Freelance writer Tammy Swofford has a thought-provoking analysis of the battles over the meaning of jihad and the freedom of speech that have been raging in the U.S. lately. Kudos to the Daily Times of Pakistan for publishing this. "COMMENT : The Lexicon wars: the meaning of jihad," by Tammy Swofford in the Daily Times, March 15:
Everyone hates the truth. The more visible jihad of recent decades falls in the category of mass murder, chaos, and anarchyCast of characters:
Council on American-Islamic Relations
Pamela Geller and the American Freedom Defence Initiative
Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) 2013
Robert Spencer: Jihad Watch
If you own the language you control the dialogue. If you control the dialogue you have the ability to censor thought. If you censor thought you can infiltrate culture. Freedom of expression remains the breastplate of our American freedom. There are many who do not understand this dynamic. They speak against the very guarantee of our liberty. For me the issue is quite simple. Freedom of expression is a process and not an outcome.
There is a war going on. It is being waged within the political trenches of our nations. This is a war birthed within a digital age. Lexicon War. It is important that there be no real winner. And it is equally important that there is no real defeat. Because when it comes to freedom of expression, the process is extremely important. But the process is always open-ended and continuing. The outcome is never fully determined.
Let’s look at the latest American cast of characters. In the first Lexicon War we have CAIR v Pamela Geller. The Chicago branch of CAIR decided to run a series of advertisements as part of a bus campaign to raise the awareness of jihad as a personal and internal struggle. One ad says, “My jihad is to stay fit despite my busy schedule. What’s yours?” Not one to take it lying down, Geller mounted her own campaign in her usual trailblazing style. Her ads are all on the scale of: “Reloading, firing again, reloading, firing again, while screaming Allahu Akbar — victim of Major Nidal Hassan, Fort Hood jihad mass murderer. That’s My Jihad, what’s yours?”
You say struggle. I say kill. You say jihad of the tongue. Mine is of the pen.
The second case involves CPAC v Robert Spencer. The Conservative Political Action Conference is one of those ‘see and be seen’ events, kind of like the National Prayer Breakfast. No sane person really attends the prayer breakfast to pray. It is a time to bite the ankles of your nearest enemy and shove a thumb in the eye of the person who hates you. It provides the encapsulated moment to pander to the individual who has the influence to advance political agenda. The tables are bloated with perils of predilection.
In their infancy, these gatherings are attended by mavericks. But mavericks must be owned and cordoned. The powerful Beltway vortex acquires a new target. Within a few years, all such gatherings are reduced to attendance by career political mules. Swofford doesn’t talk to mules.
Robert Spencer? There is no middle ground on opinion about this man. He runs what is essentially a clearinghouse of information for jihad-of-the-nasty-kind. If a Muslim kills a Copt in Egypt, it will make the page. If a Muslim woman is the victim of an honour killing, it finds full bloom on his site. You get the point. Recently, his blog took the CPAC people’s choice award by an impressive voting margin. But when the topic came up regarding his right to freedom of expression at the CPAC event, the right to address his perceptions, he quickly became persona non grata. CPAC will now present his award in absentia. Ghost award.
It wasn't just my perceptions, it was hard evidence of the ties of CPAC's Grover Norquist and Suhail Khan to Islamic supremacists -- and I hadn't even intended to speak about that until I was told not to.
Everyone hates the truth. The more visible jihad of recent decades falls in the category of mass murder, chaos, and anarchy. Anyone remember how many times the flight recorder for United Airlines 93 picked up the phrase Allahu Akbar as Muslim men terrorised their captives? 23. One score and three. XXIII. But the Lexicon War continues to rage between those who want intellectual ownership of the word jihad. On the one side are Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, a dynamic duo who wish to remind us that jihad means killing fields. On the other side, those who wish to scrub any and all violent connotation of jihad and neutralize the word to be one with less emotional impact....
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You say struggle. I say kill. You say jihad of the tongue. Mine is of the pen.
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What *absolute crap*. This isn't a "you say tomato, I say tomahto" issue.
This is about pointing out that many Muslims wage violent Jihad against us, and so in the name of their vile creed. And this is about Muslims and their apologists trying to obscure that fact. Even if some Muslims referred to getting the kids to school on time and staying in shape as waging Jihad, it would make little difference. No one here cares if some Muslims are dealing with busy schedules.
The problem is that we are not supposed to notice that the way most Muslims use this concept is in working to oppress and murder us, and that that is, in fact, how virtually all Muslims understand the term—and that no Muslim who takes his religion seriously has abandoned that meaning, nor considers it a negative thing.
The #MyJihad campaign is *not* intended to forge a new understanding of what Jihad means—it is intended to lull the Kuffar into a false sense of security, while other Muslims continue to oppress and kill Infidels.
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Robert Spencer? There is no middle ground on opinion about this man. He runs what is essentially a clearinghouse of information for jihad-of-the-nasty-kind. If a Muslim kills a Copt in Egypt, it will make the page. If a Muslim woman is the victim of an honour killing, it finds full bloom on his site. You get the point.
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Actually, it appears that a lot of people, deep in denial, do *not* get the point. Robert Spencer does not create the news, he just reports it.
If Jihadists were not so oppressive and violent, Jihad Watch would soon dry up. But the fact is, as encyclopedic as JW is, there are many, many more stories that don't make it onto JW. One can see that just by perusing other Anti-Jihad sites, as well as just following the news reported by the MSM. And there are, no doubt, many more stories that never make the English-language press, and many that are never reported at all.
Please note, this is *not* a criticism. Jihad is so vast and bloody that *no one* could cover it all—JW comes closer than perhaps anyone else.
Does this mountain of carnage, all over the globe, have no meaning for Ms. Swofford? She makes it sound as though Robert Spencer just has an odd hobby,..
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Everyone hates the truth.
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Well, *not everybody*. Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer continue to tell the truth, no matter how unpopular it might be for those deep in denial.
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The more visible jihad of recent decades falls in the category of mass murder, chaos, and anarchy.
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Nice of Ms. Swofford to notice. No doubt, many people will take her to task for having the temerity not only to notice, but to dare mention the fact. Just like Spencer and Geller...
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But the Lexicon War continues to rage between those who want intellectual ownership of the word jihad. On the one side are Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, a dynamic duo who wish to remind us that jihad means killing fields. On the other side, those who wish to scrub any and all violent connotation of jihad and neutralize the word to be one with less emotional impact....
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True. But what are the motives behind what is blandly described here as a "Lexicon War"?
It's not as though Spencer and Geller were pedantically insisting on the proper usage of "I couldn't care less", or attempting to quash the use of "reiteration" or "at this point in time".
If Jihad is acknowledged as what it is—violence against Infidels, and women, and "insufficiently Islamic" Muslims in order to comply with bloody Islamic law—then we understand the motives of those who are attacking us. And if we understand it, we have a chance of defending against it.
But those who work to obscure the meaning have a motive, as well—to confuse Infidels so that we have no real idea of why Jihad occurs, or how to guard against it.
This leaves us uncertain and vulnerable to Jihad. *This* is what apologists for Jihad want—a West that cannot defend itself, a West that may well fall to Islam.