Since the Paris attacks, the issue over what to call terrorism-in-the-name-of-Islam has only intensified not just among regular people, but among our politicians. However, hateful rhetoric coming from the Republicans has too, leaving Democrats scrambling how to name the extremism but also condemn Ben Carson and Trump’s crazy rhetoric.
Much of the discussion about “radical Islam,” “extremist Islam,” “radical jihad,” “violent extremism,” etc. tends to occur with more thought to the American political arena and the bases of the Democrats and Republicans, but little thought to what goes on in the Middle East when talking about this. What is said in Arabic, on “Arab Street” or elsewhere in the Muslim world? This take is from Foreign Policy Magazine (republished via Yahoo to avoid paywall), not a conservative outfit, and by someone who isn’t exactly Robert Spencer (understatement). The author, Kim Ghattas, recently wrote a book about HRC’s time at State.
In the wake of the Paris attacks, there’s plenty to be written about the inflammatory comments and factually incorrect statements that Republican presidential candidates are making about Islam and Muslims — from comparing them to rabid dogs to ambiguous calls for a database of Muslim-Americans. And with reports about hate crimes against Muslims on the rise in Western countries, there’s reason to worry about how the debate is fanning the flames of hatred.
But the Democrats’ rhetoric is problematic too, for very different reasons.
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It’s ironic that while U.S. officials and Democratic politicians refuse to say “radical Islam”, these very words, in fact, are commonly used in Arabic across the Middle East: Islam mutatarrif. When I asked a handful of friends in Beirut — Muslim and non-Muslim — what they thought of Democrats refusing to use those two words to describe what drives militant groups like the so-called Islamic State, they seemed puzzled by the apparent obfuscation.
Very well said, and I actually didn’t know that before.
I asked a number of experts from the region who are based in the Middle East or in Washington if the Democrats are being too political correct, and if there is a potential downside to their rhetorical choices…
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“The Democrats are fumbling, as we saw in the debate,” said Mukhtar Awad, an analyst at the Center for American Progress whose work focuses on Egyptian Islamists. “They’re not sure what to say, out of fear of being politically incorrect.”
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Most people outside of the United States will not differentiate between statements by various Republicans, say, or Democrats and administration officials. It will all be conflated as the current U.S. attitude toward the Middle East...
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Itani warned that taking the word “Islam” out of the discussion “makes the conflict appear much less complicated than it is, which in turn makes it easier for Western governments to pursue shallow policies toward jihadist Islamism.”
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I think this speaks well to when Bernie Sanders mentioned that this is in large part a struggle for the soul of Islam.
Saudi commentator Ibrahim Shaalan tweeted in Arabic, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State, Daesh, that the group’s “actions are but an epitome of what we’ve studied in our school curriculum. If the curriculum is sound, then Daesh is right, and if it is wrong, then who bears responsibility?”
Hassan Hassan, a fellow resident at Chatham House and co-author of the bestselling book ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror, said that debate should have been encouraged by governments and religious authorities. Instead, governments in the region silenced it by insisting that the violence — whether in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, or Syria — had nothing to do with Islam. Countries like Jordan and the United Arab Emirates also pushed allies, including the United States, to stop using the term “Islamic State.”
Yet another huge pitfall to deny the relationship between the religion and the events going on across the world and forcing governments to devote billions of dollars to stop it.
French officials and increasingly Obama administration officials have obliged. Both have taken to using the word “Daesh” to describe the organization, not wanting to use terminology that includes the word “Islamic.” But nothing peeves Arabic-speakers more as a useless exercise in semantics, because Daesh is simply the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham — al-Dawla al-Islamiyya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham. In other word, it incorporates the term “Islamic” as much as the English-language acronym….More crucial is what the group is called in Arabic on popular television stations such as al-Jazeera, which uses the term “Organization of the Islamic State” (Tanzeem al-Dawla al-Islamiyya), conferring some legitimacy to it.
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Hassan believes that the best way to delegitimize the organization is to actually call it by its chosen name, “The Islamic State,” and describe its state as a caliphate. If you avoid using these words, ... “it’s as if you’re saying that an Islamic State is much purer than what ISIS is trying to do. We need to make sure that what they’re doing ...remains associated with [the idea] of an Islamic State.”
Otherwise... we’re not dealing with the root ideology and even if the organization is defeated, the idea will remain, and someone else will try again to define and impose his own vision as the true, pure version of Islam in a caliphate.
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The tactic “can potentially alienate those who want to reform Islamic thought,” she said. “[I]f the problem is viewed as non-Islamic, then you don’t need to address Islamic thought.
I think the case against using Daesh, and instead using the term Islamic State, ISIS, ISIL, is rather strong. I’ve never understood what the using term “Daesh” while speaking English is supposed to accomplish. There’s more in the article about the issue of Islamic reformers. It also touches on the issue of apostates and atheists.
But for Democrats, whether Obama or the presidential candidates, the best way to set themselves apart from the Republican approach of appealing to fear isn’t to pooh-pooh people’s anxieties, or to obfuscate and dismiss the problem. Rather, the best strategy is to name it accurately, explain it to the public, and lay out smart, comprehensive strategies that go beyond a bombing campaign.
I am on board with that. Of course, it seems to be hard to covince some out there. Hillary already made a big leap from Obama even using the term “jihadism,” which Obama himself won’t use, possibly for fear of those who try to say “that’s not what ‘jihad’ is about.” But now we’ve seen serious discussion from a non-Western point of view. I think it is now safe for anyone, Democrats and progressives included, to use the term Radical Islam, and this is not racist or hateful.
I hope our candidates Hillary and Bernie have read this piece. I completely get the logic that neither wants to piss of the progressive base, many (tho not all) of whom are still in denial of the problem. But I think the truth, which is laid out in the article about which this diary is, can help them get past it if more people see it.
Especially if terrorism will be a big issue in 2016, why let the GOP get an edge given that both Americans at large and Muslims in the Middle East use the term “Radical Islam.” After all, a poll (yes Rasmussen but still) did get a majority of Democrats to agree with a statement that included the term, as well as indies and Republicans too. In a previous diary, I did get a plurality of voters to approve the term “Islamic terrorism,” and combined with “Islamist terrorism” & “Islamist jihadism,” have a solid majority, especially considering the pi-voters. We’ve seen elections decided by perceptions of toughness on terror before.