, well into the West Bank, is the site of Jesus’ baptism. There are Christian monasteries on both sides of the river, but one bank of the river is under Israeli control, and the other Jordanian.

There was the truly weird “only in the Middle East” sight of Christian pilgrims being guarded over by Jewish soldiers on one side and Muslim ones on the other – though it’s not a particularly tense site, as it was about 43C, and everyone wanted to mainly sit still and quiet in the shade.

You can just see the red of the Jordanian flag on the other side

There were also religious sites that were contested, not over ownership, but exactly where a certain event happened. Up Mt. Carmel in Haifa, there’s the Cave of Elijah – where the Prophet Elijah is said to have hid from Queen Jezebel’s wrath. The catch is, there’s two caves – one mid-way up the mountain is a Jewish site, which Druze and Muslims also recognize … but about 200m up the mountain is a different cave in a monastery, this one held to be the site by Christians.

The Franciscan monastery above the Christian site of Elijah’s Cave

It’s not just between religions where these locations are contested, but inside religions. I took a day trip to Nazareth by bus – again, a very weird thing to me that Nazareth is just a place you can take a bus to. One of the biggest Christian pilgrimage sites in Nazareth is the site of the Annunciation. However, there’s not just one site where it’s held to have happened, but two …and they’re along the same street.

There’s a Greek Orthodox site, with covered in ornate hand-painted murals. Then there’s the Catholic site, with the most oddly heavy, industrial architecture I’ve ever seen in a church – it felt like it would do better as a nightclub in Berlin than a church in Israel.

Ornate Orthodox…
…and industrial Catholic

Of course, Jerusalem is the epicentre of all these religious conflicts – I wrote a bit about my trip to the Temple Mount (and there’s more background on the sites here). These conflicts over religious sites run so deep and can be so bitter, but none is more ridiculous than the control of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

This is the site where most Christian denominations hold that the Jesus’ crucifixion and burial happened. Both sites are inside the church, only a few metres apart.

Golgotha, the site of the crucifixion
Jesus’ tomb

But unlike most of the other Christian holy sites, the church isn’t controlled by one Christian denomination, but six – Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Coptic, Armenian, Syriac, and Ethiopian.

They have a centuries-old “status quo” agreement, originally set by the Ottomans, and upheld by the British, Jordanians, and now Israelis. It gives each denomination their own section of the building, and all common areas are held jointly, with any upkeep or changes to be done with unanimous consent.

However, these denominations don’t particularly like each other, and getting unanimous consent to even pick up garbage or restore a painting is nearly impossible. Apparently if a lightbulb needs changing, it’s easier to quietly tell the Jerusalem police, who will then do it at night, rather than come to an agreement between the denominations. Even the keys to the front door are held by a Muslim family, to avoid tension over who controls access.

This tense situation has led to actual brawls among monks, usually over something small, like moving a chair over a “line of control” to get out of the sun, or one monk not being present for a procession.

There weren’t any brawls when I went, but the Catholic monks doing an afternoon service were going at triple speed – maybe if you stand around too long, it’s also a provocation. It’s a ridiculous way to run what is supposed to be an immensely holy site, and even more so since it’s all members of the same religion.

But my biggest highlight was getting to see the emblem of the worst of religious tension, the silliest damn religious conflict of them all – the immovable ladder. It’s a simple wooden ladder, probably forgotten by a worker, but it’s been sitting on the outside of the church since around the mid-1700s. Nobody can come to an agreement to move it, and even when it was once stolen, it was then returned to its exact spot.

It’s the stupidest thing, and I love it.

ISRAEL: The Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock

Kate , , , , ,

I posted about my trip to the Temple Mount in Israel last month, but I also found these two great explainer videos from Religion for Breakfast that give a lot of good additional background on both the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock, and why the situation is all so … prickly.

He also got to go on an extremely rare visit inside the Dome, normally banned for non-Muslims.

ISRAEL: The Western Wall and Temple Mount

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The day we flew in to Israel, our group poured off the 11 hour flight from Toronto to Tel Aviv, got into a bus, and took a short drive up into the hills of Jerusalem. We were stupid with jetlag, but as the bus came around a turn, we all gasped – we could see the golden Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount.

Metre for metre, the Old City of Jerusalem is probably the most contested and controversial piece of land in the world, and the Temple Mount is quite literally at the centre of it. This is where wars have been fought, both historic and modern, and the competing religious and political forces pulling on this one place continue to make it a flashpoint.

The Temple Mount has the distinction of being the holiest site in Judaism, the location of the Second Temple, the very heart of Jewish life, religion, and identity, before it was destroyed by the Romans in 70CE as part of crushing Jewish revolts against their rule. To massively oversimplify history, Jews were later banned from visiting Jerusalem in 132CE, and Roman persecution through that time period led to Jewish communities fleeing in all directions, starting the diaspora. Unsurprisingly, this spot underpins the modern State of Israel and the idea of a return to rebuild their homeland.

