Rival Brothers: A Mimetic View of East West Relations

  Chapter 2 - The Romanesque Truth of the Mutual Exchange versus the Romantic Lie of the Clash of Civilizations

  Interestingly, these underlying similarities had been already spotted in literature where there seems to be a “Romanesque” cultural truth of mutual similarities and interconnection that surpasses the “romantic” view of the “clash of civilization” supporters. I would like here to draw just a few examples from literature that, read in the perspective of Mimetic theory, show how brilliant novelists have indeed been able to grasp a truth still unknown in many “think tanks”. Let’s start intentionally from one of the most famous examples of clash, namely the Turkish-European conflict that led to the battle of Lepanto in 1571. By just using a few literary references we show that the clash of civilization theorem has a lot of flaws. We will use as sources “The Last Crusader” by Louis de Wohl and “Altai” by Wu Ming. “The Last Crusader” by Louis de Wohl, is a novel dedicated to the life of Don Juan of Austria and gives a clearly apologetic and romantic view of the conflict. The storyboard looks ready for a Hollywood movie about the good Christians and the evil Turks, yet in the narrative some cracks appear: the author reports of continuous fights between Venetian sailors and Spanish soldiers on the way to the battle, with Spanish troopers regularly being hung by Venetian officers for insubordination. The least one can say there was no general consensus on the West side on how to address the enemy. And the explanation is readily given: Venice did not believe at all in the need of an additional challenge and thought that there was some room of negotiations with the Ottoman Empire after the defeat of Famagosta. In “Altai”, we get some more insight: the real problem for the Ottomans was to hide the fact that the recent victory at Famagosta had indeed been a half defeat as the till then invincible Turkish Army had been blocked for months with huge losses by a well designed fortress and a small garrison of Venetians. But a defeat was needed for the Ottoman Empire to negotiate a peace and a defeat at sea, where Venetians where known for their mastery, would not raise suspects. And indeed, after the battle the far more powerful reasons of trade led to a quick peace. Miguel de Cervantes took active part in the battle, bearing for the rest of his life the consequences of the wounds he received. But, despite his taking very clear sides, he never conceded to the clash of civilization rhetoric. If we look at the “Don Quijote”, we discover with respect to the theme of the Mediterranean rivalry an attitude as illuminating as the one he shows about desire in other parts of his masterpiece. First of all, the whole novel is built on a narrative technique that lets a Moor author, Sidi Ermete Benengeli, be the source of the story of the Most Christian Knight Don Quijote, creating a fictional trick by which the model of modern Western roman is indeed an Arabic tale. Then, three entire chapters (39 to 41) are dedicated to the history of the escape from Algiers of Ruy Perez de Viedma, a Spanish prisoner that brings with him a beautiful Moorish woman that has secretly converted to Christianity. Cervantes embedded many autobiographical notes in this tale, nonetheless it brings such a huge amount of detail that some more analysis is helpful. In the first part of the tale in Chapter 39, Cervantes provides the geopolitical picture of the Mediterranean between 1567 and 1580, clearly mentioning the multifaceted nature of the conflict and adding lots of insight into the political entanglement of the time: first, the reluctance of Genoa to take part to the war against the Ottoman Empire (only 3 ships sent) not to help too much Venice reclaim its power in the Eastern Mediterranean, in addition to the open alliance of France with the Sultan to oppose Spain. Against the infidels yes, but up to a certain point. Second, the multinational nature of the Ottoman armies: Cervantes correctly states the Italian nationality of Uluc Ali, whose fleet alone survived at Lepanto and then became head of the Ottoman fleet. A clear understanding of Ottoman hierarchies: the head of the Fleet is correctly reported as third most important rank in the Ottoman Empire after Grand Vizier and Mufti. Interestingly enough, we add that the Grand Vizier at the time of Lepanto, Sokollu Mehmet Pasha, was a Serbian Janissary that made the entire career to the highest spot. His brother, on the other hand, became the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church in the Ottoman Empire. Third, a very detailed military analysis on the troubles of Ottoman infantry in dealing with modern