He who controls the way people talk controls the way they think. Hence, it is no surprise that the EUSSR is actively trying to manipulate our language. Last February, The Daily Telegraph reported that Franco Frattini, the EU Commissioner for Justice, Freedom, and Security, declared he was in favour of some kind of self-regulatory media code in reporting about Islam. Now the EU officials are “discreetly reviewing the language it uses to describe terrorists who claim to act in the name of Islam. EU officials are working on what they call a ‘lexicon’ for public communication on terrorism and Islam, designed to make clear that there is nothing in the religion to justify outrages like the Sept. 11 attacks or the bombings of Madrid and London. The lexicon would set down guidelines for EU officials and politicians.”
The term “Islamic terrorism” will no longer be used. Nor will words such as “Islamist,” “fundamentalist” and “jihad.” The latter, for example, is often used by Islamic terrorists to mean warfare against infidels, but according to an EU official “for a Muslim Jihad is a perfectly positive concept of trying to fight evil within yourself.”
The EU civil servants drafting the lexicon claim it will be a “non-emotive lexicon for discussing radicalisation.” The lexicon will be submitted to the 25 EU leaders in June. An EU official said the point of using careful language was not to “fall into the trap” of offending and alienating citizens. “This is an attempt [...] to be aware of the sensitivities implied by the use of certain language.”
The European Commission currently employs 20 terminologists, one for each official language, to advise translators how to handle not only EU policy jargon such as “subsidiarity,” but also sensitive words like “terrorism.”
Apparently these well-paid EU civil servants have nothing better to do than to put George Orwell’s 1984 into practice. Hence, in order not to alienate young Muslims the term “Islamic terrorism” is to be replaced by “terrorism abusing Islam.” The EU will have to invent a European “newspeak,” which we had better call not a lexicon but the EU’s “B vocabulary.” As Orwell wrote:
The B vocabulary consisted of words which had been deliberately constructed for political purposes: words, that is to say, which not only had in every case a political implication, but were intended to impose a desirable mental attitude upon the person using them.
I have, however, a concrete question for the EU civil servants.
A few weeks ago, Abdul Rahman, an Afghan convert to Christianity was condemned to death by an Afghan judge on the basis of the following Quran verse:
They wish that you reject Faith, as they have rejected (Faith), and thus that you all become equal (like one another). So take not Auliyâ' (protectors or friends) from them, till they emigrate in the Way of Allâh (to Muhammad SAW). But if they turn back (from Islâm), take (hold) of them and kill them wherever you find them, and take neither Auliyâ' (protectors or friends) nor helpers from them. (An-Nisa 4:89)
What terms will the EU have us use when a similar case occurs in the future? Is this judge an “Islamic judge” or “a judge who abuses Islam”? And is An-Nisa 4:89 a “Quran verse” or “a verse that abuses the Quran”?
By the way, how many Afghan embassies were burned these past weeks by angry Muslims who are outraged because the Afghan judge insulted the prophet Muhammad and his peaceful religion? Maybe there were scores of them but our islamophobic media simply refused to report on it.