The EU says drop Muslim, Islam, fundamentalist, and Jihad when describing reports of terrorism. The reasoning is interesting. It appears as if they don't want Europe's Islamic populations to feel bad when some of their more fundamentalist brethren blow people up.
EU officials said the “common lexicon’’ aimed to stop the distortion of the Muslim faith and alienation of its followers in Europe. European governments had previously agreed on the need to develop a “non-emotive lexicon’’ for use in discussion to avoid “exacerbating division’’.
If you cannot describe what happened factually, you cannot describe what happened. Political correctness will dumb things down to the point where a terrorist attack will be reported like this:
"A bomb at the train station last night. Ten people were killed. Two British citizens and one tourist were arrested in connection with the crime. They appear to be mad about something".
6 comments:
It is actually not so dumb if you think of it as denying a movement of its marketing slogans. Growing the center has always been far more successful than declaring war on the ideas and tactics of extremists.
Joe,
A-fucking-men.
Nice to see I'm not the only one who's noticed the recent movement of governments towards 'Newspeak.'
BTW, thanks for your comment on my blog. I'm linking to yours, you got yourself a new reader. :)
anon - I don't think they are denying a movement anything. They are denying us the truth.
Sapphire - thanks!
Whilst I agree with everything you say - I would simply point to the Daily Express record of making up stories about the EU.
Has this been covered elsewhere?
PS nice blog
oh damn - I did not double source it. I should know better by now.
In answer to anon up top, you're right except the denial that exists in the center has made it necessary to emphasis that the Muslim community, in the UK for example, has a problem. After the recent UK bombing we are finding a shift from reps of the mainstream Muslim community. The Council of Muslims in the UK that has always cried about media stereotypes of Muslims etc has instead come out forcefully against the bombers. A number of prominent Muslim spokespersons in the UK have also spoken of deep denial and the need to confront insider extremism. If you start sanitizing the news and applying PC rules, it will add to the denial and push the problem deeper. This isn't smart. We need to tell it like it is without actually demeaning Muslims in the process. It's a fine line - but a hugely important one.
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