EU Bureaucrats Constructing Orwellian DoubleThink Language For Discussion of Islamic Terrorism

Strunk & Whitewash.

Alas, I didn't allow Jeff or Michelle to get a word in edgewise, or else we might have mentioned this on the show:

He who controls the way people talk controls the way they think. Hence, it is no surprise that the EUSSR is actively trying to manipulate our language. Last February, The Daily Telegraph reported that Franco Frattini, the EU Commissioner for Justice, Freedom, and Security, declared he was in favour of some kind of self-regulatory media code in reporting about Islam. Now the EU officials are “discreetly reviewing the language it uses to describe terrorists who claim to act in the name of Islam. EU officials are working on what they call a ‘lexicon’ for public communication on terrorism and Islam, designed to make clear that there is nothing in the religion to justify outrages like the Sept. 11 attacks or the bombings of Madrid and London. The lexicon would set down guidelines for EU officials and politicians.�

The term “Islamic terrorism� will no longer be used. Nor will words such as “Islamist,� “fundamentalist� and “jihad.� The latter, for example, is often used by Islamic terrorists to mean warfare against infidels, but according to an EU official “for a Muslim Jihad is a perfectly positive concept of trying to fight evil within yourself.�

The EU civil servants drafting the lexicon claim it will be a “non-emotive lexicon for discussing radicalisation.� The lexicon will be submitted to the 25 EU leaders in June. An EU official said the point of using careful language was not to “fall into the trap� of offending and alienating citizens. “This is an attempt [...] to be aware of the sensitivities implied by the use of certain language.�

Jihad is "a perfectly positive concept for trying to fight evil within yourself"?

True enough, I guess, except this "evil within yourself" is apparently only succeptible to high explosives studded with shrapnel, and the only possible battlefield for "taking the fight" to this evil is, apparently, in a shopping center or hotel or police station.

posted by Ace at 04:34 PM

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