April, 1999 Press Release

For Release April 1, 1999

Since May 1997, some 2000 Christian descendants of the Crusaders have traveled the Crusader route through the Middle East as a gesture of reconciliation to the region’s Muslim, Jewish and Eastern Christian population. April marks the beginning of their program in Holy Land.

The Reconciliation Walk will begin with a small tour on April 14, to be followed by groups of participants arriving in the Holy Land at two-week intervals. Events will culminate with a special presentation to leaders of the faith communities in Jerusalem. The Reconciliation Walk marks an important anniversary of the Crusades, which first reached the Galilee and coastal cities exactly nine hundred years ago.

For Immediate Release (April 1, 1999)

(Jerusalem) – (RW) – While retracing the steps of the first Crusaders, 2,000 Western Christians from more than 25 nations have brought a message of apology and a desire for reconciliation to hundreds of cities, towns and villages throughout Turkey, Syria and Lebanon. Beginning in April 1999, the Reconciliation Walk will continue its course as volunteer delegates enter the Holy Land for the first time.

The Reconciliation Walk marks an important anniversary of the Crusades, which first reached the Galilee and coastal cities exactly nine hundred years ago. Their campaign had already left tens of thousands dead across Eastern Europe and the Middle East, irrevocably linking the cross of Christ with death, destruction and political power. Soon the Crusaders would massacre, enslave or exploit the populations of the Holy Land, sowing seeds of discontent that still poison relations between the faiths today.

The Crusades had begun in November of 1095, when Pope Urban II called upon Western Christendom to take up the sword to ‘liberate the Holy Land.’ The Pope thus set into motion thousands of people - peasant and noble alike - who eventually marched into Jerusalem on July 15, 1099, leaving in their wake a path of destruction and hatred. For generations, the legacy of the Crusades has been one of mistrust and misunderstanding.

For many, the legacy of the Crusades is a belief in the inevitability of conflict between Muslim, Jewish and Christian civilizations. Apocalypticism is another aspect of the Crusader worldview that still colors the perspective of many Western Christians. This viewpoint prevents many Westerners from seeing the Jewish, Muslim and Christian people of Holy Land as human beings. Instead, they are viewed as pawns of eschatology, an attitude that has historically led to gross exploitation and violence. The Reconciliation Walk seeks to contribute to a more optimistic and human outlook through personal face-to-face contact with the residents of the Middle East.

Each Reconciliation Walk delegate carries a message of apology and repentance to Muslims, Jews, Eastern Christian, and other communities whose ancestors were slaughtered or exploited by the ancestors of those carrying the apology. The delegates believe that the practice of confession and forgiveness is an important step towards closing the door to the past and to opening a door of hope to the future.

The Reconciliation Walk manifesto makes clear the purpose and scope of the apology being made. "Jesus taught that his followers would be known for their love, a love that was willing to suffer, even if wronged," the manifesto said. "The Crusades violated this principle in every respect. Whereas Christ approached his enemies in humility, suffering death for his enemies, the Crusades demonstrated a spirit of vengeance.

"Jesus and the Apostles declared that their kingdom was not of the world. In the Crusades, the church acted as a nation of the world, making the church an instrument of war, political force and violence. Christ’s kingdom should not behave as a state, and specifically has no right to use force."

Reconciliation Walk participants range in age from just a few months to 85-years-old. After two mandatory days of orientation to the local culture, history and the purpose of the Reconciliation Walk, participants disperse throughout the countryside, utilizing a variety of means of travel and accommodation.

"Some are students on a shoestring budget," walk organizer Liz Cox remarked, "choosing to hike, stay in youth hostels and use the overnight buses. Others take time from well-paid jobs, preferring to fly and stay in hotels. In every case, participants believed firmly in the importance of what they were doing and willingly invested their own time and money."

Whether young student or experienced professional, each participant holds one thing in common – a pre-printed apology in the native language of the walkers, usually English, and a copy in Turkish, Arabic or Hebrew. Often speaking no Turkish or Arabic, the hundreds of walkers who passed through Turkey and Lebanon in 1997-98 relied upon the gracious hospitality of the people, who often found interpreters so that the groups could communicate.

