POLL: How Can We Fight Them If We Can't Agree On What to Call Them?
- Thread starter What Would Jesus Do?
- Start date
I like calling them the name of a female pagan goddess who liked dildos. That works for me.
The first time I heard someone say "Islamic State" I thought it sounded like a college.
"The Terrorists"
"The Fightin' Jihadis"
"The Bombers"
And let me tell you, the Burkhas on the cheerleaders are scandalous.
Just seems like it would be more accurate to call it what it's known by in the Arab world. Nothing against ISIS or ISIL or IS or the Islamic State.
I decided to look it up. Here's what I found:
Da'ish or Daesh
• What is it? A disputed acronym based on the group's full Arabic name.
• Stands for: “Dawlat al-Islamiyah f'al-Iraq wa al-Sham,” which translates to “Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.” The Levant refers to an area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Euphrates River.
• Used by: The French government, starting in September. Some Arab politicians and Arab media use the term, but the group itself doesn't recognize it. The acronym has a negative meaning because it sounds similar to the Arabic word for "sowers of discord," which are enemies of Islam.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/11/17/islamic-state-names/75889934/
I use several of them interchangeably. I think ISIL (as a word) works best. I usually lean toward calling groups what they want to be called, and that was what they seemed to want to be called until they proclaimed the Caliphate and wanted to be called the Islamic State.
I'm reluctant to call them the Islamic State because they don't have a sufficiently large following to claim to speak for all Islam. I mean if Israel wants to call itself the Jewish State and India wants to call itself the Hindu State, they probably have a pretty good argument. But until a few large Islamic nations join up and become part of the Caliphate, I don't think ISIL is entitled to claim it is the Islamic State.
If ISIL ever takes over Indonesia, it's a new ballgame.
From an Arabic translator:
The main misapprehensions about the word currently circulating in our media boil down to the following list:
- That daesh is an Arabic word in its own right (rather than an acronym) meaning ‘a group of bigots who impose their will on others’
- That it can be ‘differently conjugated’ to mean either the phrase above or ‘to trample and crush’
- That one of the words in the acronym also means ‘to trample or crush’
- That it is an insult or swearword in its own right
- That is has different meanings in the plural form
If you actually read her article, she ends up agreeing that "Daesh" is being used to belittle and rebrand ISIS in the effort to make it seem unsavory and to diminish its popularity.
I would give the mustache guys a pass but the bearded guys are definitely Jihadist.
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