European fortresses: the battle for the re-conquest of Tunis (openly criticized by Cervantes as a hopeless stronghold with no military meaning) cost Ottoman forces more than 20.000 casualties out of an army of 50.000 to overcome a garrison of less than 7000 opponents that suffered around 3000 losses. A 7:1 loss ratio to claim a win is in military terms a Pyrrhus victory at best. And exactly when the battle rages in Tunis, a small note tells that, a few kilometers away, the coastal town of Tabarka quietly continues to be managed by the Genoese Republic that exploits its reefs for coral fishing. This maybe is a favor returned by Ottomans to Genoa for sending just three ships to Lepanto, nonetheless it can be explained by Mimetic theory but certainly not by the clash of civilization approach. After this scene setting, in Chapters 40 and 41 the story moves to the personal adventures of Ruy de Viedma and his fellow prisoners. Here again, a careful reading shows details that are all but disturbing for the supporters of the clash of civilization point of view: Christian prisoners are generally well treated, except under the rule of Hassan Ali, a Venetian renegade whose ferocity shocks Turks first. Then, prisoners do have pen and paper readily available to write home to get their relatives to pay the ransom, and the harbour of Algiers hosts both pirate ships and Spanish vessels doing regular trade with Spanish cities. And Christian prisoners can talk to Muslim women in a way that Cervantes itself defines as “way too liberal”, at least for XVII century Spain. Things seem more difficult between Moors and Turks, whose hostility is depicted in a number of episodes and openly put in parallel (by Moors!) to the one existing between French and Spaniards. In this context, Ruy and his comrades get in touch with Zahara, the Muslim daughter of the richest man of Algiers that secretly converted to Christianity thanks to the devotion to the Virgin Mary taught to her by an old Christian servant. She now wants to go to Spain and gives the prisoners all the money needed to finance their ransom and buy a boat. In architecting the escape a key role is played by an unnamed Spanish renegade that wants actually to come back to Spain and is collecting from Christians certificates of fair treatment to help defend his case in front of the Holy Inquisition back in homeland Spain. The fact that there is a technical term (“Tornadizo”) and a clear judicial procedure for this category leads to think that this is far from an isolated case and again, it badly matches with the romantic clash of civilization picture where renegades would deserve only horrible death, repented or not. The conversion of the Moorish girl also leaves some doubts: she constantly references Lela Marien, that is the Virgin Mary, and Allah, but never makes any explicit reference to Jesus, the Holy Ghost, or anything else with a clear theological Christian characteristic. Also, as soon as she lands in Spain, she asks to enter a Church to adore the pictures representing Mary, and although some of these paintings might well have represented the Nativity or Crucifixion, no mention of Jesus is found here as well. Knowing that Islam has strong similarity to Roman Catholicism when it comes to Mary (including virginal conception of Jesus) one wonders if Zahara really converted to Christianity or is rather pursuing a somehow unorthodox version of Islam, more tolerated in Roman Catholic Spain. With a telling mistake, when asked about Trinity, many Muslims name actually the Father, Jesus and the Virgin Mary! Finally, the prisoners manage to escape and the only serious risk of their journey is represented not by Moors sent to pursue them but rather by a French pirate ship that, crossed at night just off the coast of Malaga, immediately fires artillery at the fugitives refusal to identify themselves. The French captain stops just short of throwing the company to sharks, leaving them instead on a small boat at the mercy of the waves. Cervantes ends with the remark that the crew was from Britanny and was in a hurry to get back to La Rochelle, the haven of French Protestants. Almost four centuries later, the Turkish writer and Nob
el prize winner Orhan Pamuk keeps coming back to the theme of mutual influence and interconnection. We will mention just two books, “My name is Red” and “The White Castle”. In “My name is Red’, everything is around imitation: for the 1000th anniversary of the Hajira, the Sultan wants to donate to the Venetian ambassador a book depicted by the best miniaturists of the Palace showing all the achievements of the Ottoman Empire centered around a portrait of the Sultan himself painted in the way Ottomans have seen the Venetians paint themselves.

