automigration

minimoonstar:

brosephine:

A well-researched post about a historical hero I’m sorry not to have learned about before.

If you don’t know the history and have not read this piece, you owe it to yourself to do so.

(What is really weird is that I’m sitting here ripping a copy of 1, 2, 3 Soleils, which contains the definitive live version of “Abdel Kader” the song - ppl act all surprised-like when they find I’m familiar with it, even though I have no idea how you can live in a city with a large Arabic-speaking immigrant population and not be.  Darned if I have any idea what the lyrics are, but that happens often enough in languages I speak. XD; I’ve been to a Khaled gig, too, by myself, before it would have occurred to me to be self-conscious about something like that.)

I didn’t know this and I’m more than slightly ashamed of myself for it.

“It is no light thing for history to record, that the most uncompromising soldier of Mohammedan independence (…) became the most intrepid guardian of Christian lives and Christian honor in the days of his political downfall, and in the decline alike of his people and of his faith. (…) To-day (Oct 20, 1860) the Christian world unites to honor in the dethroned Prince of Islam, the most unselfish of knightly warriors, risking limb and life to rescue his ancient foes, his conquerors and the conquerors of his race and his religion, from outrage and from death.”