Words matter in ‘ISIS’ war, so use ‘Daesh’ | Hacker News Reader

Words matter in ‘ISIS’ war, so use ‘Daesh’

bostonglobe.com

122 pointskeitmo64 comments

In much of the Muslim world, it is common practice to call people who die in war "martyrs". The Arabic word is "shahid" and just like the word "martyr", it literally means "witness". These are people who are considered basically heaven-bound. They skip the queue, they don't need to worry about their past sins, because they died in the service of their faith. This belief is widely accepted, although it varies exactly whom is a martyr. But I suspect that as long as the very idea of straight-to-heaven martyrdom exists among the vast majority of Muslims, smaller offshoot death cults are almost inevitable. It's a pretty linear progression.

Language does matter and the words used to describe people who fight and die violently matters a lot.

Are you describing something, diagnosing something or prescribing something?

Based on this comment, what do you want us to learn/know/understand or do?

I'm pointing out a parallel with the premise of the original article. The way people describe and name things shapes how it is perceived and shapes its acceptability.

If you're familiar with American politics, consider the left's phrase "pro-choice" vs the right's depiction of the same position as "pro-abortion". They both know they're describing the same thing, and both are attempting to win the battle of hearts and minds.

That's an excellent distinction. Are you sure it maps?

EDIT: It may well map. Thank you.

I think you were referring to "pro-choice" versus "pro-life".

I wasn't referring to "pro-life". While that is one of the right's phrases for it, I was specifically referring to the more extreme usage "pro-abortion". Here is an example:

http://www.issues4life.org/pdfs/news_20100307a.pdf

I'm not a fan of this for several reasons:

1. If you say, "ISIS", everyone knows what you're talking about. Not so for "Daesh."

2. Anyone can read "ISIS" and know how to pronounce it. How does one pronounce "Daesh"? Is it daysh? Dash? Dah-esh? I don't know.

3. We'll still need to know and use the old names. There are thousands of historical news articles using the terms ISIS, ISIL, IS, The Islamic State, etc. Googling for them is already hard enough. It reminds me of xkcd's Standards (http://xkcd.com/927/).

4. "Daesh" autocorrects to other things on iOS, Android, and Windows 10. It was very annoying to write this comment, as I was constantly un-correcting "dash".

The author makes some good points, but I think they're outweighed by the disadvantages I mentioned. Unfortunately, the cat is out of the bag. We now have yet another name for ISIS.

Edit: I just thought of another one. If "Daesh" takes off, people may think those who use "ISIS" or "The Islamic State" are sympathetic toward the group. I'm certain I'll slip up in conversation and have to dig myself out of a hole.

I can understand these concerns, but honestly I feel like they are outweighed by the potential benefits. First of all, certainly on my Android keyboard, correcting autocorrect once teaches it the new word, and it will then always use it if spelled correctly, and even begin to learn when to correct to it. So that's a pretty minor annoyance. #1 is an issue certainly, but if you run across someone who doesn't know the acronym, you can summarize the thoughts of this article. Plus, the hope is that it catches on, so that most people will end up knowing it. Presumably if that happens, #2 would also be taken care of as a consensus develops. #3 yes, true, this will make it slightly more difficult. But still, ISIS|ISIL|Daesh isn't too tough either.

The name sounds trivial, but I don't think it's a stretch to believe that if this name actually became widespread, it could have a significant (if small) impact on "Daesh's" recruitment, which would seem to be worth the annoyance.

At one point no one knew what ISIS meant. This article is trying to educate about use of a better term. There are plenty of words that go out of style. "ISIS" is no more pronounceable than Daesh. Is-is? Ice-iss? Eye...Ess...Eye...Ess? Auto-correct dictionaries should reflect modern usage, not the other way around. The advantages of the term Daesh are clear from the article. None of the disadvantages listed seem significant in comparison to the strategic value of using a term that accurately reflects how most of the world views the matter as opposed to a term that favors the terrorist group.

