The controversy over terrorism terminology

A shift has been taking place in UK government ministries as to the terminology used to describe the terrorist threat faced by Britain. The Foreign Office has advised ministers to abandon the use of terms such as 'war against terror', 'Islamic terrorism' and 'Islamist terrorism'. The idea is that these terms antagonise the British Muslim community and increase tensions with the wider Muslim world.

Using military terminology is seen as counter-productive, contributing to the isolating of communities from each other. According to proponents of this shift, such terms imply a conflict of religions and link Islam, the religion of peace, with terrorism and radicalism. They hold that the widespread use of such terms serves only to alienate and radicalise more Muslims who would otherwise be happy to integrate into a cohesive British society. Terrorists, they believe, use the sense of crisis engendered by the discourse on a 'clash of civilisation' and a 'war against Islamic terrorism' to recruit supporters who feel that Islam is being attacked and that Muslims must defend themselves. Abandoning such terms, according to the Foreign Office, will avoid empowering the terrorists' narrative and weaken the trend to radicalisation.[1]

Another strand of thinking, expressed by Sir Ken Macdonald, Director of Public Prosecutions, is that it is better to see acts of terrorism as being carried out by individual criminals. These can be efficiently handled by the police and courts and need no special terminology or methodology to deal with them. Macdonald sees a danger that contemporary terrorism might tempt Britain to abandon its values in a "fear-driven and inappropriate" response, leading to the abandonment of respect for fair trials and due process of law. According to Macdonald,

London is not a battlefield. Those innocents who were murdered on July 7, 2005 were not victims of war. And the men who killed them were not, as in their vanity they claimed on their ludicrous videos, 'soldiers'. They were deluded, narcissistic inadequates. They were criminals. They were fantasists. We need to be very clear about this. On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a 'war on terror', just as there can be no such thing as a 'war on drugs' . . . The fight against terrorism on the streets of Britain is not a war. It is the prevention of crime, the enforcement of our laws and the winning of justice for those damaged by their infringement.[2]

In a Radio 4 "Start the Week" programme on 2 July 2007, the philosopher John Gray and the historian Eric Hobsbawm agreed that it was wrong, dangerous and unfair to use the term "Islamist" because it implied a strong link to Islam.[3]

Evidence of this new approach was present in the first Commons statement of the new Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith on 2 July 2007. While stating that Britain would not be intimidated by acts of terror she rarely mentioned Muslims, preferring to say "community leaders" for leaders of the Muslim community and "communities" for the Muslim community. This was interpreted as part of the deliberate change of language by ministers.[4]

The new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, in an interview following the attacks in London and Glasgow in late June, also avoided mentioning British Muslims, preferring to talk about al-Qaeda. His spokesman said the Prime Minister would avoid using the phrase "war on terror".[5] A European Commission guide for government spokesmen has recently been published which says that words such as "jihad", "Islamic" or "fundamentalists" should be avoided in statements about terrorist attacks. It is thought that as a result, Brown asked Cabinet members not to mention the words "Muslim" and "terrorism" in the same context.[6]

Ex-Islamist radicals call for the reformation of Islam

Several Muslims who were involved in radical Islamist groups have recently rejected the radical ideologies. Ed Husain[7] came out of Hizb ut-Tahrir and Hassan Butt left al-Muhajiroun determined to warn the public of the dangers of Islamist groups and their ideology. Both see Islamism as an outgrowth of classical Islamic theology. They attack the position that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, arguing that denial blocks the possibility of reform. Muslims, they say, must acknowledge that there is a violent streak in Islam and that classical Islamic theology is a main engine of violence. They argue that the unwillingness of mainstream Islam in the UK to discuss the issue of violence within Islam allowed radical preachers to seize the high ground and recruit many young Muslims to their cause. Mainstream Muslims repeated the mantra that Islam is peace, denied the violent aspects of Islamic theology, and hoped the problems would disappear, thus leaving the field open for radicals and their ideologies.[8] Muslims must cease ignoring the passages in Qur'an and Hadith which speak of killing unbelievers and challenge the centuries-old theology of jihad. Muslim scholars must refashion Islamic theology creating a reformed Islam for Muslims living in what Butt calls the land of co-existence. They must develop a new set of rules of rights and responsibilities which will enable Muslims to liberate themselves from ancient theological models that legitimised killing in the name of Islam.[9]