The Council on American Islamist Relations (CAIR) demanded the media drop the term “Islamist” in a commentary piece today from communications director Ibrahim Hooper, ISLAM-OPED: Media Urged to Drop Term ‘Islamist’ in New Year.
In it, Hooper laments that the term “Islamist” is “used in an almost exclusively pejorative context” and unfairly labels any politically active Muslim with the term.
Hooper appears to be reacting to the term’s incorporation in 2012 into the AP Stylebook, the style manual for journalists, as follows:
Islamist — Supporter of government in accord with the laws of Islam. Those who view the Quran as a political model encompass a wide range of Muslims, from mainstream politicians to militants known as jihadi.
Hooper writes that it is unfair that while those influenced by the Bible are likely to be called “Good Samaritans,” those following the Qu’ran are called “Islamists”:
As many people make promises to themselves to improve their lives or their societies in the coming year, here is a suggested New Year’s resolution for media outlets in America and worldwide: Drop the term “Islamist.”…Many Muslims who wish to serve the public good are influenced by the principles of their faith. Islam teaches Muslims to work for the welfare of humanity and to be honest and just. If this inspiration came from the Bible, such a person might well be called a Good Samaritan. But when the source is the Quran, the person is an “Islamist.”…The frequent linkage of the term “Islamist” to violence and denial of religious and human rights is also strongly promoted by Islamophobic groups and individuals who seek to launch rhetorical attacks on Islam and Muslims, without the public censure that would normally accompany such bigoted attacks on any other faith.
As I recall, the term “Islamist” was substituted for “Muslims” in order to distinguish those practicing a religion (Muslims) from those seeking a political ends based on the religion (Islamists). By claiming that “Islamist” smears all Muslims, Hooper incorrectly rejects the definition put forth by the AP–and the definition I would argue that is common usage.
He ends the piece with a second instruction, that if the media chooses not to stop using “Islamist,” they should only use it if if a group first uses it to describe themselves:
If the term is retained, media professionals should modify its use to reflect language similar to that used in the AP Stylebook reference to “fundamentalist,” which states that the label should not be used unless a group applies the term to itself. By not dropping or modifying use of the term, the media are making a political and religious value judgment each time it is used.
Hooper is attempting cover up the failure of political Islam to be perceived as positive by attacking those who use a term to describe it.
(See also Joel’s earlier piece questioning whether the AP suggests “the Prophet” precede mentions of “Mohammed.”)
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Comments
OK. I will replace “Islamist” with “islamist.”
With a hat-tip to The Clash, we could just call them “fundaMENTALly retardated”
Now that Algore sold his cable channel we’ll be hearing a lot more of this hooey.
The Islamist CAIR wants to censor the media which loves to censor itself. Since Islamists are a media-protected species, the media will comply.
Dear mister Hoooo’pah. I FIXT it for you:
“He ends the piece with a second instruction, that if the media chooses not to stop using “Islamist,”…”
They’ll get their throats cut or their buildings bombed? Oh, that’s just the subtext.
Hooper writes that it is unfair that while those influenced by the Bible are likely to be called “Good Samaritans,” those following the Qu’ran are called “Islamists”
Really? I have never once heard the media refer to people influenced by the Bible as “Good Samaritans”. “Fundamentalists”, “right-wing fundamentalists”, or even “far-right fundamentalists” is the standard for the media.
OK, I will drop “islamist.” Camel jockey or towelhead are better anyhow.
close to what I was thinking.
not sure the profs filters would let it by so not going to say it, but it is a bigoted term I am thinking of.
could also just call them dead. could make that so too…
all in all islamist is probably their best bet…they should just shutup.
Prof., you recall correctly.
THIS is an Islamist document. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp
THIS is a Muslim document. http://www.acommonword.com
Big. Difference.
The Islamists are the one who want to kill every Jew on the face of the earth, and re-conquer every square inch of land ever held by what they think of as a “Muslim” regime.
The Muslims are the ones who recognize the same fundamental Commandments of Christianity that came from Judaism: “Love God” and “Love your neighbors as yourself.”
Today, the Islamist Sunnis killed 27 Muslim Shiites on a religious pilgrimage.
