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A Eurovision performance has reignited debate about Europe’s Christian heritage, Ottoman history, and the enduring cultural tensions surrounding Islamic expansion.

Eurovision ‘Drops the Mic’

There’s an old saying that nearly everyone has heard, but people always need to be reminded of. It simply says, “If you don’t learn from the mistakes of history, then you’re bound to repeat them.” This year’s Eurovision Song Contest, of all things, has provided one of the most stunning reminders of all regarding the historic threat of Islamic invasion.

I’ve honestly never appreciated most of the music which comes out of Eurovision, but for the first time in I can’t remember, this particular song by Lelek just hit different. And I didn’t even know what they were singing about! But as the following video makes clear, it’s a clarion call for the West to wake up to the ever-present threat of Islamic invasion by how Christian parents in Europe used to tattoo their children to make them less desirable to Muslim invaders at the time of the Ottoman Empire.

The historic practice of tattooing religious patterns on one’s body is known as sicanje or bocanje, and is a fascinating piece of Balkan history. While it was most popularly practised by Catholic Croats living in Bosnia and Herzegovina—especially during Ottoman rule—it extended into other parts of Europe and, in particular, Croatia as well.

While the tattoos were occasionally placed on the forehead, they were more often inscribed on the hands, wrists, forearms, and chest. This unique religious custom became a vital strategy of cultural survival and completely undermined the Ottoman Empire’s colonialist goals

Ancient Tattoos as Christian Resistance

The custom actually predates the arrival of the Ottomans—dating back to ancient Illyrian pagan tribes in the region—but when the Ottoman military conquest expanded into the Balkans in the 15th century, the Christian population there reappropriated the ancient practice for three critical reasons:

First, it prevented forced conversions. The tattoos featured highly visible and ornate Christian symbols—mostly variations of the cross or circular patterns representing one’s family. By permanently marking their children, parents ensured that they could never be forced to convert to Islam without a permanent, visible reminder of their Christian religious heritage.

Obviously, a tattoo cannot be hidden, confiscated, or stripped away, unlike articles of clothing, names or a piece of jewellery can be. To the Muslim overlords, then, someone displaying a cross forever etched onto their bodies was a consistent and unerasable proclamation of religious resistance as well as cultural resilience.

Second, it thwarted the jizya or ‘Religion Tax’. Muslims in the Ottoman Empire practised a taxation system called devshirme, where young Christian boys were taken from their families, forced to convert to Islam, and then trained to become elite soldiers (Janissaries) in Muslim armies. Marking young boys with permanent Christian symbols made them undesirable for military recruitment since they visibly carried around with them the “stamp” of another faith. A perpetual reminder of what they were violently taken from.

In short, the tattoos demonstrated a fierce, unyielding Christian confession, making it very difficult for Muslim leaders to force people to convert to Islam. This then altered the local taxation and administrative system upon which Islamic conquest is built. Under the Ottoman jizya taxation system, all non-Muslims (known as dhimmi) occupied a lower social status and were only allowed to practice their faith if they paid the special ‘religious’ tax.

Third, it protected young girls in particular against being abducted and forced into sexual slavery. Christian women and girls were constantly at risk of being abducted for Islamic harems or forced into marriages with local Muslim men, or especially Ottoman rulers. Tattooing a young girl’s hands, chest, or especially her face and forehead, made her deeply unappealing, as Islamic law strictly forbids tattoos. Hence, it acted as a powerful religious deterrent.

Classic Islamic jurisprudence (Sharia Law) prohibits the tattooing of the body, viewing it as a desecration of what God has created. Seeing boys or girls openly flaunting this prohibition—especially the symbol of a Christian cross—was seen as being an act of spiritual defiance and hence a rejection of Islamic cultural dominance.

The History Lesson Continues

The process of being tattooed in the past was as painful as it was primitive. It often involved the elderly men or women in a village marking their beloved children when they were very young, normally between the ages of 10 and 15.

What’s more, it often coincided with special religious feast days such as Good Friday. Usually, a sharp needle was used to prick the skin, and then a mixture of charcoal, soot, honey, or sometimes even breastmilk or saliva as a lubricant was used to secure the dark pigment into the skin forever.

However, the tradition began to diminish in the mid-20th century, especially as the advancement of Islamic armies was halted. As the following video explains, though, the threat of Islamic invasion is an ever-present one. And if one cannot freely leave a religion—without the threat of being harmed or even killed—one must ask the question, in a democratic society such as Australia, does it even qualify as being a religion?

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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.