The speech by Jonathan Evans, the new boss of MI5, attracted attention mainly for its warning about the increase in the number of Britons it has identified as people who “pose a direct threat to national security and public safety because of their support for international terrorism”. Apparently, many of those targetted are teenagers. I was interested to see what he said about the language that we use to describe those people and the issues involved:
We must also pay close attention to our use of language. It is easy to forget, in talking of actions, aims and approaches, how what is said affects what is done. Yet you will be as conscious as I am of the consequences of words. And we are tackling a threat which finds its roots in ideology, so words really do matter. This is not political correctness. We cannot create hard and fast rules but we must recognise the extremist message for what it is. Anything which enables it to claim to be representative of Islam; anything which gives a spurious legitimacy to its twisting of theology will only play into its hands. One of Al Qaida’s key aims is to provoke divisions within and between communities, and we have seen their own media department – to which they attach great importance – seeking to do this. So we’ve got to be sure that what is said neither explicitly nor implicitly makes this easier for them. The terrorists may be indiscriminate in their violence against us, but we should not be so in our response to them.
This is something that Polis has been debating for months now with community representatives, journalists and security officials. They came to the same conclusion that the language used by politicians and the news media is critical. It is not always clear what words are right. If a terrorist describes themselves as ‘Muslim’ or ‘Islamic’ should the media do so as well?
It was notable after the attempted attacks on London and Glasgow this summer that the new Prime Minister and his Home Secretary were careful to avoid inflammatory language.
The other thing that emerged from our sessions was that the Intelligence services need to be a lot more communicative about what is going on. This speech is a good example as was the speech by former MI6 boss Sir Richard Dearlove at Polis last week.
Of course “language” is an important issue -but it is also a poorly understood concept, particularly how language relates to cognition.
However, i cannot help feeling that the whole problem of the “war on terror” revolves not around language (in a superficial sense) but is a much deeper cognitive problem. Basically, it seems to be premised on the principle that the splinter in the oppionent’s eye is more dangerous than the beam in our own eye.
By refusing to accept that “one person’s terrorist is anothers freedom fighter” the debate easilly focusses on the demonisation and criminalisation of opposition to the existing power structure. This is extremely dangerous -because it disallows debate and increases the pressure which can then only be released (literally) through an explosion.
The current global political-economic system causes serious problems and inequalities. In order to maintain itself, it has often allied itself with extremely dubious state leaders. To continue to deny this and to continue to repress those who oppose such oppression can only make matters worse by creating a breeding ground for violent opposition as the only way to change the system.