2024 Reflection: When the Victory Wasn't the End of All

It was 1098, a year had passed since the Crusader alliance joined a quest to reclaim Jerusalem from the Turkish invasion. The Crusaders inside Antioch city were under the Turks' siege and the Syrian forces’ blockade. As a result, the Crusaders was food deprived, some of their warriors perished of starvation, while the others tried to survive by sucking the blood out of their horses' veins.

Amidst of the Crusaders' growing despair, the priest who had followed them along claimed to be blessed by a vision that Christ promised to send accompaniment. The claim backed by another one reciprocally as told by Peter Bartholomew; the Holy Lance—a spear that had been used to stab Jesus Christ's stomach on the cross, was hidden in the city's church.

Without hesitation, unrecalled that the real Holy Lance was kept far away in Constantinople, some of the Crusaders dug up the church to find it. Surprisingly, they discovered a spearhead, which was met with prayers of gratitude procession. Long story short, the Crusade leaders grasped that burst through the Turkish and Syrian forces' blockade was their only option, other than stood their ground in the city and starved to death.

With their remaining strength, outnumbered men and weapons by the Turks, the Crusaders split themselves into several groups. One of the groups moved out of Antioch under Bishop Adhemar of Le Puy led, while other groups stayed inside the city. The Syrians led by Kerbogah were unguarded and let them go. Bishop Adhemar's group then noiselessly split up to be two smaller groups beyond the sight of the Syrians.

As the Turks ambushed the Crusaders on the border of Antioch, they were not expecting a second group swiftly turn the tide to their favor. The words of the Crusaders' momentary victory quickly spread to the city center, arose the Crusaders' determination to push the Syrians back and forced Kerbogah to lead his troops out of Antioch.

Compared to the Crusaders, the Turkish and Syrian forces were equal opponents. Their weaponry were quite advanced for the time's standard, and their food supplies were undisrupted. Historians believed that internal strife played a major role in the failure of the Turkish forces in the Antioch phase of the Crusade. Due to Kerbogah and his troops newly joined as reinforcements, they did not have enough support and trust from a number of high rank officials in the Turkish army to lead.

(Taken from the book of Crusade 1097-1444, PT Elex Media Komputindo, Indonesia, 2013, page 30-37)

The Journey of Two New World Power in 2024 

Given their pursuit to challenge mainstream power and create a new axis in the world economy, it is only natural that numerous parties are trying to find Russia and China's weaknesses and drawbacks. Any bad news occurs in these two countries is good news for their rivals. Such a common behavior
in the midst of global rivalry, a must-see drama for those who are not involved in it.

Illustration: Pexel.com

Three final months of 2024, several Western media outlets reported that China's economic growth  slowed down from 4.7% year-over-year (yoy) to 4.6%. A difference of 0.1% is nothing to most people, but it means a lot to a country's economic statistics. Moreover, China has been quite spoiled by praise of the Western media about its impressive economic growth, until the global COVID-19 pandemic. However, China is not the only one who has been suffering an economic stagnation at the moment.

There was also an unexpected news from Syria. All of a sudden, the militia organization Jabhat Fatah al-Sham seemed to have rebranded its vitality after changing its name to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. They succeeded in taking the capital away from the Syrian government forces supported by Russia. Given their failure to beat Russia in the Ukrainian War, it goes without words that Russia's fiercest opponents were overjoyed to learn of this. Based on several publications on the internet, it is reasonable to conclude that Russia is attempting to move on from the Syrian matter intricacy.

Acceptance

Looking at the passage from the Crusaders' story above, challenging circumstances often reveal a person's or a group's hidden capacity for pressure-induced compromise. Nearly all of the greatest inventions and discoveries in human history were made when their creators were unable to chill out, relax, or hearten themselves while at work. They employed their minds for ways to make sure that the difficulties they were facing would not happened again in the future.

The thing is, it wasn't only the Renaissance or Ancient Greek philosophers who attempted to bring their imaginative ideas come to live and solved complexities of every day's life. Such tendency has also been the aim of many generations of scholars and inventors for decades to the current Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI), assisting humans so they don't have to bother about the thinking activities. How fabulous, isn't it?

Something new will lead the way to something newer, and eventually to something even more new. And so forth. In the end, our satisfaction and pride for our success wasn't the end of everything because, inevitably, circumstances can go south at any time against our hopes, ideals and wishes. Nothing lasts forever.

Just like the Crusaders assumed they had “found” the Holy Lance and been grateful to God while endured a life-or-death situation, being mindful of the current situation is the first step in figuring out what to do next.