David Varea

Kingdom of Heaven is one of the biggest psy-op movies ever made to make Christians bad and muslims good. > No context about the historical background of the period. There is no mention of Constantinople or the Eastern Roman Empire, which was the protagonist; no mention of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, who initiated the First Crusade; and no mention of the reasons for the First Crusade, because of the unstoppable massacres of Christian civilians in the Middle East and the Holy Land. The First Crusade was a notable success for Byzantium. > The movie never mentions why it was called a "crusade." Of course, it was not named that in the beginning. It was called in Greek "Σταυροφορία"(stavroforia, from the words stavros = cross and fero = to carry). When the muslims entered Jerusalem, they stole the remains of the Holy Cross. The Greeks from Constantinople then began a crusade primarily to take back the Cross and the Holy Land. The word stavros (cross, the Holy Cross) became crux in Latin. Thus stavros = crux, and stavrofories = crusades. > Doesn't show the Islamic imperialism and slaughter of unarmed Christians. Christians who lived under islamic rule were relegated to the status of dhimmi which was inferior to the status of the muslims. Christians and other religious minorities thus faced religious discrimination and persecution because they were banned from proselytising in the lands which were invaded by the Arab muslims on pain of death, they were banned from bearing arms, they were banned from holding certain professions, and they were obligated to dress differently in order to distinguish themselves from Arabs and muslims. Under the Islamic law (sharia), Non-muslims were obligated to pay the jizya and kharaj taxes together with periodic and heavy ransom which was levied upon Christian communities by muslim rulers in order to fund their military campaigns, all of which resulted in their contribution of a significant amount of their income to the Islamic states, leading to the empoverishment of many Christian communities, and these financial and social hardships forced many Christians to convert to Islam. Christians who were unable to pay these taxes were forced to surrender their children to the muslim rulers, who would sell them as slaves to muslim households, where they were forced to convert to Islam. Christians paid this price during all the Caliphates (Rashidun Caliphate, Umayyad Caliphate, Almoravid Caliphate, Abbasid Caliphate). > Balian was a noble man married to Greek Byzantine Maria Komnene. Again NO MENTION of Constantinople which was the center of the world, no mention of the Greeks, no mention of Eastern Roman Empire. > Guy de Lusignan and Reynald de Chatillon are portrayed as archetypal fanatical villains although is more complicated and out of context. > The film largely ignores Eastern Orthodox Christians in the kingdom and reduces complex politics to good vs. bad factions. > The Battle of Hattin (1187) is shown, but details like army sizes are off (Saladin's force wasn't 200,000 OBVIOUSLY) > The siege of Jerusalem gets some tactical elements right, but Balian's motivational speeches about shared holy sites and "the people matter more" are anachronistic, medieval leaders didn't speak like 21st-century secular globalists humanists funded by George Soros. > The Crusader states weren't just "Western colonizers" this is pseudo-history and erases thousand of Greco-Roman history. > Literally pseudo-history, not based on primary sources. Movie shows Christians as greedy, hypocritical, violent fanatics in a drab and muslims, led by the noble and merciful Saladin, come across as more civilized, tolerant, and justified in reclaiming Jerusalem "back". Literally PSEUDO-history. > Balian delivers speeches promoting religious tolerance. For example "What is Jerusalem worth?", and the idea that extremists on both sides are the problem, but the weight OF COURSE falls more on Christian "extremism". Do I really need to explain why Holywood depicts "Bad Christianity" and "Good Islamism" duality? Disgusting pseudo-history. One of the biggest psy-op movies ever made to manipulate the common thought of the uneducated masses who never opened a book in their lives. And it seems it worked perfectly for their political games. And again, I mentioned it thousands of times. You never see movies about the Byzantine period and the Greeks or what happened to Anatolia, only about early Rome, and then they skip about 1,000 years when the Greeks played an important role up until at least 1100 AD. Constantinople was the CENTER of the world and the richest city in the world. How can you skip that kind of history of literally A THOUSAND YEARS EMPIRE? You never see Hollywood depict what was happening in the Eastern Roman Empire, where the sciences, art, education, and theology literally flourished. For some reason, they don't show/teach you how the Greeks played an important part in shaping the history of that period; they won’t show you the real reasons the Crusades started, that was the response to non-stop aggression from muslims who were enslaving Christian from Europe, Anatolia, Africa and Middle East. Also, they won’t show you how Anatolia was Islamized, what happened to Greece during the Ottoman period, or how North Africa was Arabized and Islamized. Interesting, isn’t it? Food for thought. You should be more awake of what's happening.