The outline of where the Second Temple stood over the current Dome of the Rock.

At the same time, the Temple Mount is also the third holiest site in Islam (after Mecca and Medina), and what most of the complex is currently being used for. On the same site where the Second Temple stood is the Dome of the Rock. This beautiful golden dome is the site of Muhammad’s Night Journey, where he ascended to heaven to receive instruction on prayer from God.

The Dome of the Rock, right in the heart of it all

The religious importance of this spot is amplified by the tradition in the three Abrahamic religions that this is also the spot where Abraham almost sacrificed his son (Isaac in Judaism/Christianity and Ishmael in Islam), and even some traditions that this was the site of the creation of Adam.

The Western Wall below the Temple Mount
The women’s section of the Wall

The Western Wall (aka the Wailing Wall) is the remaining piece of the Second Temple, and is a spot for Jews to pray and mourn the temple’s destruction. The wall itself isn’t holy, but for most of the time since the destruction of the Temple, this is as close as Jews were allowed to come – at times fully banned from the Old City.

After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Jordan annexed the West Bank and the Old City of Jerusalem. After the Six Day War in 1967, Israel took control of Jerusalem and Jordan’s Palestinian territories. Jordan gave up claims to sovereignty over the West Bank in 1988, though they kept control of the Muslim sites on top of the Temple Mount as part of the 1967 “Status Quo” agreement with Israel, a renewing of older Ottoman religious authority agreements. The Jordanian Waqf continues of manage and control access to the top of the Temple Mount, while the rest of the Old City is under Israeli control and management.

The covered walkway for non-Muslim access to the Temple Mount

Non-Muslims are allowed up onto the Temple Mount at certain times, and both Israel and Jordan enforce a ban on prayer, particularly by Jews. Up until 2000, non-Muslims could enter the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque, though no more. There’s also contested opinions among Jews if they should even walk on the Temple Mount for risk of standing on the site of the Holy of Holies, though it’s not a universal belief – there were several Haredi boys that went up with us.

While the Western Wall is busy, the Temple Mount is quiet and peaceful, with families picnicking. I went up on a tour given by my friend Pauline, a professional Israeli tour guide, and we had no issue accessing it in the non-Muslim hours. A couple of elderly Palestinian women from the West Bank came over to chat, and after learning I was Canadian, had a sympathetic joke at me braving the heat. It was a peaceful, friendly moment, and a change from the animosity and violence that frequently makes the news over this site.

BANGLADESH: The Clay Bird (2002)

Kate , , ,
Source

Wow, this is a really really beautiful movie. The Clay Bird (Bengali: Matir Moina) is a 2002 movie set in the months before Operation Searchlight, the Pakistani military operation that would kick off Bangladesh’s independence war in 1971. It was initially banned in Bangladesh, but then only a few months later, allowed in theatres after a big push by Bangladeshi media and public led to a court decision overturning the ban. It was critically very successful, wining awards both at home and abroad.

Anu is a young boy, sent to a madrasa to study by his father, who has recently become much more pious and conservative. Anu’s mother is quietly unhappy in her marriage, and as Anu’s politically liberal uncle gets wrapped up in Bangladesh’s independence movement. The rising tide of politics laps at all their ankles, even at the madrasa, where teachers disagree on the future of Pakistan and the place of Islam in either a united or divided country. Anu befriends an orphan boy, ostracized by his classmates, but can do little to protect him.

Personal tragedy strikes with the death of Anu’s sister, leaving a deep rift between his parents and painful blame over her death. Then, as the killings of Operation Searchlight start, the family splits, each making different choices of what to do. Anu’s uncle is killed fighting, his father left shellshocked in the ruins of his former life, and Anu goes off with his mother as she tries to take control of her future amid the violence.

The family as a whole really is a metaphor for Bangladesh’s society during independence, but also each are truly rounded individuals, trying to navigate an uncertain future. It’s a quietly tragic film, with no real villains, just people caught in the riptide of politics and war – some sinking, some swimming.

BANGLADESH: Streetviews

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There’s really good streetview coverage on Bangladesh – I went down an absolute rabbit hole poking around, there’s religious and historic sites, weird borders, stunning natural beauty and massive urban sprawl. Here’s some neat ones I liked:

In Sylhet, up in the far northeast of Bangladesh, is the Tomb of Shah Jalal. Shah Jalal was a Sufi saint and leader involved in the both the Islamic conquest of Sylhet from Hindu rulers around 1300 and the spread of Islam to the population. Ibn Battutah sought him out on his travels, and found Shah Jalal in his later years living as an ascetic.

