Power of Words

I agree with the sentiments behind this article from The Observer because the term  'Un-Islamic State' is a more accurate description of what these murdering terrorists are all about while having the added bonus of mocking people who are desperate to be taken seriously.  

Words do indeed have power and the suggestion that Un-Islamic State (or UIS) should be used in future is a good one, I think. 

So I shall start doing exactly that and leading by example on the blog site because these savage killers should be denied the ability to portray themselves as the leaders of a religious faith.    

'Islamic State' is a slur on our faith, say leading Muslims

Imams call on David Cameron and others to stop using phrase which they say gives credibility to a terrorist organisation

By Daniel Boffey - The Observer

Isis soldiers: 'The group has no standing with faithful Muslims.' Photograph: Alamy

The prime minister and media should stop legitimising the terror group rampaging through Syria and Iraq by describing it as Islamic State, according to a coalition of imams and organisations representing British Muslims. Use of the jihadis' preferred title, they argue, gives credibility to the Sunni militants and slurs the Islamic faith.

Signatories to a letter to David Cameron, including Sughra Ahmed, president of the Islamic Society of Britain, admit that UK Muslims need to do more to dissuade their young men from being misled into taking part in the group's "hatred and poison". "We shall take every opportunity to continue to say clearly and loudly 'not in our name' and 'not for our faith,' " they write.

The letter's authors also call for the prime minister to reassess his own language. Cameron, in common with other senior politicians, has repeatedly made reference to the Islamic State, including during a Commons debate this month.

Signatories including Mohammed Abbasi, from the Association of British Muslims, and Amjad Malik QC, president of the Association of Muslim Lawyers, write: "We do not believe the terror group responsible should be given the credence and standing they seek by styling themselves Islamic State. It is neither Islamic, nor is it a state.

"The group has no standing with faithful Muslims, nor among the international community of nations. It clearly will never accept the obligations that any legitimate state has, including the responsibility to protect citizens and uphold human rights.

"So we believe the media, civic society and governments should refuse to legitimise these ludicrous caliphate fantasies by accepting or propagating this name. We propose that 'UnIslamic State' (UIS) could be an accurate and fair alternative name to describe this group and its agenda – and we will begin to call it that."

The intervention marks an intensification of a campaign by prominent British Muslims to deter young men from seeking adventure with the militants. It follows a recent decision by Muslim leaders to issue a fatwa condemning British jihadis.

Six senior Islamic scholars endorsed the fatwa last month, describing Britons allied to Islamic State (Isis) cells as "heretics" and prohibiting would-be jihadis from joining the "oppressive and tyrannical" group in Iraq and Syria. It is feared that as many as 500 Britons have travelled to Syria or Iraq since 2011 to join the group and its affiliates.

In a letter seen by the Observer, the signatories add: "We believe that it would send a powerful message in Britain and around the world if you would join us, as our prime minister, in leading a national debate to seek a suitable alternative way to refer to this group and further challenge its legitimacy and influence.

"This could be especially powerful because everybody at home and abroad can see that you are being asked to do so by British Muslims themselves who want to be clear about why this group is so vehemently rejected.

"We are sure that most British Muslims would agree that 'UnIslamic State' is a considerably more fitting label for this poisonous group – and hope that our fellow citizens will join us in that.

"We know that this would be one small, symbolic step and that we must all work together to build the inclusion and integration in British society that would repel these poisonous ideas."

Dilwar Hussain from the New Horizons in British Islam charity, a group that works for reform in Muslim thought, and one of the 18 signatories of the letter to Cameron, said it was also important for British Muslims to be seen to be speaking out against the extremist views of men such as Anjem Choudary, who was interviewed by the Observer last week.

Choudary, a former lawyer linked to many Britons who have fought in Syria, and who acknowledges Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as "the caliph of all Muslims and the prince of the believers", claimed that Washington's foreign policy was to blame for the beheading of American journalist James Foley.

Hussain, formerly a commissioner at the Commission for Racial Equality, said: "The risk is that to an unsuspecting public we give the impression that his views actually carry some weight among most British Muslims.

"Choudhary organises rallies to which a handful of people turn up. His views have been roundly condemned by Muslim leaders, imams and citizens up and down the country.

"He says he would rather live there, in this so-called 'caliphate'. He's welcome to. But what we want to make very clear is that Muslims who like living here, in Britain, don't recognise his views, or those of Isis. That's not us and it's not our religion."

