By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
How should we introduce our children to the debate over the Obama administration’s decision not to use the terms “radical Islam” and “Islamic terrorists” to describe groups such as ISIS and the killers of the editors of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo? It can be a confusing topic: Does it really make a difference if we describe the killers as “radical Islamists,” or — as the administration prefers — “violent extremists” with a “warped view of Islam.”
It is easy to picture a modern Rip Van Winkle scratching his head in confusion. What is the distinction that is being drawn if one argues the Paris terrorists are not “radical Islamists,” but rather individuals with a “warped” view of Islam? Stuart Chase, in his 1938 book The Tyranny of Words, made the case that debates can be won by maneuvering our opponents to concede the choice of words to define the sides in the topic under discussion. He was right. We call it “semantics,” but it makes a big difference if we label someone “principled” rather than “self-righteous.” Is that what is going on in this debate?
Both the president’s supporters and his political adversaries appear to think so. Fox News has been having a grand time juxtaposing the comments about the killings in Paris made by British Prime Minister David Cameron with those of President Obama at a January 16 joint appearance. Cameron had no difficulty using the term “radical Islamists” — repeatedly — to describe the terrorists. While President Obama replied — also repeatedly — that the killers were “violent extremists,” never mentioning the word “Islam.” It was comical to watch the Kabuki theater unfold.
Obama’s determination to not let the word “Islam” slip from his lips was no accident. White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters the administration doesn’t want to legitimize the terrorists’ “warped” view of Islam, and that the phrase “radical Islam simply is not an accurate way to describe our enemies.”
Attorney General Eric Holder made the same point, a day earlier, when he stated at a press conference, “I would say that we are at war with terrorists who commit these heinous acts and who use Islam. They use a corrupted version of Islam to justify their actions.”
The president’s critics disagree. They argue the administration’s reluctance to use the term “radical Islam” reveals a weakness, an unwillingness to confront the Islamist threat in the appropriately forceful manner. Some go so far as to argue that it is a manifestation of the president’s emotional ties to Islam and his youthful ideological affinity to Third World radicals such as Frantz Fanon.
The ties to Fanon were made specifically by Paul Sperry in the January 15 issue of Investor’s Business Daily. In Sperry’s words, “Obama’s baffling decision to skip the anti-terror rally in Paris is rooted in this ideology, which he adopted from writer Frantz Fanon, a French-African revolutionary who played a major role in his intellectual development.”
Fanon, who left France for Algeria in 1954 to fight alongside Muslim rebels in their fight for independence, defended the right for Third World people to use terrorism to secure independence from their colonial masters in his book The Wretched of the Earth. In his autobiographical writings, Obama informs us that the book was a favorite of his during his student years.
To which the president’s supporters reply, “Hogwash.” They argue Fanon would not be sending drones to kill thousands of Muslims in ISIS and other militant Muslim groups. Do the Obama supporters have a point?
It can be argued that they do. Using the term “radical Islam” implies the terrorists are a part of Islam, even if on the fringe. Saying that the terrorists are “using Islam” and employing a “corrupted vision of Islam” to justify their terrorist violence, suggests that they are not members in good standing in the Islamic religion, but rather exploiting Islam for secular and ideological purposes. This is a big difference, one that could be important for the United States to make if it hopes to secure the support of moderate Muslims in the war against terrorist groups such as ISIS. Christians would not approve of the use of the term “radical Christianity” or “extremist Christianity” to describe a Ku Klux Klan cross-burning.
Fair enough. But it would help if mainstream Muslim leaders of goodwill emphatically condemned the actions of the killers in Paris and of other terrorists who claim to be acting in the name of Islam.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal made this point in a speech in late January, wherein he stated, “Muslim leaders must make clear that anyone who commits acts of terror in the name of Islam is in fact not practicing Islam at all. If they refuse to say this, then they are condoning these acts of barbarism. There is no middle ground.”
He added, “Muslim leaders need to condemn anyone who commits these acts of violence and clearly state that these people are evil and are enemies of Islam. If they refuse to do that, then they’re part of the problem.”
Jindal is not alone. Recently Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi told a group of Muslim imams that the time has come to speak out forcefully against terrorists professing to be Muslims: “It’s inconceivable that the thinking we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma [Islamic world] to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing, and destruction for the rest of the world.”
French intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy agrees. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, he calls the Charlie Hebdo murders “the Churchillian moment of France’s Fifth Republic,” insisting that those “whose faith is Islam must proclaim very loudly, very often, and in great numbers their rejection of this corrupt and abject form of theocratic passion. . . . Islam must be freed from radical Islam.”
Jindal knows what words to use to describe the threat we face. So do President el-Sissi and Bernard-Henri Levy. One would think it would not be difficult for the Obama administration to learn from them and find a way to extricate themselves from the word games they are using to deal with the violence taking place around the world in the name of Islam.
If they fear alienating moderate Muslim leaders, why not say that openly? Doing that might help clear the air and remove suspicions that they have been rendered ineffective in the world arena because of a severe bout of political correctness.
A note: In the January 15 edition of First Teachers we published portions of a letter that John Lyon sent to the administration at Notre Dame about its handling of issues related to homosexuality. It was not made clear in the column that we occasionally quoted from another essay by Mr. Lyon to expand upon the points he made in his letter to the Notre Dame administrators. We regret any confusion that resulted.
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Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about this and other educational issues. The e-mail address for First Teachers is fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net, and the mailing address is P.O. Box 15, Wallingford, CT 06492.
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