"As Westerners, we rarely find ourselves in situations where we can’t explain ourselves, and where we are dependent upon others, in short, where we are weak and at the mercy of others," walkers reported. "When we allowed ourselves to be stripped of this innate advantage, we were forced to examine the reality of what we have to offer – not wise and persuasive words, but the power of the love of God in our lives. At the same time, the vulnerability of this approach allowed Middle Easterners to excel in their greatest gift – welcoming a stranger with great warmth and unselfish service."

In a notable public presentation of the apology, Mehmet Nuri Yilmaz, chairman of Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs, who oversees 65,000 mosques in the country, accepted the apology offered by the Reconciliation Walkers in a news conference in Ankara, attended by more than 70 reporters.

In accepting the apology Yilmaz said, "I congratulate them; their apology – personally taking responsibility for something that has happened in the past – greatly touched me. There is one religion, and that is God’s religion ...We must honor those who obey the law of compassion."

In Lebanon, countless community leaders endorsed the Reconciliation Walk. From the family of Shiite Imam Musa al-Sadr, to Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, representatives of Lebanon’s religious communities found common cause with the Reconciliation Walkers. Other community leaders who received the apology were Cardinal Sfeir of the Maronite Church, the Metropolitan of the Greek Orthodox Churches in Beirut and Mt Lebanon, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and Sunni Muslim Mufti of Syria. Numerous Sunni representatives also endorsed the program in Lebanon, ranging from the Prime Minister’s office to Beirut Municipality Mayor Abdul-Munem Aras and numerous religious leaders.

Although the message of apology has been conveyed to many community leaders including imams, muftis, mayors and provincial governors, the program’s primary audience is at the grassroots level. After being conveyed to local officials, the apology is delivered through personal meetings with anyone interested in listening. From street-merchants, carpet-makers and taxi drivers to university professors and schoolchildren, the walkers met, apologized to, and built friendships with thousands of people.

For many of the Western participants, whose impressions of the Middle East have been formed by nightly newscasts in North America and Northern Europe, it is an eye-opening experience.

"It’s through our relationships that walls and barriers come down and pre-conceptions go out the window," one walk participant said. "It’s good for Christians to come and find out about Muslims. My parents thought that I was in danger here. People think Muslims are very violent to those who are Christians. It’s good to come and see that it is not like that and that in many ways we are very similar."

Others were surprised to learn that the Crusades targeted Jewish and Christian communities. Reconciliation Walk Middle East director, Matthew Hand comments: “The Crusader mentality reduces everyone in the Middle East to a subhuman level. Sometimes this looks positive on the surface. For example, some Crusaders were at first very open to Jewish people – they were even invited to join the Crusades - but of course this was based on their belief that the Jewish people would become Christians because of the fulfillment of End Time prophecies. When they did not, the Crusaders branded them as Antichrist and slaughtered them. Likewise, Eastern Christians who at first would have appeared to benefit from the Crusades, found themselves massacred or cynically manipulated by the West when their political interests differed from the Crusaders.

The Reconciliation Walk is clearly concerned that Crusader motives dominant popular Western ideas about the Middle East. “What is shocking is how these same attitudes govern our view of the Middle East today,” Hand commented. “This is rather obvious in our stereotyping of Muslims and our neglect of Eastern Christians. But even our seemingly positive view of Jewish Israelis is often only one step away from apocalyptic conversion or nuclear holocaust. Crusader thinking dominates our view of these peoples, and that’s one of the reasons this gesture of apology is needed. It raises important issues for us, and forces us to approach others as human beings, rather than as disposable tokens of our eschatology.”

"The Reconciliation Walk is only a small step," Hand adds, "but it is an important one. The only way to overcome the myths and stereotypes that have been given us by history is for common people to sit down and meet each other as fellow human beings - to understand each other’s desires and doubts, hopes and fears. It is our hope that these kind of real, face-to-face encounters can provide a hedge of protection for the future."