...called the IRA bombings "Catholic" terrorism because we knew enough to realise that this was not essentially a religious campaign. Indeed, like the Irish republican movement, many fundamentalist movements worldwide are simply new forms of nationalism in a highly unorthodox religious guise. This is obviously the case with Zionist fundamentalism in Israel and the fervently patriotic Christian right in the US. In the Muslim world, too, where the European nationalist ideology has always seemed an alien import, fundamentalisms are often more about a
search for social identity and national self-definition...
