WASHINGTON– In addition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Obama administration is managing another front, with its own arsenal of linguistic weapons: a domestic war of words.
In response to the president’s decision against using religious language to describe terrorists, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy asked the White House to use specific religious labels, arguing in a July 12 report that being vague would not help target extremist movements.
The report has sparked criticism from religious scholars and activists for its use of the word “Islamist.”
The dilemma: separating terrorists from mainstream Islam in government policy and language.
Being precise
“It’s perfectly accurate to refer to people as terrorists,” said John Esposito, a Georgetown University professor of Islamic studies.
One difficulty is communicating the difference between individuals who claim a religion and the entire religious community.
Esposito did not see the institute as an unbiased third party. He said the organization’s history with Israel may color its report. The institute had something to gain from saying terrorism in Israel was religiously-motivated, “rather than say the problems that occur in Palestine are due to the occupation,” he said.
The report says the words “jihadist,” “Islamist,” and “Islamic extremism,” and even “terrorism” have all been banned at one point from U.S. government vocabulary under the Obama administration, to the detriment of national security and defense.
The shift is part of President Barack Obama’s approach to Islam and Mideast politics, a diplomatic and measured tone that he first struck in an influential speech at the University of Cairo last year.
It is a stark contrast to the previous administration. In his 2007 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush referred to Osama bin Laden and his followers as “just one camp in the Islamist radical movement.”
“Describing our enemy in religious terms would lend credence to the lie propagated by al-Qaida and its affiliates to justify terrorism, that the United States is somehow at war against Islam,” said John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, in a speech immediately before the strategy’s release. “The reality, of course, is that we have never been and will never be at war with Islam. After all, Islam, like so many faiths, is part of America.”
Individuals and ideologies
The institute’s suggestions are one side of the linguistic tug-of-war. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the White House has struggled to walk a fine line in describing terrorists, the words “Muslim,” “Islamic,” and “Islamist” being the most common adjectives.
In particular, the word “Islamist” demonstrates the peculiar way specialized language is born. First heard in academic circles, the word then appeared in government speeches, and eventually entered the blogosphere, often taking new meanings and connotations. The term, which some say is more precise, is offensive to some Muslims and has a wide range of definitions.
The problem, according to some groups, is that Muslims don’t use the same words to describe themselves.
“I have no idea what the term Islamist means,” said Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director for the Council on American Islamic relations. “Muslims don’t use the word.”
Groups looking to disparage the entire religion of Islam, he said, typically employ the word.
“They see language as a battleground and they have to seize the higher ground, “he said.
Esposito said “Muslim” should describe someone who is self-professed follower of the religion, and “Islamic” should be reserved for something “that comes from the heart of Islam.”
Naming a threat
“There needs to be a way to distinguish between a Muslim and Islamist,” said J. Scott Carpenter, senior fellow at the Washington Institute and author of the report. “If you aren’t able to distinguish an ideology from a religion, it’s the religion that always suffers.”
This year’s National Security Strategy, the Obama’s administration’s first, does not contain the words “Islamist” at all, and only includes the word “Islamic” twice, both in reference to proper nouns – once is in the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the other instance refers to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The Bush administration’s strategy shied away from any derivative adjectives of the word “Islam,” instead using “terrorism” 28 times. This year’s strategy used it 23 times, mostly in reference to “counterterrorism” efforts.
Terms like Islamo-fascism and Islamo-terrorism, Hooper said, are particularly offensive and should be off-limits. He suggests phrases like “religious extremist,” which can refer to violent movements in other faiths.
A metaphysical debate
The use of religious words, some say, and the issue of “Muslim” vs. “Islamic,” invites an abstract debate that the government should not be delving into.
“I think it tends to box the administration in,” said Susan Brooks Thistlewaite, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and professor of theology
Though Brooks Thistewaite says the debate is important, she worries that in describing terrorists with a religious label, the administration could oversimplify myriad forces behind acts of violence.
“I think human beings are very complex in their motivation,” she said.