One Year On (3 September 2014)

John Rentoul has critical words in The Independent for both the Prime Minister and leader of the opposition, but he is withering in his assessment of Ed Miliband for being a political opportunist, for facing both ways at the same time on the question of taking military action against Syria and President Assad.    

Now if I recall correctly that was the very same issue that caused Dan Hodges to resign his membership of the Labour Party and having checked the blog site archive I'm pleased to re-publish the post which reinforces what John Rentoul has to say. 

Who will take on the un-Islamic State?

For most of us, the debate over intervention has swirled and reversed repeatedly. We need a leader who will buck the trend – and start leading

By JOHN RENTOUL - The Independent


A year ago this week something unexpected happened. The Government was defeated, by 13 votes, on a motion to consider military action in Syria after a further vote. David Cameron had recalled Parliament so that it could approve British forces taking part in US-led punitive strikes against Bashar al-Assad's regime for its use of chemical weapons. Ed Miliband, reading public opinion rather better than the Prime Minister, started to lay down conditions, including, late in the day, the requirement of a second vote before the planes actually took off.

This rather negated summoning MPs from door-knocking duties in their constituencies, but Cameron had enough trouble with the isolationist tendency of his own MPs and decided that cowardice was the better part of leadership. Then Miliband decided to oppose the Government motion, although it conceded everything he wanted and the previous day he had supported military action in principle. Ten years after the Iraq war, its trauma was still raw: Miliband hoped to impress voters wary of further entanglements in the Middle East, but he did not expect to win the vote.

When the tellers read out the result, therefore, he was obliged to cover his shock by declaring victory. The vote had been about "preventing a rush to war", he said, although the "rush" had already been taken out, and the effect of the vote was to rule out military action altogether. Cameron said the will of the House was clear – "I get that" – and that he would not make another proposal for action in Syria.

Outright opposition to military force would have been an honourable position. Miliband could have argued either that Assad's use of chemical weapons ought to be punished and deterred, or that Western air strikes would only make matters worse. What was deplorable was to argue both positions, one after the other.

Then chaos theory kicked in. The flap of a butterfly's wings in the Labour leader's office triggered a chain of events around the world. Responding to the Commons vote, Barack Obama announced that the US Congress would be asked to approve strikes against Assad. When it became clear, a few days later, that the President didn't have the votes, Obama had to abandon the idea. Most unexpected of all, the Russians responded to this show of Western weakness in the way deterrence theory said they shouldn't, and persuaded Assad to hand his chemical weapons to the UN.

Was that a triumph for Miliband or a disaster? He had, unexpectedly and accidentally, influenced world events, but for good or ill? The people to be wary of in this debate are those who are sure of the answer, and for whom every twist and turn of the conflict confirms what they thought already.

For the rest of us, the debate over intervention has swirled and reversed repeatedly. It was Paddy Ashdown, leader of the party that later stridently opposed intervention in Iraq, who gave voice to the lesson from genocide in Rwanda in 1994. He helped shame the Tory government for its failure to act over Bosnia, and to prod the Labour opposition to adopt an "ethical" position. That led to Kosovo, in which Tony Blair chivvied a reluctant US president, supported by the liberal left, but after 9/11 atavistic anti-Americanism kicked in, and we all know what happened to Labour after Iraq.

Now everything has turned around again. Obama was elected to "end the war" (Mission Not Yet Accomplished), while France, the cheese-eating surrender monkeys of Iraq 2003, turned into the cheese-eating attack monkeys of Libya 2011. Last week François Hollande, who had briefly been Miliband's economic template, turned out not to be his foreign-policy model either. "If, one year ago, the major powers had reacted to the use of chemical weapons, we wouldn't have had this terrible choice between a dictator and a terrorist group," he said. I don't follow that argument, but with Hillary Clinton saying something similar in The Atlantic, Miliband's diplomatic nightmare is taking shape.

No wonder the Labour leader has stayed holed up in the south of France, doubtless working on his conference speech. Like Gordon Brown as Chancellor, who worked for one big event a year, the Budget, Miliband devotes himself to the set piece. "Yes, he doesn't have a country to run and long may that be the case," said one grumpy Downing Street official.

But Miliband's absence has allowed Cameron too much space to swither. As our ComRes poll today confirms, public opinion, including liberal left opinion, is swinging back to a willingness to commit British forces – in the air at least – to stopping Unislamic State, as we should call it.

We could do with some leadership, but both Cameron and Miliband are too cowed by the Syria vote debacle a year ago, itself a product of regrets about Iraq a decade earlier.