For years we have seen the decline of factual reporting in the American news media. Over the past 15 to 20 years we have seen the number of news outlets decline and ownership constrict to just six large companies controlling 90 percent of what Americans read and watch. News has been dumbed down—or in the case of FOX News, dumbed down and made up.
I sometimes wonder if Fox News is using George Orwell’s 1984 as an instruction manual with the way its talking heads manipulate words. They have even tried to change the term suicide bombers to “homicide bombers.”
Whether intentional or not, other terms have been changed in news reporting. Whenever there is a news story about Daesh (or ISIS, or ISIL, depending on your news source), we often hear the words “radical Islam.” There is a problem with that term: By definition, Daesh cannot be radical.
By definition, Daesh and its adherents follow a fundamentalist version of Islam. Fundamentalists are by their very nature conservative in their beliefs and averse to change.
That puts them squarely in the reactionary camp: They are reacting to a changing world in a very violent way. They are not radicals. If they were, you would see a very different version of this group. They are a reactionary terrorist group—yes, they want change. But not forward change.
The political spectrum is something every journalist should know. For example, you cannot have a radical Republican—but you could have at the turn of the 20th century, when the Republican party was giving birth to the progressive movement. Today, there is no such thing as a radical Republican and there are no more liberal Republicans, either (if there are they are in hiding, and on the endangered species list).
Why is important that we use the right words when describing something? Language is important. It allows us to communicate our thoughts, fears, trials, and ideas to each other. It also helps in framing how we perceive someone or something. Someone who thinks abortion is a criminal act views themselves as pro-life. Someone who views abortion as a medically necessary procedure thinks of themselves as pro-choice. Now if you flip that around, the pro-choice person sees the pro-life person as either anti-woman, or anti-abortion, while the pro-life person sees the pro-choice person as anti-child, or worse. Each group has framed itself for public perception—who could be against life? Who could be against choice? Words matter.
Where did the terms reactionary and radical come from? Well, it all started that one summer in France.
The terms "Right" and "Left" refer to political affiliations which originated early in the French Revolutionary era of 1789–1799, and referred originally to the seating arrangements in the various legislative bodies of France. The aristocracy sat on the right of the Speaker (traditionally the seat of honor) and the commoners sat on the Left, hence the terms Right-wing politics and Left-wing politics.
Now, if you were on the far right wing (i.e., supported the monarchy) in post-revolutionary France, you would have been labeled a reactionary. You were reacting to change that was either happening or had already happened. If you were not satisfied with the pace of change and wanted to make things happen faster, you would be labeled a radical.
We now have the definitions in place. Daesh is not interested in moving forward. They are reacting to changes that have already happened, and their doctrine is pretty straightforward:
Important doctrines of ISIL include its belief that it represents the restoration of the calaphate of early Islam, and that all Muslims are required to pledge allegiance to it; that a "defiled" Islam must be purged of aspostacy, often with bloody sectarian killings, that the final Day of Judgement by God is near and will follow the defeat of the army of "Rome" by ISIL; that a strict adherence to following the precepts "established by the Prophet Muhammad and his earliest followers" is necessary, surpassing even that of other Salafi groups.
Compare their doctrine to the definition of far-right, or reactionary politics:
The terms are commonly used to describe fascism, neo-fascism and other ideologies or organizations that feature extreme nationalist, chauvinist, xenophobic, or racist views. Some far-right movements, such as the Nazis, have pursued oppression and genocide against groups of people on the basis of their alleged inferiority or their alleged threat to the nation or state.
Daesh does not have a recognized state. However, if you look at them you do see the things that make them reactionary. They are xenophobic, racist, have used oppression as a tool, and have committed acts of genocide. They are clearly not a radical group, especially when one looks at the definition of a radical.
...far-left groups usually participate in the democratic process to advance their goals. The far left demands radical changes to dismantle unequal societies, including confiscation of wealth that is concentrated in a small elite, and redistribution of that wealth in an egalitarian manner.
Words matter—and all of us should be doing our best to use them correctly. You cannot be a radical fundamentalist anymore than you can be a carrot. The news media and even our leaders need to stop using the word radical when discussing these barbarians. They are not radicals by any stretch of the imagination. Calling Daesh radical is changing the definition of the term: They are reactionaries, hellbent on turning the clock back to the Middle Ages.
