Musli . . er . . . Just Terrorists Actually

Another great piece from JB.

New Weapon in the War on terror: Semantics?

After the 3 failed bombings in London and Glasgow last week, the new Prime Minister (Gordon Brown) is implementing a new weapon in the war on terror: Semantics. Brown's administration has refrained from calling the bombings "acts of terror," preferring "acts of criminality" better. This must make the bombers responsible not "terr0rists" but [deep breath] "criminals."

The Brown and the London Mayor, within 24 hours of the attacks, came out publicly to announce that this had nothing to do with Islam. Ironically they made these comments after meting with Britain's Islamic leaders. What Brown is trying to do is employ a new "weapon" in the war on terror. By changing the hostile rhetoric Brown believes Britain can win over the hearts and minds of Muslims around the country and abroad. Then, once this is accomplished, it will be the Muslim community that puts pressure on extremists and take back their religion for Peace.

Will this approach work? Only time will tell. It seems that mainstream Muslims want the western world to view Islam as a religion of peace (and from personal experience I just want to say that all the Muslims I have know are indeed peace loving). They are content to hear political leaders describe extremists as highjackers of Islam. Maybe this is the case, but radical Islam seems to be a pervasive problem in the Middle East. And many of these extremists appear to draw their inspiration form the religion.

What will apply more pressure on peace-loving mainstream Muslims to reign in radical elements? Telling them that the world believes their religion is peaceful and that this violence is merely a law and order problem for governments to solve? Or, that this violence is (to some degree) inspired by Islam and it is an Ideological and Theological problem for Islamic Leaders to solve?

I want to give Gordon Brown, and the good people of Britain, a chance to approach this issue in a new way. But until the Islamic community accepts that there is a very big problem in their religion playing Semantics will yield little results.