The word "crusade" does seem to fit in with a collection of
"pro-religious" words that Bush is sporting just as willingly.  I have a
feeling that if I don't pray for someone these days, I'm an insensitive
cretin with animosity toward America and Americans, not a person who
asserts his right to practicing a non-god-based "religion."  In fact
that's what disturbs me most about this whole issues: we have a bunch of
"Allahu aqbar" screaming fanatics on one end and a bunch of "God bless"
screaming fanatics on the other.  Nothing good has ever come from
confrontation laced with irrational religions--with apologies for the
tautology.

==Reinhold

Johanna Rubba wrote:
>
> The media have been covering issues of language along with everything
> else related to this disaster. The LA Times has had two pieces, one by
> Geoffrey Nunberg and one by a staff writer interviewing several language
> specialists (including the Atlantic Monthly's Barbara Walraff). Issues
> of word usage, tone, hesitation, etc. are discussed. I imagine you could
> access these via the LA Times website. Maybe some fellow listers could
> let us know of similar reports that they know of. There have also been
> electronic media reports, of course, and the only details I recall from
> these are notes that Colin Powell was judged by one communications
> expert to be the most effective of the government's spokespeople, while
> the President was going a little too far in the direction of aggression
> while at the same time sounding uncomfortable and not terribly fluent.
> (These aren't my own judgments, just what I heard.)
>
> The use of 'crusade' was quite unfortunate, from my viewpoint. Europeans
> and Americans don't realize how much meaning the ancient conflict
> between Christian Europe and the Islamic countries still has for
> residents of the Arab world. It is a very salient part of their
> appreciation of their own history and culture. From my personal
> experience with Muslims and Arabs (including 4 years living in a
> Muslim/Arab country), such a remark would immediately (rightly or
> wrongly) be interpreted as a resurrection of that ancient conflict,
> indicating the 'West's' desire to 'take back' territory from the Islamic
> world and setting the conflict up as a religious conflict, rather than a
> political one. I don't know what Bush's intentions were in using the
> word, but it is a highly inflammatory word in Muslim countries,
> especially in the Arab portion of the Muslim world (by which I mean
> parts of the world in which the majority of residents or very
> substantial portions of the population are Muslims who also perceive
> themselves as Arabs).
>
> Whether avoidance of the word would constitute 'political correctness'
> or not is less important to me than its practical inflammatory value.
> Bush's use of the word was the first and main headline on the BBC's
> headline news one or two evenings this week, showing the BBC's
> understanding of its rhetorical value for the Arab/Muslim audience. My
> reason to avoid it wouldn't be political correctness, but a desire to
> avoid inflaming the situation further (of course, this might have been
> Bush's intention). I don't know if Bush was informed of the practical
> consequences of using this word.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
> English Department, California Polytechnic State University
> One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
> Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-2596
> • E-mail: [log in to unmask] •  Home page: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
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