Author: Nandini Jawli
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: February 14, 2008
The British Government has issued guidelines
to all its departments to switch to politically correct parlance while referring
to extremists, lest Muslims be hurt
The UK Government has drawn up controversial
new guidelines on the "language of terrorism" to advise civil servants
on how to talk about terrorism without causing offence to Muslims.
The rule book is designed to suggest ways
to avoid implying that Muslims are specifically to blame when talking about
the nature of a terror threat. Officials have also been instructed to no longer
blame fanatical extremism on Islam for fear of upsetting the Muslim community.
The guidelines, written by Home Office civil servants, suggest that instead
of talking about Muslim or Islamist extremism, officials should say "violent
extremism".
These instructions are part of the new counter-terrorism
guidelines, which suggest that phrases such as "Islamic terrorist"
and "jihadi fundamentalism" are too inflammatory and imply that
all Muslims explicitly are responsible for extremism. It reflects the Government's
decision to abandon the 'aggressive rhetoric' of the so-called war on terror.
The new lexicon of terror surfaced briefly,
when Home Secretary Jacqui Smith made a speech on counter-terrorism recently,
declaring violent extremism to be "anti-Islamic". The new focus
is far removed from former Prime Minister Tony Blair's rhetoric after September
11, 2001, when he spoke of "Armageddon" and the justification for
war. Now civil servants are advised that careful language is a vital tool
in the war on terror.
The guidelines leaked to Britain's media have
been referred to in the local newspapers as "the new phrasebook".
A Home Office spokeswoman confirmed to The Pioneer that the document had been
distributed to "key delivery partners" including chief constables,
local authorities and Government offices. However, the department insists
that these are simply "guidelines" and not a phrase book. The spokeswoman
said, "This communication guidance is based on in-depth qualitative research,
but it is not intended to be prescriptive." The Government thinks that
"coherent and effective cross-Government communications" are important
as measures of counter-terrorism.
The Home Office also added that the guide
was "not about political correctness" but about ensuring that officials
were not misunderstood. "This is not intended as a definitive list of
what not to say but rather to highlight terms which risk being misunderstood
and, therefore, prevent effective reception of the message," states the
document. It has been produced by a Home Office research, information and
communications unit which was set up last summer to counter Al Qaeda's mispropaganda
and win hearts and minds.
The internally circulated document has been
officially termed as the "language guidance booklet" and is part
of the first pack in a series of communications about the Government's "prevent
strategy". The strategy relies on all sectors - public, private, voluntary
and community - working with the Government in its aim of stopping people
becoming or supporting violent extremists.
According to this key language planning, "Islamophobia"
should be simply termed "discrimination", while those purporting
to carry out jihad and attacks in the name of Islam should be called "criminals,
murderers or thugs".
It also claims that the use of concepts like
"the struggle for values" or "a battle of ideas" plays
into the hands of those who wish to frame the issue in terms of a clash of
civilisations between Islam and the West. A more productive approach is to
stress the idea of shared values, it suggests.
The Home Office researchers have prepared
a table of key words and have suggested possible alternatives. It suggests
that "challenge" or "threat" should be used instead of
terms like "war", "battle" and "clash". "Rehabilitation"
is preferred for "de-radicalisation".
According to the changed lexicon, "radicalisation"
is to be replaced with "brainwashing" or "indoctrination"
in order to avoid the misperception that terrorism is a product of Islam.
However, words like "terrorism" and "violent extremism"
continue to remain in the list as a possible alternative to "Islamic/Islamist/Muslim
extremism".
Such language planning is seen as the British
Government's newly acquired sophistication in its approach to counter-terrorism.
It is based on the realisation that to avoid implying that specific communities
are to blame, it is better to enable communities to challenge the idea of
violent extremism.
The guidelines make up part of a £ 45
million plan to tackle violent extremism in local communities and win the
"hearts and minds" of Muslims. In the first year the funds will
only be handed out to areas with a Muslim population of more than 4,000 based
on 2001 Census data.
The guidelines have provoked a critical response
from the Opposition that is claiming that the Government is bowing under the
pressure of political correctness. The Tories have questioned what the Government
aims to achieve by striking off a few words. The funding to be provided to
Muslim dominated areas has drawn flak of being "too simplistic"
and "crude" population specific approach, with "limited official
understanding" of the geography of violent extremism in Britain.
