Muslim Heretics Conference

Mind your (terror) language
By Khody Akhavi
WASHINGTON - From the people who brought you the “war on terror” and the “axis of evil” comes a new verbal tonic for combating that amorphous emotion.
Out with pejoratives like “Islamo-fascists”, “jihadis” and “mujahideen”, and in with “words that work”, that is according to a George W Bush administration memo that was leaked last month to the Associated Press.
The non-binding 14-point guide on counterterrorism communication, prepared by the US National Counterterrorism

Center (NCTC), urges US officials to drop language and terminology that may offend Arab and Muslim communities, to use terms such as “violent extremist” or “terrorist” instead of “jihadi”, and to shift the discussion away from the dualistic “clash of civilizations” or battle between “Islam and the West”, a paradigm that casts Islam as inherently violent.
“A mujahid, a holy warrior, is a positive characterization in the context of a just war. In Arabic, jihad means ’striving in the path of God’ and is used in many contexts beyond warfare. Calling our enemies jihadis and their movement a global jihad unintentionally legitimizes their actions,” according to the report. “We need to emphasize that terrorists misuse religion as a political tool to harm innocent civilians across the globe.”
Others points suggest using the word “totalitarian to describe our enemy” because, according to the report, the term is widely understood in the Muslim world. Keep the focus on the terrorist, not us, it says, and don’t ascribe “al-Qaeda and its affiliates motives or goals they have not articulated. Our audiences have more familiarity with the terrorist messages than we do and will immediately spot US government embellishment.”
Lastly, “Try to limit the number of non-English terms you use if you are speaking in English,” because “it’s not what you say, but what they hear.” In other words, mispronunciation could make a statement incomprehensible, such as in the example of “Qutbism”, which refers to author Sayyid Qutb, a Muslim Brotherhood member during the mid-1950s who penned the controversial book, Milestones, and whose ideas would inspire al-Qaeda.
The word Qutb in English is often mispronounced to mean “books”.
Talking tough on terror has been the main currency of the Republican Party, and the main project of neo-conservative pundits in Washington. But in the aftermath of the George W Bush administration’s failed Middle East policy, many officials, including the bullhorn-in-chief himself, have pushed to reform the public diplomacy machinery, and to correct the rhetorical missteps that unintentionally serve to legitimize groups who share al-Qaeda’s ideology.
The inspiration may have come from Bush confidante and hand-holder Karen Hughes, who acted as an advisor to the administration until she was appointed under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a position she left in November 2007.
Hughes had never been to the Middle East and had no expertise in the Muslim communities that were the main targets of the White House’s public diplomacy goals. But her year-long effort to change the US image abroad did yield the National Strategy for Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication, a 34-page document that calls for the US to mind its language.
“Avoid characterizing people of any faith as ‘moderate’ - this is a political word which, when extended to the world of faith, can imply these are less devout and faithful. The terms ‘mainstream’ or ‘majority’ are preferable,” according to Hughes’ report.
In the face of increased calls from analysts and officials within the intelligence community to focus on the very serious public diplomacy problem on its hands, the Bush administration appears to have taken Hughes’ advice to heart.
The president has used the phrase “Islamic terrorist” only once since the beginning of 2007 and has buried the “Islamo-fascist” neologism embraced by right-leaning US officials and terrorism analysts. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has also refrained from using the word “jihadi” in her public speeches since last September.
This January, the Pentagon decided to cut the contract of its “foremost” specialist on Islamic law and Islamic extremism, citing budgetary cuts, but Stephen Coughlin’s supporters said the jihad maven was unjustly fired because his message was too politically hot.
The recent developments appear to have caused a split among Republicans on how to define terrorism, and the recent disclosure has ruffled the feathers of members on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. This month, every Republican voted for an amendment to an intelligence bill that would ban the use of federal cash to produce documents that used the same terminology as the NCTC report. The amendment, authored by the panel’s ranking Republican, Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, was defeated.
In response to the new NCTC recommendations, former House speaker Newt Gingrich warned last Friday that the US was crippled by “political correctness” as it tried to meet “the threats around the world”.
“If we cannot have an honest discussion about the nature of the threats against us, we cannot develop strategies to meet those threats,” he said. “It is simply suicidal to treat the al-Qaeda network as simply ‘an illegitimate political organization’, both terrorist and ‘criminal’, while ignoring the radical religious foundation underpinning this and other groups that constitute an Irreconcilable Wing of Islam.”
With the presidential election just beyond the horizon, it appears that Republican nominee John McCain will strive to create stark differences between himself and presumptive Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama. McCain pledges to continue waging war against “radical Islamic terrorism” and campaign aides say he won’t back down from using the language, even though a recent Homeland Security report, which shares many of the same views as the NCTC, calls for just the opposite.
For US-based Muslim advocacy groups, delinking religious identity from the slippery slope of terror talk is a welcome change.
“It is a good step that they at least take these terms into consideration,” Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on Islamic American Relations, told Inter Press Service. “What terms are used and what not are a matter of debate. At least, we should all be thinking about this.”

