Tropes of the crusades in Indonesian Muslim discourse

This paper concerns the ways in which tropes of the Crusades are used in contemporary Indonesian Islamic discourse. It is based on the analysis of contemporary textual materials and on ethnographic research conducted between 1978 and 2009. It is argued that tropes of the Crusades and now linked to an Islamist discourse that is Anti-Western and Anti-Semitic and that they are employed as mythological archetypes that link the colonial past with contemporary Indonesian politics and world affairs.