The best way forward would surely be to disentangle terrorism altogether from its Islamic manifestation and call for a global declaration of zero tolerance by all nation states of fanatical organisations hell-bent on destruction by terrorist means.
What we must pray for is that the American-led coalition does not
abandon the very Western values it seeks to uphold – values which are
themselves partly predicated on Judaeo-Christian traditions. If it does abandon these values, then it will fall prey to baser instincts, because human nature, Christians believe, is intrinsically ugly without the transfiguring beauty of grace.
The leaders of our governments must not harden their hearts and launch out against the Muslim world as if it were merely an extension of our own back yard. The United States, in particular, which had defined itself throughout the cold war over and against the "evil empire", needs to avoid the trap of redefining itself over and against Muslim resurgence.
The first crusade (1096-99), supported by the Pope, but under thrall to the fanatical people's champion, Peter the Hermit, took the holy places in Jerusalem from the Muslims but at a terrible cost to human lives both Arab and Jew. The sheer savagery of their attack, according to historian Steven Runciman, shocked Muslim and Eastern Christians alike.
The first crusade should have been a warning that the best intentions pave the way to hell, for it turned out that it was only round one of an eight round contest, and while the Western allies unreservedly won the first round, it turned out that the "Muslim interlopers" were infinitely more resilient than expected. They were also on balance (alas to say) more tolerant than the Christian armies.
If the crusades can claim any hero at all, both East and West, than it was the Egyptian warrior, General Saladin, who deserves that accolade. During the third crusade (1189-92) he won the respect of the whole Christian army because of his military prowess and brilliant strategy. In victory, when he had earlier recaptured Jerusalem, he was a magnanimous conqueror, granting freedom of worship and safety to Christian and Jew alike.
By the time of the fourth crusade (1202-04) the jaded Christian armies failed even to reach the Holy Land and in 1204 fell back on Byzantium (present-day Istanbul). There they turned on their fellow-Christians, destroying and pillaging the "golden city", stripping it of its greatest treasures, and slaughtering indiscriminately the Greek and Arab populations, including women and children.
The Byzantine empire, with its Orthodox Christians, never really recovered from this onslaught, and in 1453, a shadow of its former glory, it capitulated to a triumphant Islam.
The crusades, then, not only failed in their objective to root out the Muslim invaders, but the wars lasted for over 200 years. Little good came from them, but a great deal of harm. Inter-faith respect and political international relations were irreparably damaged – and undivided Christendom which had survived between East and West for over a thousand years, was itself dealt a death blow.
But history suggests that in order for him to succeed he must beware of crusades: they feed off revenge and cultural superiority as much as they do idealism and the legitimate desire for justice.
Nobody would love a Western crusade more than Bin Laden for it would bring on the conflagration he craves. Hopefully all men and women of good will, and common sense, can see that. Let us pray that uncommon restraint will prevail.
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IN THIS TIME between times – the tension between the old world order and the new – we could do worse than remind ourselves of what crusading entails by briefly reflecting on the crusades of the Middle Ages. They too were ostensibly fuelled by the passion to eradicate an enemy foreign to Western experience.
THERE IS REAL HOPE that President Bush's statesmanship will rise to the private decency that obviously pervades his personal life, and under his leadership the horrors of the American tragedy will lead to a new era of co-operation among nations and cultures that will eradicate the scourge of terrorism and promote international co-operation on an unprecedented scale. Previous page
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