A Sensible Way to Describe Terrorists

Written May 14, 2006

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/051706/opl_3063216.shtml

The European Union will soon distribute new guidelines to its 25-member nations that recommend using “nonemotive lexicon for discussing radicalization.”

Officials say that the guidelines, which are not legally binding, will ask European governments to shun the phrase “Islamic terrorism” in favor of “terrorists who abusively invoke Islam.”

Associating the criminal enterprise of terrorism with the faith of 1.4 billion Muslims, 99.99 percent of whom will never come near any act of terrorism, much less use Islam as a justification for their crimes, is just plain wrong.

Unfortunately, all too often “Islam” and “terrorism” are juxtaposed in news reports and editorials.
A word search on news stories published in major newspapers over the past decade shows that reporters are 100 times more likely to associate Islam with terrorism or militancy than all other faiths combined.

Such a lopsided portrayal indicates deep-seated misunderstandings about Islam, and sometimes just plain prejudice. Surely all terrorists are not Muslim, neither are all Muslims terrorists.

The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks brought home the horrors of a new form of suicidal terrorism. In order to eradicate terrorism, it is important to explore its root causes.

Scholarly writings are offering us new insights. Robert Pape’s book Dying to Win uses over two decades of data to show the paucity of connection between suicide terrorism and any of the world religions.

The pioneering instigators and the largest purveyors of suicide terrorism are the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, a Marxist-Leninist group whose members are overwhelmingly Hindu. Pape writes, “From Lebanon to Israel to Sri Lanka to Kashmir to Chechnya, the sponsors of every campaign have been terrorist groups trying to establish or maintain political self-determination by compelling a democratic power to withdraw from a territory they claim.” Occupation is the primary motivator and religion, at best, is an “aggravating” factor. Considering this, the Iraq war has only amplified the problem.

Today, we all live in fear of terrorism. Equating terrorism with Islam makes the mainstream Muslim community doubly vulnerable to both the random acts of terror and the ensuing backlash. Muslims worldwide are the primary victims of terror.

Governments in Muslim-majority nations, religious establishments and the lay community have a vested interest in fighting back to isolate and marginalize the terrorists.

Hidden from our headlines are efforts to do just that.

Fatwas (Islamic edicts) condemning terrorism and dissociating Islam from such barbarism have been issued worldwide, including America.

One of the more successful efforts was conducted by Turkey against PKK (a secular group) suicide campaigns, which were part of Kurdish aspirations for an independent homeland.

Terrorism is stateless and transnational. It will always require a stern response. However, it will never be defeated through force alone. It will have to be fought ideologically by attempting to win the hearts and minds of those vulnerable to terrorist manipulations.

Every religion has its own fair share of extremists who commit heinous acts in the name of their faith. Why is Islam being unfairly singled out?