June 07, 2002
Crusade vs. McJihad Public nuisance Alex Frantz penned a few words last month on the "jihad" and "crusade" controversies. It would be interesting to do an extensive search, in appropriately selected sources, for recent uses of the words "crusade" and "jihad". From there one could examine how often each word was used in the context of a call to waste people who don't happen to share certain beliefs regarding religion or the proper organization of society. Surely one would find a deplorably high number of instances, in English language publications, of "crusade" being used with this bloodthirsty and coercive connotation.


Posted by Moira Breen at June 07, 2002 11:13 AM
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My guess is that you'd have to go back several centuries to find "crusade" used in the sense of a holy war. In my high school days (a dismaying number of years ago) a popular campus club was "Crusade for Christ". Since then, I've seen it used mainly as a synonym for "reform": viz., "a crusade to clean up city hall"; "a crusade to improve the facilities at city hospital"; I'm not sure I haven't seen a reference to a "crusade" to change the rules of duplicate bridge. "Jihad", in my experience, always refers to an actual holy war, an effort to exterminate the infidel. On the other hand, in Muslim societies it may be as elastic in is usage as is "Crusade". But I doubt it. I'd be interested in seeing a statistical analysis done (by someone else, naturally) of the various usages of "Crusade." I'd bet a bundle that the great majority of them are metaphorical in nature, referring to something other than an actual holy war.

Posted by: Kenneth Burke on June 11, 2002

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