There is an Egyptian goddess named Isis. Many women have the name as well. It's much less likely to be mispronounced than Daesh.

Also, autocorrect usually leaves all-caps acronyms unmolested.

tl;dr: Too little, too late.

THE most hilarious variant so far, for me, has been:

  Islamic State in Iraq & Al-sham

Wow. Really?

That one, to me, was even MORE ridiculous than ISIL which was stupid to begin with. Who the fuck calls anything "The Levant" anymore, Jesus Christ himself? What century is this?

This is where you start to understand 2 things.

  1. There are people trying to erase Syria and invalidate 
     the concept of Syria's statehood, and erode the public
     perception of national borders as they exist, so that
     amidst the propaganda campaign, we forget about 
     the inconvenient countries that get in the way of
     campaigns for regional repartitioning along sectarian
     boundaries.

  2. There are political motives to avoid using "ISIS" 
     because it "sounds cooler" like a cartoon super 
     villain, and seems to "send the wrong message" to 
     viewers.

So, anything to help people forget that Syria was a country, and anything to prevent ISIS from using the cooler sounding name.

That's the subliminal message I'm noticing within all the spin doctoring.

Its true that using the term "Levant" may seem outdated. However, if you recall ISIS' (or Daesh's) call to arms, it was to erase borders - and specifically the ones delineated in the secret WWI agreement known as Sykes-Picot. Back then, the goal was to carve up the Levant between France and the UK. So, using ISIL is in reference to their stated mission. Maybe more reason to not use any IS or IS derivative...

Words do matter, but I'm of the opinion that changing the term for a thing doesn't change the essence of the thing, or what people think of that thing... At least very much. Some examples:

[Note: I'm citing these examples to point out that a shift in terminology does not usually result in a shift in attitudes. Which means... I'm not citing these examples to start an argument on the particular topics of the examples.]

The Rote Armee Fraktion / Baader-Meinhof-Gruppe. They were violent Marxist terrorists in West Germany from the late sixties and continuing about two decades. The German government refused to refer to the group by its chosen name. Baader-Meinhof Group implies a criminal syndicate tied to two lead personalities, and shoves away implications of ideological motives. The RAF, however, remains to this day mostly known by its own chosen name.

Homosexual / Gay. "Gay" was originally taken up by men in the sixties to refer to their sexual identity as something less medical than "homosexual" (then defined as a mental illness) and less negative/alienating than "queer." But it came to be an insult, used by the sort of people who assume the essence of homosexuality to be bad... So any word for it becomes an insult among such people.

Liberal / Progressive. This example is specific to American politics: in most of the rest of the world, these words have separate meanings and are not conflated. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose ideas would have previously been called "progressive", identified himself as a "liberal" loudly and often, cementing a shift in the word's common-use meaning. At the time, it made him more palatable to voters who would have balked at a the more radical implications of "progressive." But now, the same people who disliked progressivism dislike liberalism (American) on the same basis.

Moron / Idiot / Imbecile / Retarded. Each of these words was originally a clinical term with a specific meaning. Now each is an insult, and new clinical terms have been decided upon by the medical community in aggregate.

The Islamic State has specifically said they don't limit themselves to Syria and Iraq (they're trying to establish a caliphate), so the Daesh acronym the article is pushing is incorrect.

If you want to call them something they don't want to be called that's fine, but you're not being neutral.

But that is kind of the point. Like calling people of color 'boy' in the more racially charged times of our (sadly fairly recent past) it is a powerful insult to someone, challenging them on many levels.

Calling this group daesh challenges everything about them, their legitimacy, their aspirations, and their leadership. That it has deeper meaning in Arabic is icing on the cake as far as crafting an insult goes.

Why is calling ISIS Daesh more politically correct than calling other groups by derogatory names? When I see people on CNN pushing the "daesh" terminology, all I can think of is what an uproar it would be if they were talking about Africans, Asians, Appalachian Whites, or some other group.

Do we really think name-calling is the way to stop them? It's juvenile.

