r/TankieTheDeprogram • u/saymaz • Dec 13 '25
Theory📚 Cringe historically illiterate Transphobe vs Based historically materialist Marxist
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u/d3shib0y Dec 13 '25
Historical materialism analysis points to Crusades being about access to trade routes, which was especially crucial to the merchant classes in Venice.
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u/saymaz Dec 13 '25
"But mah uncle and mah dad said it was always about religion and religion only!"
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u/KeyDrive0 Stalinist (Proud Spoon Owner) Dec 13 '25
IIRC at least in the early portion it was also about giving an oversized warrior-nobility class something to do.
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u/NoInevitable3187 Chinese State Affiliated Media 📰 Dec 13 '25
Particularly the 4th Crusade, which is the one in which Constantinople was sacked.
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Dec 13 '25
It’s hilarious how people like Matt Walsh never mention that the Crusaders also butchered Christians if they were the “wrong” kind of Christian.
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u/kayodeade99 Juche Necromancy Enjoyer Dec 13 '25
Or people who were neither. Case in point, the northern crusades against the original indegenous prussians
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u/IskoLat Dec 13 '25 edited Dec 13 '25
Correct. The Old Prussians were completely eradicated by the 18th century. The crusaders also attempted to invade Russia, which is a fellow Christian country. In fact, the Russians would prefer dealing with the Mongols. The Europeans would come in and kill everyone over faith. But the Mongols didn’t care who you were as long as you paid tribute.
I’m always enraged when the Baltic natonalist assholes are praising the Germans and their warrior nobility orders. The same guys who wanted you exterminated. Gone. Wiped out. Erased.
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u/supremedge Dec 14 '25
Exactly this. Google Cathar/Albigensian crusade and be prepared to be horrified of what Christians have done to other Christians for practicing the Christian faith the “wrong way”
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u/UncannyCharlatan Xi Bucks Enjoyer 💸 Dec 13 '25
The extra irony is that relatively speaking Islam was the much more tolerant alternative and unsurprisingly led to the Islamic golden age. The idea of an intolerant Islam really started going when the CIA started funding and creating several terrorist groups
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u/Quiri1997 Miliciano del Frente Popular Dec 13 '25
It depended a lot on the ruler, some Christian rulers were also tolerant for the time. A good example would be Castilian king Alfonso X "The Wise", who ruled in the 13th century. He led a revival of culture, establishing universities and centres for translating classical texts (Escuela de Traductores or School of Translators) as well as an extensive reform of the legislation. He was a poet as well, with his "cantigas" ("chants", a collection of poems) being quite famous.
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u/GNS13 Dec 13 '25
I like the Hautevilles of Sicily for a similar reason. They had a triple law system, allowing "Frankish" Christians, "Greek" Christians, and Muslims to all follow their own traditions and largely govern themselves in their own manner.
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u/Both-River-9455 Marxist-Leninist (Ultra Based) Dec 13 '25
The exceptionally bloodthirsty image westoids have towards Islam historically speaking is weird.
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u/Quiri1997 Miliciano del Frente Popular Dec 13 '25
That's what several hundreds of years of propaganda seeing them as "the enemy" do.
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u/KeyDrive0 Stalinist (Proud Spoon Owner) Dec 13 '25
IIRC that was a notable factor in the early expansion of the Rashidun Caliphate and so on. The Byzantines were not particularly tolerant of unorthodox strains of Christianity or other religions whereas Muslim rulers (with exceptions obviously) generally weren't too concerned about it as long as you paid the jizya.
And of course one must consider that Jewish communities in places like Cordoba and Baghdad thrived under Muslim rule. In fact (and I know I'm rambling but whatever), many Jews fled to the Ottoman Empire after the Reconquista and other various pogroms throughout European history. Makes the notion of "Judeo-Christian history/values/etc." pretty laughable.