Islamists are possessed, insane, completely inflammed by evil, hatred blood lust and kill all religions and nationality, even fellow muslims, but they save their most toxic venomous, vehement pronouncements and reprehensible atrocious actions against women (even their own wives and children), Jews, Christians and the USA.
The Muslims are the ones who recognize the same fundamental Commandments…
Horse hockey. They follow the same child-molester “prophet” and the same “smite the infidel” and “stone your wife” demonic books.
Assuming that the “Common Word” document wasn’t a big pile of taqiyya ….
I doubt that the majority of Muslims recognize the same commandments as Christianity and Judaism, since the dominant themes of Islamic “sacred” texts are the sharp distinction between Muslims and non-Muslims (or “the land of Islam” and “the land of war”) and the imperative to bring every non-Muslim into submission to Islam, by means definitely including deceit and violence.
A basic doctrine of Islam is that anyone who leaves Islam must be killed and that “insults” to the “prophet” must be punished severely, usually by death. Islamic law stipulates that killing one’s own children or grandchildren is not to be punished as murder.
The heart of Islamic doctrine has little in common with the heart of Judaism or Christianity. It isn’t much of a stretch to say that the fundamental values are polar opposites. That’s why Islamic societies are radically different from those of the West.
It’s also why the distinction between “Muslim” and “Islamist” is quite fuzzy in the end. The difference is a matter of means more than ends.
Valerie, I don’t know what you’re sniffing, smoking, or drinking, and I want you to tell me so I can stay the heck away from it.
The Muslim documents called the Koran and the hadiths say of people like William (the law guy who hosts this blog): the trees will cry out there’s a Jew behind me, come and kill him.
The Muslim documents called the Koran and the hadiths say of people like me (a diehard Christian) and William (the law guy who hosts this blog): preach to them (daawa), if they will not hear let them pay jizya (the poll tax of dhimmitude), and if they will not do that either, kill them.
There is no difference between Muslim and Islamist because the stated goal of Islam is world domination. You might want to spin folks some convoluted BS that would separate the sheep from the goat and the men from the boys, but it it convoluted BS when all is said and done.
What you are is an apologist for Islam, and apologias for Islam are hard to swallow when you’re Judaeo-Christian cuz y’all have target painted on our foreheads. 9/11 was Muslim action, and we saw the Arabs in Gaza, Judea and Samaria rejoicing before that pus-filled bag of syphilitic AIDS corruption shut them down.
You’re trying to sell rotten grapefruit to old fruit vendors, Valerie. Only the ignorant might believe the twaddle. Go read Bat Ye’or, get your head on straight, convert, then come again.
One last thing: I’m tired of the same old long-perpetuated lie that Islam respects anything Jewish or Christian. The kill order stomps on the lie.
Islam respects the Decalogue? What part of the Decalogue? Does Islam observe ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’? Islam professes to be the last revelation which eradicates the OT and NT. Not even Christianity says that of Judaism because it can’t, knowing full well that without Judaism nobody understands Christianity. The child that is Christianity only eats its parent Judaism at its own risk. Islam eats both, yet it is a syncretistic blend of both plus Arab paganism.
Islam claims to worship the same God as that of the OT, yet how can it when in every point related to every character in the OT Islam is in error? So, then, if Islam is grafted in and true to the root, stock and branch, we must conclude that either the JudaeoChristian God is a liar or the Islamic moon god is true. That cannot be, for, the god of Islam is vengeful, demonic, and a regular bat out of hell. He is Molech who wallows in the blood of innocents and the not so innocent who kill to enter paradise. On the other hand, is the YHWH of the JudaeoChristians who extends salvation to all who believe, even to the harlot Rahab, and who sent His only begotten Son to die for us.
So. The old lies do not stand up well when the Word (Bible of the JudaeoChristians) is applied to it.
Islam pretends that it is Abrahamic but it is not for it has rejected and forsaken the God of Abraham for whom all is faith and His Word alone.
I read the press release at the link.
What term does Hooper think should be used to describe death-loving totalitarian Muslims: idealistic, exuberant, proactive, misunderstood,…?
