The Nomadic Alternative – Page 211

To convince the restless mob to enlist in the ranks, the propaganda machine of the Church resorted to the timeless principle of military indoctrination. It appealed to basic human instincts. A helpless female, in this case the Holy Land, lay at the mercy of the Infidel, "an abominable and impure people who had ravaged and stained the Holy Places". The duty of every Christian was clear. He must leave at once on a long journey to defend the distant lady in her distress.

In other words the Infidel was animal. To kill a wild animal in defence of woman and child, in this case the Virgin Mother and Christ, was to answer the biological call of manhood.

"Wandering for God" had once cured the crime of violence against other men. Now the Church reversed the role of the penitential pilgrimage. It consecrated homicide as a meritorious act of self-sacrifice providing the victim was an unbeliever, one of them, not one of us. The Crusade thus became a convenient outlet for the professional sadist, who satisfied his craving for adventure; and by a process of mental-backsliding, satisfied himself of his essential goodness as he spilled the blood of a sub-human enemy. He was a defender, not an aggressor; the Holy Land belonged to Christendom, even though others occupied it. In any case fantasies of sacrifice through spilled blood were so intertwined with the human sacrifice implicit in the New Testament, that the causes of his confusion are not hard to find.

But military expansions require continued military successes. Unless exterminated, the sub-human enemy reacts in a wholly human way. It defends its own homeland. Permanent military domination fails, not through lack of armaments, but because the crusaders finally recognize their enemies to be less sub-human than themselves.

"God has now sent you the Pigs", the Emperor Frederick II told his Arab friends at the Dome of the Rock as they discussed the forces of Christendom. The failure of any crusade is a failure of will. Fuel for this failure stems from the counter-invasion of ideas which the initial invasion provoked.