New crusades are political and cultural wars, not religious conflicts

Evidence

This charge wasn’t simply, or even primarily, about religion. As John Esposito explains, “For the Pope, the call to the defense of the faith and Jerusalem provided an ideal opportunity to gain recognition for papal authority and its role in legitimating temporal rulers, and to reunite the Eastern (Greek) and Western (Latin) churches.” Religion became the screen behind which social and economic conflicts were played out. To be sure, it was not just Muslims who were killed by the crusaders: systematic pogroms were carried out against Jews in Europe, and Christians in the Byzantine Empire were also mercilessly slaughtered. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 61 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The “clash of civilizations” rhetoric therefore became dominant in the aftermath of 9/11 and was the ideological basis for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well domestic attacks on Muslims and Arabs. For a while it appeared that the neocons were unstoppable—but they overplayed their hand. During its first term, the Bush administration built a “coalition of the willing” to invade Iraq, rejecting criticisms from allies it derogatorily labeled “old Europe.” The war on Iraq, however, did not go the way the neocons wanted it to. Instead of greeting US forces as liberators, the Iraqi people resisted and rejected US hegemony. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 421 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: The Crusades used religion to mask social and economic conflicts — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 61; Religion carries no necessary political meaning but is anchored in tendential historical formations; Political Islam is a contemporary construct, not a natural outgrowth of Muslim societies. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 30 (+2 more)

Related

• The Crusades used religion to mask social and economic conflicts (similarity 0.89)
• Anti-Muslim crusades are political and cultural wars, not religious ones (similarity 0.83)
• Bush’s ‘crusade’ rhetoric revived medieval holy war framing against Islam (similarity 0.83)
• The Crusades were less coherent religious triumph than convenient enemy-making (similarity 0.81)
• Islam’s early fusion of religion and politics was not unique among world religions (similarity 0.81)
• The War on Terror was a globalized crusade recruiting nations for domestic political gain (similarity 0.81)
• Political-religious fusion is neither unique to Islam nor proof of anti-modernity. (similarity 0.80)
• The War on Terror was ideologically framed as a civilizational clash (similarity 0.80)
• Islam has practiced de facto separation of religion and politics since the eighth century (similarity 0.79)
• Cultural brilliance can coincide with and mask political and military decadence (similarity 0.79)
• Religious war imagery about Islam is revived for specific imperial needs (similarity 0.79)
• The Crusades as holy triumph is a myth masking internal massacres (similarity 0.79)
• Grand civilizational rubrics invent false collective identities that enable deadly conflicts (similarity 0.79)
• The papacy manufactured Muslims as a holy-war enemy to unify Christian Europe (similarity 0.79)
• Juxtaposing contending ideologies lets thrillers move beyond war-on-terror binaries. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• The Crusades used religion to mask social and economic conflicts #corroborates (0.75) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 61
• Clash-of-civilizations rhetoric ideologically legitimized both foreign wars and domestic attacks #exemplifies (0.70) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 421
• Religion carries no necessary political meaning but is anchored in tendential historical formations #expands (0.60)
• Political Islam is a contemporary construct, not a natural outgrowth of Muslim societies. #corroborates (0.55) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 30