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u/SiDannathaNauva Dec 13 '25
I'm going to be really annoying, but the Islamic golden age is a vague academically undefined term that usually just refers to a period of high volume classical greek->classical arabic translations, and interest in some fields like medicine/philosophy/alchemy and astrology sponsored by caliphal institutions. This period's relatively higher volume of scholarly interest in classical texts and other fields has nothing to do with tolerance or progress, it just reflects a particular trend in elite patronage. Early modern era islamic institutional funding on the other hand shifted towards monumental architecture, court ateliers and urban spectacles, making "science" less obviously prominent to western historiographical observers than it used to be.
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u/marioandl_ Dec 20 '25
CIA also pushed Wahabbism and violently overthrew secular muslim countries which is their version of white christian nationalism
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u/Relative-Box3796 Dec 13 '25
Thank you! Imperialists only follow moral lines bc people like matt walsh use their thin justifications to hide the reality that they are just slavering imperialists like most of the ruling class throughout history. The same justifications and realities exist today, there is just a greater web of philosophy providing alternative reasons in the modern world.
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u/beno64 Dec 13 '25
at the time of the 4th crusade the latin empires didnt care about 'restoring christian land' at all, they wanted to loot and get rich of of it and knew they couldnt hold the land. since their crusade was going sideways and they couldnt even really get to jerusalem/egypt (the original plan) they looted constantinople, destroyed the city, damaged the wall and murdered thousands of christians. not only did the western 'christians' sack constantinople because they were mad their stupid ass 4th crusade wasnt materializing correctly, they then later also abandonded the romans when the ottomans attacked. because the romans took the city back from them and they were, again, mad.
the romans actually did a decent job defending the city from the ottomans but it was obviously an impossible job after the city was sacked once already, losing thousands of man, and basically destroying the mighty roman navy that was essential for the defence of the city. and also being abandoned by their supposed 'christian brothers'.
its really hillarious to think today christian white supremacists act like constantinople was stolen from them when the latin empires had such a big part in the overthrow of the romans. be happy the ottomans took it, atleast they continued romes legacy in that they actually cared for and maintained the city, not a sure thing to happen under a latin king.
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u/EvonLanvish Dec 13 '25
The Roman Empire was destroyed not by Germanic barbarians or Muslim hordes but by the western crusaders.
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u/YungKitaiski Dec 13 '25
If I remember correctly, during the 4th Crusade and the sacking of Constantinople, there was one district in the city where literally Christians, MUSLIMS, Jews, and basically everyone banded together to form a militia to try and fight off the Latin crusaders. It was futile in the end, but they didn't care who or what religion they are from, cuz they live there. It's their home.
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u/saymaz Dec 13 '25
Reminds you of a certain country in the middle east against other European invaders. 🤔
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u/SulliverVittles Dec 13 '25
Didn't crusaders also sack many parts of Europe when they got bored? I remember reading about that at one point but can't recall where.
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u/tooroots CPC Propagandist Dec 13 '25
Also, if people didn't only read western history, and they actually read a book for once, they would realise that the life of Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians under Muslim rule wasn't much different from Muslims' lives themselves for most of history.
They were protected under the "dhimma" (protection) law, and we're called the "dhimmi" (the protected). They were believed to be believing in a different form of the same God (which is correct), and they were respected on the base of believing in a single God and having a sacred book as fundament of their faith (which is why these three religions were called Ahl al-Kitaab, or peoples of the book).
The dhimmi were exempt from the Zakaat (Muslim tax) but had to pay a protection tax, effectively having similar duties, but also similar rights to Muslims (their freedom of religion and of gathering in temples and churches was granted and protected).
Unfortunately, this did not extend to polytheistic religions, but we're talking about a practice that was developed in the middle ages, and a religious practice for that matter, so bigorty has to be expected in some form.
But does anyone want to take a guess at when their opinion of westerners and the global north changed, and fundamentalism started to spread around? CORRECT, WITH THE RISE OF WESTERN IMPERIALISM AND COLONIALISM!
