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AMP Report - July 22, 2007
Change of war rhetoric in EU & UK
When terrorists tried to blow up civilians in London and Glasgow, Gordon Brown, the new British prime minister, responded in his own distinctive way reports International Herald Tribune on July 22, 2007. Brown instructed his ministers that the phrase "war on terror" was no longer to be used and, indeed, that officials were no longer even to employ the word "Muslim" in connection with the terrorism crisis. Brown's new home secretary, Jacqui Smith, articulated the basic message by saying: Let us be clear, terrorists are criminals, whose victims come from all walks of life, communities and religions."
The British move on a new war rhetoric came months after a new guidebook for the European Union government spokespeople advised them from linking terrorism with Islam in any of their statements. The lexicon requires that the phrase "Islamic terrorist" will now be instead "terrorists who abusively invoke Islam".
About what is called the "non-emotive lexicon” the Telegraph quoted the EU officials as saying
"The common lexicon includes guidance on a number of frequently used terms where lack of care by EU and member states' spokespeople may give rise to misunderstandings. Careful usage of certain terms is not about empty political correctness but stems from astute awareness of the EU's interests in the fight against terrorism."
Is the war on terror really a war? The International Herald Tribune while posing the question said: “President George W. Bush certainly continues to insist that it is, and a war of existential survival at that, although his administration has recently substituted the term "the long war" for "global war on terrorism." In the past, political figures who denied that the West was locked in a war tended not to get much of a hearing.
“For example, Senator John Kerry did himself no favors during the 2004 election campaign when he expressed a hope that fighting terrorism would come to resemble law enforcement. And Senator John Edwards's claim in this present campaign cycle that the war on terror is a "bumper sticker" slogan seems to have resonated with comparatively few Americans outside the left wing of the Democratic Party.
“Probably no political leader more eloquently made the case that terrorism presents a mortal threat to the West, and to democratic values everywhere, than the former prime minister of Britain, Tony Blair. In a 2004 speech defending his decision to send British troops into Iraq, Blair insisted that he "could see the threat plainly." The Sept. 11 terrorists, he said, tried to provoke such hatred between Muslims and the West that "a religious jihad became reality and the world engulfed by it." Unchecked, Blair concluded, Al Qaeda and like-minded groups would "bring about Armageddon." No stronger word is imaginable. After all, Armageddon literally denotes the end of the world. How astounding then to hear his successor speak in so different a key.
“Brown, it seems, has concluded that the war rhetoric employed by Blair was divisive, threatening social peace between communities in Britain, and counterproductive, making it harder to turn the British Muslim community into the security services' eyes and ears.”
"We welcome this announcement as a step in the right direction," said CAIR Chairman Dr. Parvez Ahmed. "Indeed, terrorists are anathema to humanity, and their actions, contrary to popular belief, are not inspired by the teachings of any religion. Prime Minister Brown's decision shows his understanding of the broader issues in the struggle to prevent terrorism and extremism of all kinds."
Dr. Parvez Ahmed has previously commended the European Union for issuing guidelines asking EU member nations to "shun the phrase 'Islamic terrorism' in favor of 'terrorists who abusively invoke Islam.'"
In a comment on the EU decision, Dr. Ahmed, in an article titled “A Sensible Way to Describe Terrorists,” said:
“This first-of-its-kind effort to separate terrorism from its perceived roots is laudable. 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 hundred of times more likely to associate Islam with terrorism or militancy than all other faiths combined. Such lopsided portrayal is indicative of deep-seated misunderstandings about Islam, and sometimes just plain prejudice. Surely all terrorists are not Muslim, neither are all Muslims terrorists.
”The 9-11 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.
”More and more scholarly writings are delving deeper into this issue offering us new insights. Robert Pape's book Dying to Win uses more than 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,” Dr. Ahmed concludes.
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