  The top three palace miniaturists are selected to decorate the various scenes in a work surrounded by great secrecy, but competition to draw the Sultan portrait, the core of the book, triggers immediate envy between them that eventually leads one of them to start a chain of murders to seize the portrait. Black is the detective charged to find the killer and the main character of the book. He is himself entangled in a love rivalry for the daughter of the editor of the book, Sekure, who lost her husband at war, and not in the Lepanto battle, but, as Pamuk notes, in the campaigns against the Ottomans archrivals, the Persians. The symmetry with the French and Spanish episode narrated by Cervantes could not be more apparent. So the widow is now contended between Black and Hasan, her brother-in-law, that since the time his brother married Sekure deeply envies his late brother and wants to marry the widow. Probably not even Rene Girard himself could have imagined a plot where imitation of mutual desires for love, celebrity and power intertwine so much! I recall here just two examples where the role of mutual imitation is described and even theorized in almost metaphysical terms. The first one is the dialogue between the Sultan and the editor of the book that served also as ambassador to Venice, at the end of Chapter 20. The editor vividly describes to the Sultan how the passion for portraits in Venice spread like an epidemic with all the rich and powerful rushing to have their faces depicted. What are Venetians looking for into portraits? The answer of the ambassador is simple: to stay forever in front of us, to tell each other that they exist and that they are unique and different from all the others. Pure mimetic models, in Girardian terms. And the ambassador cannot escape the spell: he feels he would better understand his own meaning in the world, if only he would be portrayed like Venetian artists do. Frightened by his own desires, he resolves to put the magic power of the portrait at the service of the Ottoman Empire, and proposes the Sultan to have him portrayed and use his portrait to extend his influence over Christian powers. Initially, the Sultan dismisses the whole idea: despite all the good intentions, portraits would inevitably turn themselves into idols, their existence becoming independent of the original model. The account ends with a masterpiece note: “For this reason, said the Sultan, I cannot accept to have myself portrayed in a painting”. “But he really wanted it”, whispered the Ambassador with a Satanic smile”. The monologue of Satan in Chapter 47 is the Devil self-defense to precisely refute the argument that trying to paint the way Venetians paint (and hence the drive to imitate Western habits) is nothing but yet another devilish temptation. To make his point, Satan refers directly to the Quran. According to the Muslim Holy Book (e.g. Surah of the Limb et al.), Satan is expelled from Paradise not for openly rebelling against God but rather for disobeying Him when God asked him and all the other angels to adore the newly created Adam. Satan refuses to bow on the ground that the new creature is made out of clay and not fire like angels and hence it is inferior. Subtly, Satan seems to imply that he is “more right than God” in supporting his refusal to bow to Adam as he is more adherent to the order of the Creation than the Creator Himself. As Satan goes on, the fact is that Adam (and therefore all mankind) was granted by God the adoration of inherently superior beings and hence man could only develop an attitude to seek adoration, appraisal and at least respect by his peers and subjects. So imitation is dismissed by Satan as a temptation of his own making, but recast as the core mechanism embedded in mankind since its beginning. Of course, Satan does not mention that beyond his refusal to bow there might well have been envy for the new creature and the attempt of imitating God by trying to be “righter than Him” in using the elemental hierarchy argument. If the line of defense chosen by Satan is correct, then the drive to create mimetic idols through imitation is actually part of God plan, quite a big dilemma. But if we instead believe that this is not true and somehow Satan is lying to prepare us yet another trap, then we have the issue that the parts of the Muslim Holy Scripture support his claim and we are left with the even bigger dilemma of figuring out how this is possible. Leaving aside theology and sticking to the literary and anthropological side of the story, the monologue of Satan captures the ambivalence of mimesis as engine of positive and negative interaction, social and political driver of all orders and disorders. The other novel of Orhan Pamuk dedicated to the mutual exchange between West and East is “The White Castle”. It is entirely based on the history of the relationship between an Italian scientist captured by Turkish pirates and eventually ended up as aide of one of the top astronomers and scientist of the Sultan court. The two scientists start to learn from each other, they help fight together a plague that bursts in Istanbul and help the Sultan develop a new war machine that should be used to win over the European fortresses that prevent the further expansion of the Empire. After a decades long work the machine is ready and as the war erupts between the Turkish empire and Poland the two scientists follow the Sultan army to the “White Castle”, that is the fortress that protects the Polish borders. There is no detail on the battle outcome, but the result is that eventually the two scientists swap clothes and while the Turkish astronomer goes to Italy the Italian one stays in Istanbul taking his place in a perfect mimetic exchange. To remind us that mimesis is always at work Pamuk openly quotes Cervantes in the figure of a Spanish prisoner (a short “cameo” in movie language) that wants to imitate his compatriot. What’s more, the whole narrative style of the novel is a monologue of the Italian scientist with high dramatization of the dialogues and a relatively scant lack of descriptive detail to make the setting as abstract as possible. The very same approach had been followed by another Spaniard, Miguel de Unamuno, in his short novel “Abel Sanchez” dedicated to the theme of envy at the dawn of the Spanish Civil War in 1928.