The Demonization of Catholicism in Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree

In his novel, Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree, Tariq Ali writes a cast of characters covering a broad moral spectrum, from the sweet, innocent Yazid, to the utterly despicable Cisneros. Ali does so, of course, with the honest intention of fairly depicting people on both sides of the conflict presented therein, that between the Catholics and the Muslims in Spain at that time. However, it is my opinion that, despite his honest intentions, Ali goes too far by turning certain Christian characters (particularly Cisneros and Cortes) into story-book villains, as opposed to realistically-portrayed political/religious oppressors. In doing so, Ali unintentionally reinforces an "us vs. them" mentality that is at the very heart of Orientalist thinking.

Such a mentality is a side-effect of any historical or modern conflict. The "us vs. them" mentality (ethnocentrism) encourages thinking in absolutes. A historical personage who did good in his or her life is absolutely good, and a historical personage who did evil in his or her life is absolutely evil. We are too lazy to critically analyze the relative good and evil of their individual actions, and so we sanctify or demonize them accordingly. It depresses us to think of those we worship or revile in shades of gray instead of black-and-white. And yet, none of us are absolutely good or evil (no matter what we think of ourselves and our actions); we are all capable of doing good, but are all inherently and necessarily flawed in some way.

In Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree, Tariq Ali, to some extent, plays into this mentality, most notably in his depiction of Ximenes de Cisneros. When first we meet him, he has ordered the burning of Arabic manuscripts in Granada. His thoughts, as written by Ali, are lofty, "He had been chosen as the instrument of the Almighty" (4), and his actions are storybook-villain material; just look at the lines, "A sneer curled his lips" (4) and "...a crooked smile on his face as he plans the next steps" (5). Other characters refer to him as the "devil." Indeed, Ali has set Cisneros up, not as a realistic historical personage, but as an evil antagonist to whom we cannot give even the slightest bit of sympathy. I believe that this is a mistake on Ali's part.

We cannot understand Cisneros's character and so we call him "villain." Tariq Ali should have taken the opportunity to humanize Cisneros; this would have contributed to a sense of building unease about him, as opposed to the instinctive revilement we feel as he orders the burning of Arabic manuscripts in Granada. In a novel like Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree, the lines between good and evil should be rather more blurred. We should not be quite sure with whom to place our faith. It should not be as simple as saying that the Muslims are the "good" guys and the Catholics are the "bad" guys. Yet Ali does not help us very much to understand the perspective of the Christian characters. Cisneros is pure evil, Miguel committed incest with his mother, Asma, and even Don Inigo, perhaps the most "good" Christian character of the book, is depicted as somewhat morally-weak in his conversation with Umar near the beginning of the novel. The final nail in the coffin was the inclusion of Cortes (the Cortes) at the end of the novel, which felt-tacked on, as though he were the summation of Catholic military evil (as opposed to a real, historical personage).