This Shaikh was one of the great saints and one of the unique personages. He had to his credit miracles (karamat) as well as great deeds, and he was a man of hoary age.He owned a cow with whose milk he broke his fast. He stood performing prayers throughout the night, and he was thin, tall and scanty-bearded. The inhabitants of these mountains had embraced Islam at his hands, and for this reason he stayed amidst them.

From Ibn Battutah’s Account of his Meeting with Shah Jalal of Sylhet

Much more recently, Bangladesh and India finally settled their really wonky borders, transferring dozens of enclaves (including second- and even third-order ones) in 2015. Only one enclave still exists, a community called Dahagram–Angarpota, that’s a small piece of Bangladesh surrounded by India. This enclave is in spitting distance of Bangladesh, and it connected by the Tin Bigha Corridor, stretch of road that’s less than 200 metres long. The land belongs to India, but is leased to Bangladesh – but there’s still border control, and it was only in 2011 that the corridor was opened for 24 hours a day. Previously, it was only open 12 hours a day, which caused understandable hardship on residents, since there were no hospitals in the enclave at the time.

On the other side of the country, down in Chittagong, there’s what looks like a possible standoff between the Google Car and security staff at the gates of a shipbreaking yard. Note the “no child labour” sign on the gate.

A dizzying drone shot of a hazy morning in Dhaka – look at that urban density!

And more serenely, a floating night market pier in the Meghna River delta. Look around behind you for a bonus beautiful sunset.

Our in the far east of Bangladesh is the Kaptai Lake – in contrast to the massive urban density, this area is remote, sparsely populated, and largely only accessible by boat. There’s stunning natural sites, including the Shuvolong waterfall.

Back in Dhaka, I was looking through the planes at the Bangladesh Air Force Museum, and this old DC-3 caught my eye – I love these old planes. They were introduced in the 1930s, and were built until the 50s, but they’re such successful planes that many are still in active use today (like for cargo flights in the Canadian Arctic). This specific DC-3 was a gift to Bangladesh from India. It had been used to drop paratroopers during the 1971 Independence War and is one of the founding planes of the Bangladesh Air Force.

And tucked away on a side street, the oldest surviving mosque in Dhaka – the Binat Bibi Mosque, built in 1454. It’s pre-Muhgal, erected during the Bengal Sultanate. There’s an inscription dedicating the mosque to Bakht Binat, the daughter of Marhamat – it’s unclear if she funded it or if it was dedicated in her memory, but it’s likely she was part of a local wealthy family.

The streetview is from 2013, and the mosque has been in pretty poor shape, despite it’s historic value. Since then there’s been some renovations and restorations, including a beautiful new minaret. It’s hard to see updated photos, but hopefully they’ve restored and kept the two starry domes.

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BANGLADESH: Independence, borders, and introduction of Islam

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A couple interesting videos on Bangladesh to get started – first a look at Bangladesh’s independence in 1971, and how it is an extremely rare case of unilateral secession that was accepted by the wider global community. Independence movements try to secede unilaterally all the time (that is, break away against the wishes of the parent country), but since WWII, that rarely leads to acceptance as your own country by the UN or the wider global community.

India and Bangladesh used to share the messiest and most complicated border, with enclaves, second-level enclaves, and even a third-level enclave (a piece of India, surrounded by a piece of Bangladesh, which is surrounded by a piece of India, which is surrounded by Bangladesh). These borders were cleaned up recently, and but why they happened in the first place, and why it took so long to fix is up to both pre-Raj history, and India’s disputes with countries other than Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is one of the most populous Muslim countries, at around 150 million Muslims (90% of the country’s population, and Bangladesh makes up about 10% of the world’s Muslims). Bengal was a heavily Muslim region long before Partition, and the video below covers the spread of Islam into the subcontinent, the establishment of the Sultanate of Bengal, and Bengal’s incorporation into the Mughal Empire. It’s a good bird’s eye view of pre-British history.

UKRAINE: More podcasts

Kate , , , , , ,
The Kyiv Tram Cafe – Source

Part 2 of interesting podcasts from and about Ukraine – Part 1 is here.

BBC History Hour: Ukrainian History Special – An overview from the BBC of major events in Ukraine’s history from the past century, with reporting from the period and modern analysis. It’s particularly the events that are well known outside of Eastern Europe: The Holodomor, Babi Yar, Chernobyl, but also Crimea as a Soviet holiday hotspot.

Remember What’s Next: The History of Ukrainian Jews – A Jewish history podcast looking at the larger history of the Jewish community in what is now Ukraine. Covers the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, the Pale of Settlement, the origin of the shtetl and Hassidism, and pervasiveness of antisemitism in both Russia and Ukraine.