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Five years after its formation, the body representing France’s five million Muslims is being torn apart by competing interests of various Islamic factions. The latest division surfaced this month, when the council’s president pulled out of upcoming elections for new members. Lisa Bryant has more on the problems facing Europe’s largest Muslim community.

Ever since it was coaxed into existence by the French government in 2003, the French Council for the Muslim Religion has been torn apart by infighting and, experts say, by competing foreign interests. Today, analysts like Olivier Roy say, the council has done very little for Islam in France - the country’s second-largest religion.

“The only thing this council has been able to achieve these last few years has been to decide on a common day to celebrate the Ramadan,” said Olivier Roy. “That is all. They do not want to take any decision concerning any concrete issue about the situation of Islam in France.”

The Muslim council was expected to fulfill a number of functions besides organizing Islamic holidays. Organizers hoped it would oversee mosque construction and imam training - and ensure a moderate Islam flourished in France, in sync with the country’s separation of religion and state.

Instead, its many critics say, it has mostly bickered. The newest disagreement concerns June elections for new council representatives. The current system allocates voting rights based on the size of prayer space in mosques and Muslim houses of worship.

Dalil Boubakeur, 10 Apr 2008

 

Critics argue that method will grant the Moroccan-based community an unfair advantage over the Algerian one - including the Great Mosque of Paris, which is backed by Algiers and whose rector Dalil Boubakeur is president of the council.

Earlier this month, Boubakeur announced he would boycott the June elections. Chems-Eddine Hafiz, lawyer for the Paris mosque and member of the Muslim council says the vote would unfairly sanction the mosque and its affiliates.

Hafiz says the Mosque does not represent a minority of Muslims in France, as some claim - that it in fact represents about six in 10 French Muslims. He says the council must set aside its divisions and concentrate on working for the country’s Islamic population.

Analyst Roy, of the National Center for Scientific Research, says France’s Muslim population is divided and no one group has a majority. He says behind the local power struggle is one between rival North African neighbors Morocco and Algeria, sources of a large chunk of Muslim immigration to France. Algeria, for example, supports the Paris mosque.

“The present problems do exist from the beginning,” he said. “The contradiction in the [French] government policy was on the one hand to advocate a French council representing French Muslims and on the other hand to subcontract to the Algerian and Moroccan governments the elections [for council seats].”

A third influential group in the council is the conservative Union of French Muslim Organizations, which is backed by the Egyptian-founded Muslim Brotherhood.

The upshot, says Muslim intellectual Malek Chebel, is that ordinary Muslims have no direct say in the council - and women and youths are particularly underrepresented.

Chebel, who was part of an advisory group for the council at its start, believes the panel should also represent intellectuals along with more secular Muslims who rarely, if ever, attend mosque. He says it should give French Muslims greater visibility and rights, and work to dispel stereotypes of Islam as a violent religion.

Sociologist Franck Fregosi, who recently published a book on Muslims in France, also believes the council should be more democratic.

“If we want to do something very important in the religious field it would be to ask Muslims as individuals to participate in their own mosque and elect their own delegates,” said Franck Fregosi. “And then we will have an organization that will be more democratic.”

What has changed, Fregosi says, is the attitude of the French government. In the past, it was a strong backer of the Paris mosque and its moderate brand of Islam. But today, he says, it has refrained from championing any one group for the upcoming vote - leaving it up to the Muslim community to decide just what kind of representation it wants, and how effective it will be.

VOA News - Analysts Says Muslim Group Fails to Make Progress In France