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10/01/2004: "Maybe if we stop using that word, things will change"
Former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, speaking at the United Nations last week, showed himself an opponent of truth in advertising:
The term Islamic should be dropped when referring to terrorists in a bid to foster better relations between the West and Islam, Lord Carey says.
The former Archbishop of Canterbury said removing the word would "deprive a terrorist of his religious legitimacy".
It would also send a clear message to "the average Muslim" that they were not being blamed for terrorist attacks.
His comments come after Muslim leaders expressed concern about a growing gulf between the Islamic world and the West.
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has warned that linking international terrorism and Islam was damaging.
"There is an urgent need to stop tarnishing the Muslim world by unfair stereotypes," he told the United Nations this week.
It isn't a stereotype, of course. It's the truth. As more and more Muslims themselves are admitting, the vast majority of those engaging in terrorism are Muslims. To suddenly pretend that terrorism and Islam have nothing to do with one another is to stick our heads in the sand such that defeating the terrorists becomes that much harder. And does Carey really think that if we stop calling them "Islamic terrorists," that the Muslim world will suddenly start thinking that all those beheadings in Iraq are being done by angry Presbyterians? Finally, "religious legitimacy" isn't something that we confer on these ghouls by calling them "Islamic"–that's the term they use for themselves. If Muslims decide that they represent legitimate Islam, we aren't going to change their minds by changing the nomenclature in a dishonest way.
(Thanks to MCJ for the link.)
