War & Peace Quote by Omar Bongo

Bongo’s line is a quiet rebuke aimed at a loud and seductive post-9/11 storyline: that “terror” is just Islam by another name. The phrasing does a lot of work. “Associate” is bureaucratically polite, but it’s also surgical: he’s not debating whether terrorism exists or whether it requires force; he’s warning that the framing itself is a strategic error. Then he spikes the balloon with “imaginary crusade,” a phrase that turns Western rhetoric back on itself. “Crusade” isn’t a neutral metaphor in Muslim-majority societies; it’s historical memory with sharp edges, shorthand for invasion dressed up as moral duty. Calling it “imaginary” is the key twist. He’s suggesting the crusade is not a response to facts on the ground but a story governments and media can slip into because it’s culturally familiar, emotionally satisfying, and politically useful.

As a long-serving African head of state, Bongo is also talking to multiple audiences. To Western partners, he offers a pragmatic warning: broaden the target and you manufacture recruits, turning a security campaign into a civilizational feud. To Muslim citizens and regional neighbors, he signals protection against collective blame, insisting Islam is not the enemy category.

The intent is stabilizing, but not soft. Bongo draws a hard boundary between networks and a faith community, arguing that counterterrorism fails when it drifts into identity politics. The subtext: if you make it a “crusade,” you’ve already lost the moral language needed to win anything else.