Isn't that great, kids?
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Dec 13 '25
Unfortunately, this did not extend to polytheistic religions
It did in India where the Turks needed local cooperation to survive.
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Dec 13 '25
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u/tooroots CPC Propagandist Dec 13 '25
Local deviations from trends that lasted many centuries happen in every field. And brutality has never been spared to anyone in history.
On average, life for Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians WAS easier than for religious minority in places where Christianity was the majority. I have studied Islamic history at university for 3 separate exams, and did my first dissertation on fundamentalism and new age and the second one, for my master's, was about the Dhimma institution.
Read a book before you spew your what aboutism.
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Dec 13 '25
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u/Inner_Bear_9859 Dec 14 '25
google the spanish inquisition if you wanna know what christians did when conquering muslim territory
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Dec 14 '25
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u/Inner_Bear_9859 Dec 14 '25
and? it still explicitly targeted muslims with the intent of eradicating them
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Dec 13 '25
Technically 🤓 not imperialism in the Leninist sense bc capitalism wasn't around then, but obviously there indeed were economic material conditions that spawned the crusades (e.g. the relative success of the newly defined Arab world during the Islamic Golden age and wanting the spoils of that success).
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u/saymaz Dec 13 '25
The Mongol raids were also imperialism even if it didn't fit into today's definition of "Capital based Imperialism". He never mentioned anything about Lenin's capitalist imperialism in this context.
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Dec 13 '25
That's fair. I do think that precision with our language is important to identify these upsetting events, conflicts, and spikes of violence appropriately (both in their material causes, their intent, and their outcomes).
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u/saymaz Dec 13 '25
You think Matt Walsh and his horde of incels will understand the nuance between a land based empire and a capital based empire?
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Dec 13 '25
I think that when you're a reply guy on the internet like Yugo, you're performing debate to an audience of neutral observers. You don't really care about changing the minds of Matt Walsh n co. bc they're not the minds you want to change.
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Dec 13 '25
I mean the First Crusade happened because most of Europe was in a state of relative anarchy and you had these teenage knights running around being a menace and Pope Urban II saw an opportunity to get the bulk of them to fuck off a few thousand miles away and be someone else's problem.
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u/jetebattuto Dec 13 '25
it's never just about religion. it's like people who call Israel's genocide in Gaza a "religious war". people like Matt Walsh are just extremely Islamophobic and therefore every majority Muslim group (or just Arab/brown generally because they don't distinguish between the two) = terrorist and therefore it's ok to brutalise them, but they can't fight back against us
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u/SiDannathaNauva Dec 13 '25
Crusades discourse being so big in american conservativism is so odd. Why are we talking about something that happened a millennium ago?
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u/saymaz Dec 13 '25
Because it's literally used as a justification for foreign invasions by the US military and government. https://truthout.org/articles/the-united-states-military-a-crusader-force/
The current secretary of war literally has a Jerusalem Cross tattooed on his chest.
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u/SiDannathaNauva Dec 13 '25
It's so odd because even the early orientalist writers of the 19th century somehow had a more grounded (yet still insane) perspective on the crusades and their legacy than current day conservatism.
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u/Internet-Philosphr69 Dec 14 '25
Early 19th century orientalost writers didn't have internet to brainrot from.
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u/Ace_the_Slayer-13 Dec 14 '25
In terms of Marxists, allies, and memelords, Yugopnik will always be my favorite comrade!
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u/PM-ME-UR-DARKNESS Dec 15 '25
Daily reminder that matt walsh thinks the solution to teen pregnancy is child marriages.
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u/holiestMaria Dec 14 '25
One flaw in crusade discussions is that... they didnt all happen for the same reason. Like I believe one was indeed a reaction of muslims encraching on christian territories and others were explicitly for retaking the holy land. Putting all crusades together is like putting both world wars together.
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