I was just reading an art history book (The Power of Art, Simon Schama, excellent by the way), and the authors mentions the phrase Muslim Terrorists and it got me thinking about labeling. If we call them Muslim terrorists then it can be inferred that they are terrorizing others for some reason having to do with their "Muslim-ness". This may be a useful inference for dear Leader to make because he is fighting a Crusade TM. However it is not true. The fact that these terrorists are Muslim really has nothing to do with what they are fighting for. Is Timothy McVeigh a Christian terrorist, or a White Male terrorist, or a Lower Class White American terrorist? So why should we call Mohammed Atta a Muslim terrorist?
This discussion is not to belittle what terrorists do, just to help us name terrorists correctly. All terrorists terrorize for some reason. No one wakes up and says, HEY today I want to terrorize. No there is a reason for it. And no one in the world wakes up and says HEY I am Muslim and because of that I am going to terrorize someone. No, terrorists are always fighting for something, regardless of whether it is ethical or valid. They have some focus that causes them to kill innocents.
So what was 9/11 about, and what was the focus of those terrorists? I am no scholar nor am I a kool aid drinking idiot, so I know it is NOT because they "hate our way of life". From what have learned, it seems their main focus was getting the west out of the Middle East because of the role capitalism, foreign militaries, and foreign influence was playing in Middle Eastern life and religion. Again, I know this is a generalization that we can fight about forever, but this diary is about labeling. So what if we called the 9/11 terrorists ‘Pan-Arabic Independence terrorists’? Or Middle Eastern Autonomy Terrorists? Or Anti-Intervention terrorists, or Anti-Influence terrorists? You get the point. By labeling them based on what their actual focus is we completely change our ideas about them. Instead of us fighting Muslim terrorists and Islamo-Facism, we can talk about these terrorists as a specific subset of people with a particular focus that is different from the vast majority of their country men. Not only does re-labeling terrorists focus us on what they are fighting for, it also separates them from others.
America is not at war with Islam, nor with Muslims. Republicans have branded our terrorists in a way that gives the Republicans maximum leverage, though their branding has nothing to do with reality.
Here is my vision, that we hear at Daily Kos come up with correct labels for these terrorists and use them regularly. That we never support Republican branding by calling anyone a Muslim terrorist. That we force our leadership to focus their language to reality, not on a terrorist brand. Once we have that focus, we can start to have national dialogue on real issues not on a brand for a never ending war of civilizations.
In fact, I am completely changing my diary idea now to be that "Muslim terrorism" is a republican brand that we have all swallowed without questioning it. We need to fight this brand just like we fight Coke and Exxon. This brand has no foundation in reality; it is used by republicans to maximize their power and control. If we as progressives can move the national dialogue away from a simplistic Republican PR/branding exercise we can change the nation and the world.
Don’t fight the power, uproot the brand!