Zack Beauchamp '10: The Dangers of "Islamofascism"
Issue date: 10/18/07 Section: Columns
Poopyhead. Stupidface. These playground insults work by connecting a negative quality ("stupid" or "poopy") to something possessed by the insult's target (their head or face). Perhaps the similarity between this style of insult and the term "Islamofascism" is why the latter has always seemed so outlandishly out of place in any serious discussion of terrorism policy.
The term has an oddly childish ring to it and offensively attaches the negative term "fascism" to the religion of Islam, an implication which perhaps was responsible for President Bush's abandoning the term after his use of it in a 2005 speech provoked widespread outrage in the Muslim world ("'Islamofascism' Had Its Moment," New York Times Sept. 24 2006).
Besides simply sounding silly and being offensive, resorting to this sort of immature name-calling makes critics of Islamic fundamentalism seem more like inarticulate kids and less like serious contributors to an important foreign policy debate. This move discredits their arguments, which in some cases are worth considering. The use of the term "Islamofascism" damages the credibility of its user much in the same way that an extreme anti-Israel protestor holding a sign about "Zionazis" marginalizes the protest that person is attending, even if the protest itself is calling for something reasonable (like withdrawal from Iraq or the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict).
It is important to note that the connection created by the term is not between Islamic fundamentalism and fascism (which would not nicely fit in one word), but between Islam and fascism. The term "Islamofascism," then, does much more than cast the person using it in a negative light - it implies that Islam itself is a fascist religion, which in turn implies that a war on Islamofascism is really a war on Islam, a view with catastrophic consequences for American counterterrorism policy.
Roughly 10 or at most 15 percent of Muslims worldwide ascribe to a fundamentalist view of Islam, making them a comparatively small segment of the Muslim population. (It is important to note, however, that this still means there are between 100 million and 150 million fundamentalist Muslims, meaning that this statistic cannot be used as a justification for minimizing the threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism.) Conflating all Muslims with a small minority of their co-religionists risks turning the war on terrorism into a war on Islam, a view of the conflict whose dangers are too grave and too obvious to need explaining.
Here, defenders of the word "Islamofascism" could plausibly object that this analysis ignores the actual contextual use of this term. Islamofascism, they might say, means the same thing as Islamic fundamentalism, regardless of whatever a semantic analysis of the term might suggest. But does it? The writings of many of the leading proponents of the term leave significant room for doubt.
An official publication of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, when describing a documentary that it suggests be shown during what it calls "Islamofascism Awareness Week," states: "Virtually every major Western leader has over the past several years expressed the view that Islam is a peaceful religion and that those who commit violence in its name are fanatics who misinterpret its tenets. This claim, while widely circulated, rarely attracts serious public examination. ... 'Islam: What the West Needs to Know' reveals the violent, expansionary ideology of the so-called 'religion of peace' that seeks the destruction or subjugation of other faiths, cultures, and systems of government" - a description of Islam which leaves little room for doubt about what the center's view of Islam really is. Norman Podhoretz's new book, "World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism," never gives a definition of exactly what the word means, but he does claim that "almost to a man, Muslim clerics in their sermons" affirmed that Osama bin Laden was acting in accordance with God's wishes by carrying out the September 11th attacks. Like the Freedom Center, Podhoretz is here implying that every Islamic religious authority, and by extension every Islamic believer, approves of terrorism against the United States.
Regardless of whether or not the proponents of the term "Islamofascism" actually believe that Islam itself is the problem, the use of the term and the ways it is being applied leave the unequivocal impression that Islam and Islamic fundamentalism are one and the same. Islamofascism is far more serious than a childish insult. It is a profoundly offensive term that promotes a disastrous foreign policy with real consequences in the real world.
Zack Beauchamp '10 is calling the kid hogging the swingset an Islamofascist.
The term has an oddly childish ring to it and offensively attaches the negative term "fascism" to the religion of Islam, an implication which perhaps was responsible for President Bush's abandoning the term after his use of it in a 2005 speech provoked widespread outrage in the Muslim world ("'Islamofascism' Had Its Moment," New York Times Sept. 24 2006).
Besides simply sounding silly and being offensive, resorting to this sort of immature name-calling makes critics of Islamic fundamentalism seem more like inarticulate kids and less like serious contributors to an important foreign policy debate. This move discredits their arguments, which in some cases are worth considering. The use of the term "Islamofascism" damages the credibility of its user much in the same way that an extreme anti-Israel protestor holding a sign about "Zionazis" marginalizes the protest that person is attending, even if the protest itself is calling for something reasonable (like withdrawal from Iraq or the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict).
It is important to note that the connection created by the term is not between Islamic fundamentalism and fascism (which would not nicely fit in one word), but between Islam and fascism. The term "Islamofascism," then, does much more than cast the person using it in a negative light - it implies that Islam itself is a fascist religion, which in turn implies that a war on Islamofascism is really a war on Islam, a view with catastrophic consequences for American counterterrorism policy.
Roughly 10 or at most 15 percent of Muslims worldwide ascribe to a fundamentalist view of Islam, making them a comparatively small segment of the Muslim population. (It is important to note, however, that this still means there are between 100 million and 150 million fundamentalist Muslims, meaning that this statistic cannot be used as a justification for minimizing the threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism.) Conflating all Muslims with a small minority of their co-religionists risks turning the war on terrorism into a war on Islam, a view of the conflict whose dangers are too grave and too obvious to need explaining.
Here, defenders of the word "Islamofascism" could plausibly object that this analysis ignores the actual contextual use of this term. Islamofascism, they might say, means the same thing as Islamic fundamentalism, regardless of whatever a semantic analysis of the term might suggest. But does it? The writings of many of the leading proponents of the term leave significant room for doubt.
An official publication of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, when describing a documentary that it suggests be shown during what it calls "Islamofascism Awareness Week," states: "Virtually every major Western leader has over the past several years expressed the view that Islam is a peaceful religion and that those who commit violence in its name are fanatics who misinterpret its tenets. This claim, while widely circulated, rarely attracts serious public examination. ... 'Islam: What the West Needs to Know' reveals the violent, expansionary ideology of the so-called 'religion of peace' that seeks the destruction or subjugation of other faiths, cultures, and systems of government" - a description of Islam which leaves little room for doubt about what the center's view of Islam really is. Norman Podhoretz's new book, "World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism," never gives a definition of exactly what the word means, but he does claim that "almost to a man, Muslim clerics in their sermons" affirmed that Osama bin Laden was acting in accordance with God's wishes by carrying out the September 11th attacks. Like the Freedom Center, Podhoretz is here implying that every Islamic religious authority, and by extension every Islamic believer, approves of terrorism against the United States.
Regardless of whether or not the proponents of the term "Islamofascism" actually believe that Islam itself is the problem, the use of the term and the ways it is being applied leave the unequivocal impression that Islam and Islamic fundamentalism are one and the same. Islamofascism is far more serious than a childish insult. It is a profoundly offensive term that promotes a disastrous foreign policy with real consequences in the real world.
Zack Beauchamp '10 is calling the kid hogging the swingset an Islamofascist.