C’mon, Hoops, inquiring minds want to know.
What term does Hooper think should be used to describe death-loving totalitarian Muslims…C’mon, Hoops, inquiring minds want to know.
IMHO I inadvertently explained why CAIR issued a press release instead of holding a press conference. Even from the MSM, there was a risk that someone would blurt out the obvious question.
Okay, fine. I will just call all of them Muslims.
The attempted distinction was specious anyway.
Would we describe someone as a “moderate” or “extremist” Nazi, Communist, or white supremacist?
The Prime Minister of Turkey agrees with you. “Islam is Islam” he said. There is no such thing as ‘moderate’ Islam.
I actually agree with CAIR here, but not for the same reason.
As you say, the distinction is bogus.
In any case, there’s been what, 16,000+ documented muslim terror attacks since 9/11? Whatever term you use, you are still documenting the same terror. Why not just call it what it is? Why pretend ‘Islamists’ are distinct from anyone else that follows Islam?
Andrew Sullivan is going to have to stop using Christianists, I guess.
Islamist is merely the shortened form of the factual evidence-based term: Islamic fascist, supremacist, imperialist, terrorist, jihadist, racist, misogynist, propagandist.
Since they object to the short form, I’ll comply and return to the long form.
Just one more organization following the lead of the Obama administration – making the English language less and less meaningful with each passing day. Ultimately, lying will become impossible, obfuscation unnecessary, and we will have achieved the truly transparent government promised for so long. It will be possible to talk all day and say nothing or, to just remain silent and accomplish the same thing. Thank Allah (is great) we have the NYT, WaPo, and AP style books to protect the language.
And what are we supposed to call this sort of Islam?
http://www.radicalislam.org/news/saudi-cleric-issues-fatwa-allowing-gang-rape-syrian-women
“Muhammed al-Arifi, a Wahhabi religious cleric, officially calls this act an “intercourse marriage” that can last only a few hours – “in order to give each fighter a turn” — and restricts the men to Syrian females at least 14 years old, widowed or divorced.”
Truly, Islam mocks and condemns itself every moment of every day by its words, actions, culture and even its core texts.
Our man-made law calls it rape. Islam calls it a-fighting-man-gotta-get-a-piece.
I’d like to take some of my soon-to-be-illegal firearms and drop a few hundred of the buggers……
How about “Those Muslims who do not follow the Koran dictates to kill all non-Muslims, homosexuals and drug-users”? That seems to be pretty accurate.
And it would make it pretty clear to most people in California that “This means you”. For one reason or another 🙂
The media, if they are able to find their spines and intestines, ought to reply to Hooper’s lament “…that the term ‘Islamist’ is ‘used in an almost exclusively pejorative context’ and unfairly labels any politically active Muslim with the term..”, by reminding him that in fact the term is used in a fair manner, labelling those who are in fact believers in the supremacy of Islam and that violence, coercion, lies and all manner of evil is permissible to insure its practical supremacy.
OK… but it won’t matter. It doesn’t matter what specific term you want to use when what it represents is pejorative by nature.
Why do people think words were coined like “socialism” and “communism”? Because “social” and “community” had positive connotations, and people thought they could hi-jack those positive connotations to compensate for their terrible ideas.
Liberal was classically a positive concept. So was progress. Yet labeling repugnant and ignorant ideology as Liberalism or Progressivism did not preserve the etymology as a more determining value than… the actual value of the ideas.
We see the same idiocy from the politically correct who demand we replace “retarded” with “special” (or whatever the flavor of the month is). They’re only going to have to replace “special,” because they don’t understand the problem is not with the word, but with the intended meaning of the person using the word.
A rose by any other name…
So shall it be, with whatever the fools may wish to label themselves next. They can call themselves “Angels” and it will serve no purpose but to have those “Angels” referred to with the derision they deserve.
I could give two damns as to what ‘cair demands’.
I’m OK with islamofascist or islamobamanazi.
Who cairs what they want to be called?
How about we go back to “barbarians.”
I propose “bacon-snapping homicidal pig-humpers”.
Can we demand they quit using to term infidels? And provide this new definition.
INFIDEL: Insert your definition here: