About Cats and Crusaders

Hey, my name is Daniel.

Last year I visited Cyprus for the first time in my life. I mainly stayed in Limassol. Immediately I noticed the cats, lots of them - and British military helicopters.

There are areas that are completely off-limits for normal people. For example gated communities for the super-rich, and the UN buffer zone between Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot territories.

The traces of war are still here. Yet the cats go everywhere.

There also is an old castle in Limassol, that for some time was used by Richard the Lionheart during the 3rd crusade in his quest to conquer Jerusalem, as well as the Holy Monastery of St. Nicolas of the Cats, right next to Akrotiri Military Base - on British sovereign territory.

Cyprus has always been an important strategic place in the Mediterranean Sea.

Nothing has changed about that.

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If you want to hear more about Cats, press [1]

If you want to hear more about Crusaders, press [2]

According to legend, in the first century before Christ, thousands of cats were brought to Cyprus by Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, to combat a plague of snakes on the island. The snakes were thriving because of a major drought, which lasted for more than forty years. The Christian version of the same story claims that it was Saint Helena in the year 326, who brought the cats to Cyprus instead.

As a result, there are now more cats on Cyprus than human beings.

But cats used to live on Cyprus long before they were sent on their crusade against the snakes. The earliest known grave of a human being, who was buried with a domesticated cat, was in fact not found in Egypt, but on Cyprus. It dates back to the Neolithic Age, long before the Pyramids were built. Did you know that the origins of todays cat, can be traced back even further? Before cats were domesticated, they lived as wild animals in old Mesopotamia, which is now known as the Middle East.

Cleopatra's cats arrived on a beach, today known as Lady's Mile, close to the location where one can now find the Holy Monastery of Saint Nicolas of the Cats, as well as the largest British Military Base on Cyprus. It is the same coast where, according to legend, Aphrodite, the goddess of love, rose out of the sea. Because of this legend there now is a breed of cats called 'Cyprus Aphrodite'.

Lady's Mile also is the very same beach, where Richard the Lionheart landed with his fleet, a few hundred years ago during the 3rd crusade. In 1191 he arrived in Limassol. Then he took Cyprus with his troops and used the island as a strategic base for his war in Arab territory. In the name of Christianity he moved his armies into the so-called 'Holy Land', to conquer Jerusalem. Even though he won many battles, he did not succeed in the end.

There are many old stories and depictions of Christian Knights fighting dragons or snakes. To me these stories and depictions, as well as the history of the crusades, bear a strange resemblance to the story of the cats that were brought to Cyprus to wage war against the snakes.

In Christian mythology snakes often symbolise evil. It is said that the snake is responsible for the first original sin, which is the reason why we are not living in the garden of Eden anymore. Yet today I wonder: Aren't only we to blame? The right conditions do exist: our planet still has enough space and resources for everyone to live a decent life. We actually could be living in Eden right now.

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If you want to hear more about Crusaders, press [2]

If you want to hear a poem about 'The Cats of Saint Nicholas' by GEORGE SEFERIS, press [3]

If you want to talk to me directly - 'About Cats and Crusaders', press [7]

The so called ‘Holy Crusades' in the Middle Ages were not only driven by belief and religious conviction. More importantly they were about power, economics and control. On the one hand Christian countries in Europe chose to demonstrate strength toward the Muslim world and a powerful Arab Empire. On the other hand Christian kings needed to reinforce and justify their own claims to power in their home countries.

Throughout its history, Cyprus has been raided, invaded and occupied by many armies because of its strategic location in the Mediterranean Sea. Those who want to exercise control over the Mediterranean Sea need a foothold on Cyprus, which is why Richard the Lionheart first conquered Cyprus, before he continued to march against Jerusalem.

As a former British colony, Cyprus now hosts some of the most important British Military Bases abroad, still on sovereign British territory - even though the British released Cyprus into independency in the 1970-ties. There is for example Akrotiri Military base, an important hub for the Royal Air Force and Dhekelia, a British Military enclave and important listening post for the British intelligence and cybersecurity agency GCHQ. Mythical mount Olympus, the highest mountain on the island and former home of the old Gods is now occupied by new Gods: British forces maintain a radar station on its peak. Similar to Richard the Lionheart, who invaded Cyprus during the 3rd crusade on his way to conquer Jerusalem, the British military today uses the strategic location of Cyprus as a foothold in the Mediterranean Sea, - in close proximity to Syria and the rich treasures of oil in Middle East.

Starting a war still is a strategy today. It is used by powerful people to reinforce and justify their claims to power. Wars can still be a distraction from domestic problems (be it political or economic), while such problems can sometimes also be used as an excuse to start a war and also to obscure a hidden agenda. I often wonder: Are the old ‘Crusaders' who in the past went to war in the name of ‘Christianity' today replaced by simple ‘Soldiers’ who fight in the name of their ‘Nation'? Has 'Religion' as a reason to go to war, even though still not completely irrelevant, been replaced by 'Nationalism'?

According to legend, the old Knights of the Templars were searching for the 'Holy Grail’. What do you think is the equivalent of the 'Holy Grail’ today? For example, sometimes I ask myself wether a 'Golden Passport', only available to the super-rich who isolate themselves behind the walls of Gated Communities, could be viewed as something like the 'Holy Grail': an unreachable mythic object that promises salvation - or just peace and prosperity.

After all, isn't a peaceful and prosperous life all that most of us want - and that everybody deserves? Yet if peace and prosperity are destroyed in the name of 'Religion' or 'Nation', what do those terms actually mean?

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If you want to hear more about Cats, press [1]

If you want to hear a poem about 'The Cats of Saint Nicholas' by GEORGE SEFERIS, press [3]

If you want to talk to me directly - 'About Cats and Crusaders', press [7]

'That's the Cape of Cats ahead,' the captain said to me,

pointing through the mist to a low stretch of shore,

the beach deserted; it was Christmas day —

'. . . and there, in the distance to the west, is where

Aphrodite rose out of the waves;

they call the place "Greek's Rock."

Left ten degrees rudder!'

She had Salome's eyes, the cat I lost a year ago;

and old Ramazan, how he would look death square in the eyes,

whole days long in the snow of the East,

under the frozen sun,

days long square in the eyes: the young hearth god.

Don't stop, traveller.

'Left ten degrees rudder,' muttered the helmsman.

. . . my friend, though, might well have stopped,

now between ships,

shut up in a small house with pictures,

searching for windows behind the frames.

The ship's bell struck

like a coin from some vanished city

that brings to mind, as it falls,

alms from another time.

'It's strange,' the captain said.

'That bell — given what day it is —

reminded me of another, the monastery bell.

A monk told me the story,

a half-mad monk, a kind of dreamer.

'It was during the great drought,

forty years without rain,

the whole island devastated,

people died and snakes were born.

This cape had millions of snakes

thick as a man's legs

and full of poison.

In those days the monastery of St Nicholas

was held by the monks of St Basil,

and they couldn't work their fields,

couldn't put their flocks to pasture.

In the end they were saved by the cats they raised.

Every day at dawn a bell would strike

and an army of cats would move into battle.

They'd fight the day long,

until the bell sounded for the evening feed.

Supper done, the bell would sound again

and out they'd go to battle through the night.

They say it was a marvellous sight to see them,

some lame, some blind, others missing

a nose, an ear, their hides in shreds.

So to the sound of four bells a day

months went by, years, season after season.

Wildly obstinate, always wounded,

they annihilated the snakes but in the end disappeared;

they just couldn't take in that much poison.

Like a sunken ship

they left no trace on the surface:

not a miaow, not a bell even.

Steady as you go!

Poor devils, what could they do,

fighting like that day and night, drinking

the poisonous blood of those snakes?

Generations of poison, centuries of poison.'

'Steady as you go,' indifferently echoed the helmsman.

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If you want to hear more about Cats, press [1]

If you want to hear more about Crusaders, press [2]

If you want to talk to me directly - 'About Cats and Crusaders', press [7]