Onward, Christian soldiers?


Could 2025 seriously be the year we see a re-litigation of the mediæval Crusades?

Perhaps a more accurate analogy than those notorious attempts to regain the Holy Land and Jerusalem for Chistendom would be the Reconquista of al-Andalus. This series of military and cultural campaigns, waged by Europe's Christian kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsular following its conquest by the Umayyad Caliphate, culminated in victory for the Catholic Monarchs of Spain in 1492, bringing to an end eight hundred years of Muslim rule.

What prompts this line of thought is the posting of an image on Elon Musk's social media platform, X, that would seem to be urging, in graphic terms, the reconquest of the European part of Istanbul and its Turkish hinterland taken by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II in 1453. Paul Golding, leader of Britain First, put up a doctored photograph of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul with its iconic dome surmounted by a huge Greek flag and surrounded by Greek soldiers. Above the image is the caption "soon". 

For a lunatic fringe of extreme-right, ultra-nationalist, anti-immigrant figures, it appears to be a realistic aspiration to see Christendom and Islam at loggerheads once again. But why Hagia Sophia? As the most important and emblematic Orthodox Christian church of the Byzantine Empire for a thousand years until Constantinople fell to the Muslim conquest, it offers an obvious target for anti-Muslim propagandists.

After the Muslim conquest it became a mosque and, with the establishment of the Turkish secular republic in 1923 under Kamal Attatürk, a museum. It was re-converted to a mosque as recently as 2020 by the traditionalist President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. It is thus a striking symbol of a supposed 'clash of cultures', lending itself to exploitation by right-wing elements of both faiths, the more powerfully for being on the European continent.

The image posted by Golding, while undoubtedly incendiary, is hardly likely to spark a serious effort to reclaim the formerly Christian parts of Europe, or the Levant. Of all the potential flashpoints for major conflict around the globe at the moment, a direct confrontation between Christendom and Islam does not seem the most likely eventuality. 

The focus is clearly on the Muslim populations of Europe which, after the recent fall of the Assad regime in Syria, followed by the murderous Islamist-inspired attack on Magdeburg Christmas Market, has once again sparked anti-Muslim migrant sentiment in the continent. Fir example, there have already been calls frim right-wing politicians in Germany for Syrian refugees to be returned to Syria.

However, what moves the prospect of a resurgent 'reconquest' sentiment, bordering on ethno-religious cleansing, from implausible to almost imaginable is the pre-eminent role Musk appears to be taking in Trump's second US administration. His enormous financial clout, global media reach and increasingly inflammatory rhetoric regarding, for example, the notorious 'grooming scandal' in the UK involving gangs of Muslim men, could be sufficient to stir up Islamophobic outrage in the West to a pitch where a concerted assault against Islam might be seriously contemplated. 

Frankly, I think that highly unlikely, though given the current febrile state of international relations it is far from impossible. In reality, presenting the very real phenomenon of growing Islamophobia as a serious sign of the emergence of a new 'church militant' would be a gross exaggeration. However, in the present circumstances, a coalition could plausibly be formed, though what its target might be is unclear. 

For the term 'Muslim world' hardly describes a coherent or tangible entity, either theologically or geopolitically. Islam, riven as it is with its own sectarian, internicine, regional and international rivalries, would not appear to present an immediately apprehensible target for a focused attack. 

The same could also be said of 'Christendom', a concept which barely stacked up in mediæval times, much less now, with the spread of secularism - at least in Europe. Of course, the phenomenon of the 'Christian Right' is undeniably a growing factor in Europe as it is in other parts of the world, especially the US. 

Ever the opportunist, Trump might pander to calls for a 'reconquest' from this quarter for political gain, but the realpolitik is likely to prove much more difficult than the rhetoric. There is a far greater likelihood of Trump and Musk falling out spectacularly than of a Crusading spirit being relaunched.

Nevertheless, the fact that it has even been suggested is deeply disturbing.

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