Ukraine Without Hype: Russian Imperial Antisemitism – Ukraine Without Hype is a really good quality Ukrainian-based podcast; the first half covers recent news, including war updates, while the second half is in-depth interviews and discussion. This episode also looked at antisemitism and the war in Ukraine, building off the Russian Foreign Minister’s insane conspiracy theory comments about Jews. The episode looks at the use of conspiracy theory and antisemitism as part of “Russification” and larger Russian expansionist aims into Ukraine.

Krynytsya – The Well: War in Ukraine: Natalie Jaresko talks about what it will take to rebuild Ukraine – An interview with Natalie Jaresko, the Ukrainian Minister of Finance from 2014-2016, on what will be needed to rebuilt Ukraine’s economy once the war ends, and who should pay for it (spoiler: Russian reparations from sanctioned individuals).

Black Diplomants: War in Ukraine with Inna Sovsun – An interview in a Kyiv coffee shop with Inna Sovsun, a Member of Parliament with the opposition Holos Party and university professor. She covers how life has changed since the Russian invasion, both personally and in the workings of the Ukrainian government.

Nash Holos: Ukrainian Roots Radio – A regular podcast focused on the Ukrainian-Canadian community. There’s episodes of Ukrainian music and culture, artists and exhibits between Ukraine and Canada, book reviews, and updates on the war and helping Ukrainian refugees get to Canada.

UKRAINE: Ukrainian Radio / Bayraktar

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Inhulets River at dawn – Source: Culture Trip

Radio Garden is really wild when you’re looking at an active warzone – unsurprisingly, radio stations where the active fighting are tend to be down, and further out, you can see the “propaganda line” between Russian and Ukrainian broadcasting. You can get a sense of the direction stations are taking by translating their websites, but I wish I had some knowledge of either language, I’m sure there’s some really strong content.

Radio Bayraktar – Named after the Turkish Bayraktar drones that have been so effective, this online station in Kyiv is almost totally Ukranian patriotic and propaganda songs – all genres, and even if you don’t understand Ukrainian, between the “Slava Ukrainia”s and the different remixes of the Bayraktar song (see below), you’ll get it. Listen live here.

Papino Radio 107.6 – The Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) is a Russian-backed breakaway state in the Donbas, and along with Luhansk and Crimea, form the parts of Ukraine that have been under Russian control since 2014. There’s about 2 million people living in the DPR, and of course, they have their own pro-Russian patriotic and propaganda radio. Most of it is the mirror of Radio Bayraktar – take a look at the Google translate of their social media. Listen live here.

Garmonia Mira – And now for something completely different! Based in Odesa, this quirky little station is a mix of jazz, classical, and easy listening, but with astrological reports built into its weather reports, scifi and poetry readings, and what I would call “granola Christian” programming – worship songs, “life-affirming” sermons, etc. It’s new to me to see it in an Eastern Orthodox content, but it’s 100% a thing. Good jazz selection too. Listen live here.

There’s also several stations that are just good dance/EDM mixes. In no particular order:

As for the Bayraktar, shortly after the Russian invasion stalled, a war song started circulating in Ukraine, celebrating the effectiveness of the Ukrainian military and Putin’s miscalculation in invading. It’s been remixed into a million different genres, including this really catchy dance mix by Andriy Muzob.

The full English translation is here, but a little example:

His own country wasn’t big enough / Now the invader has crossed our border / Their war machines have melted in the fields / Bayraktar

The senile old grandpa [Putin] is ranting / And the people believe everything / Now the Tsar has learned a new word / Bayraktar

Bayraktar English Translation

As far as war songs go, it’s a lot higher production value than “Hitler Has Only Got One Ball” that my grandpa taught me, but the sentiment is similar.


UKRAINE: Kievan Rus and St. Olga of Kyiv

Kate , , ,

Like many pieces of history right now, there’s a deep divide over who it truly “belongs to”. The Kievan Rus are claimed as foundational nations by Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, and is part of competing narratives over Ukraine and an independant nation vs. a “brotherly nation”/subset of Russia, as the Kievan Rus were based in Kyiv, and originated Russian royal families. However, the Kievan Rus’ foundational dynasty were originally Varangian – Swedish vikings that had traded, raided, and settled down the rivers into Eastern Europe, and they largely held a loose confederation of land, not a single unified empire.

One of the best stories of the Kievan Rus is the tale of St. Olga of Kyiv – a woman who was probably sainted to stop her from murdering more people (this actually happened a lot in the late viking era). Her story is likely largely embellished in the historical record, but boy it is a hell of a tale. This is where the reference of “sending pigeons” from Ukrainian stand-up comes from – to destroy an enemy city by requesting a bird from the rafters of each house of the city as her wedding gift, then tying burning cloth to all the birds and letting them fly back to the thatched roofs. The whole great gory story is here, worthy of an action movie: