Many throughout the years have compared our current goal to eliminate terrorist organizations, specifically ISIS, as the modern-day crusade. This both misuses the word crusade and misuses the word medieval. In fact, I think the use of the word crusade brings about an unnecessary antisemitism in the US. Many politicians have referred to our involvement in the war against terrorism as a crusade and likewise, some of the terrorist organizations tie the same parallel in an attempt to gain momentum and draw a comparison to the crusades in order to be divisive and separate the world into jihadist and crusaders.

Most dangerously, far-right political groups use the term in an attempt to justify their calls for Islamophobia. Noticeably news organizations like Breitbart make the parallel to support their argument for the expulsion of Muslim foreigners and the general isolation of the religion. In the most modern context, the use of words like medieval brings a context to the terrorist and the general middle east that suggest that they are savages, less than, of a less than civilized era. Using the word medieval to describe terrorist organizations suggest that their religion is somehow innately evil and prone to violence. Many people have pointed to text in their sacred book to make this comparison and justify their fear of the religion. It is interesting that these terrorist organizations, at times, also point to text in Bible that do the same thing. Instead, these terrorist organizations use their text and the history of the crusade to justify their use of violence in defense of their people. Much like these terrorist organizations, a far-right organization like the Kansas Crusaders due the same. Think of the name crusades, it suggests that there is some divine power that has demanded that we fight terrorist also pointing to experts of violence. Is this not the same ideology of the terrorist organizations?

Using the word medieval suggest that these terrorist have technology that is insufficient and their societies are less than sufficient to survive. It paints them as savages and tying this terrorist with any person that is from the middle eastern region is a very dangerous thing to do. It underestimates the ability of ISIS., in fact, this organization is a result of the breakup of the Ottoman Empire in the 20th century. It uses some of the same modern communications and movement techniques and it is so modern that our military has had to change our tactics to account for their insurgency style fighting. The uses of the word medieval to describe this horrible organization are not accurate and we should be careful to compare the two if we want to defeat them. Moreover comparing this to a modern crusade is yet another dangerous precedent to set. If we want to end terrorism, we should be careful to stop fueling their base by assuming the middle easter equals violent terrorist.

Words: 485

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/16/opinions/nothing-medieval-about-isis-perry/index.html