RAF squadron drops ‘Crusaders’ nickname after complaint it is offensive to Muslims

From The Telegraph

An RAF squadron has dropped its “Crusaders” nickname following a complaint it is offensive to Muslims.

14 Squadron, one of the RAF’s longest-serving and most senior squadrons, achieved the moniker after its airmen flew sorties over Gaza and Palestine during the First World War.

However, crews have been ordered to remove any references to Crusaders around their hangar after a senior officer upheld an RAF crew member’s complaint insisting the term was insulting.

The Crusades were a series of religious wars between Christians and Muslims during the medieval era that began primarily to gain control of holy sites considered sacred by both groups. (not quite right – see below) 

The first 30 years of 14 Squadron’s history were closely linked to the Middle East. More recently, its pilots were involved in the first Gulf War in 1991 and Kosovo in 1999.

The change was sparked following a single complaint from an RAF crew member,

One aviator told the newspaper: “If they’d have asked members of the squadron, rather than dictating this change, almost everyone would have been in favour of retaining ‘Crusaders’, because it is so much part of our history.

“There was never any prejudice or malice in the name. Every squadron, every regiment has a past. But if that past doesn’t suit current thinking it will be erased.”

Officials said the RAF’s focus must not be on giving prominence to offensive terms that may go against the values of the service, and that while nicknames may have a place in its history, some are “no longer appropriate”.

From the Comments

• Crusaders were a well overdue response to Islamic invasion if a wholly Christian area of rhe middle east. I am very angry that Muslims invaded this Christian area and forced the people there to convert to their vile religion. I want Islam to constantly apologies foe this. I want reparations and the middle east back in Christian hands
• As I understand it the first Crusades were to stop Muslims over-running Europe, with them having already taken Jerusalem and some areas such as southern Spain?
• The Crusades started as a Christian response to the Muslim invasion and occupation of Christian holy places in the Middle East. Muslims were still attacking Christian Europe up until the Turks were defeated outside Vienna in 1683.
• Reply: And they still are, they just use different weapons. And our governments let them do it.
• Right. Sing “Onward Christian Soldiers” loud and clear

and so on