Are you really going to pull out the PC card for ISIS/Daesh?

I'm sure I'll be downvoted for this, but I really couldn't care less about their feelings. At all.

maybe, but calling them 'isis' in standard american english makes them sound like a supervillain imo, though it may be too subtle to carry through after a few years. but i like the feeling that simply calling them by a common acronym invokes, sounding obviously evil

Why would you want to be neutral toward a group that's stated goal is essentially to usher in the apocalypse through conquest, rape, torture, and murder? A name that's both accurate and insulting seems like the ideal term to use. Certainly better than meaningless insults like "cowardly" that are thrown around.

Legitimacy. If you appear neutral in your descriptions, then when you say that their stated goal is to "usher in the apocalypse through conquest, rape, torture, and murder?", people are more likely to take that seriously and consider for themselves how to view them (and likely arrive at the obvious conclusion).

However, if you appear biased, then people are more likely to question the validity of what you are saying itself.

Good point, as are waffle's. Thanks.

They want to be called Islamic State because first of all it gives them legitimacy and it also helps with their recruitment because any action taken against them would automatically be called a 'War against Islam" which is exactly what they want to portray it as, they want it to be the West coming up against Islam. [2]

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4ouhpOPenI (Queen Rania And Arianna Huffington Discuss ISIS And What's Working In The Middle East)

Because you'll only have meaningful dialogue with someone when you use neutral language. If you were trying to convince an Islamic State zealot about faults in their reasoning they would close off their mind immediately when you use language like that.

Flippantly dismissing the Islamic State as an illogical death cult that just wants to rape and torture ignores their true aspirations and the legitimacy they draw from Islamic scripture.[1] To fight an ideology, you have to make an effort to understand it.

[1]: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isi...

Islamic State is a term that has real meaning to many Muslims [1], referring to Daesh as Islamic State legitimises their caliphate.

[1] http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/09/12/347711170/i...

    > Why would you want to be neutral toward a group

For the BBC, at least, they're legally required to be.

I think very few people would consider themselves neutral in their opinion of that group.

This seems like a bit of a sideshow. I would rather spend my time reading this incredible article:

What ISIS Really Wants http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isi...

Decades in to the US Middle Eastern military excursions very few Americans appears to know much of anything about what is going on - either geographically, politically, or historically. There does not appear to be agreement among the top civilian and military leadership or intelligence agencies, right or wrong, as to what is going on, why, or what to do.

Hollywood likes black and white narratives, things like Nazis vs the rest of the world. The mass media, pundits, and politicians follow this path. Much of what has occurred has been heavily politicized and yet both Republican and Democrats completely inoculate each other to the bad decision making because it is so damning to not just the Bush administration but the Obama administration as well. Even today I find very few people who understand the conflicts between the Sunni and Shia. The mental model of what is going on in most American's heads is kind of like a Donald Duck cartoon during World War II.

There may now be very few paths where the outcome is not an Islamist State (probably the best of all word choices) of one shape or another. The paths that successfully prevent it may be even worse. Both the Bush and Obama administrations repeatedly outlined their goals for democracy in the Muslim world. They are going to get it. Of course, there is nothing preventing a democracy from voting to remove basic human rights.

The only thing I'm certain of at this point is an Islamist State poses a massive threat to the UAE, a big threat to India (because of the nuclear situation with Pakistan), a large threat to Israel, a pretty big threat to Europe, a small threat to Russia, and minimal threat to the US - which makes it ironic who is calling the shots.

This is a great read, thanks for the link.

Only problem for me is that it clearly states they have no interest in performing terror attacks in the west (although they would condone it). I'm not sure how it lines up with what just happened in Paris.

Do they? The article's thesis appears to be some nebulous thing along the lines of calling the group this pseudo-derogatory name is going to have some impact or another.

Put another and much more snarky way: This is meaningless, feel-good sophistry.

Since they refer to themselves as ISIS or ISIL, it'd be odd to call them something else.

No, it's a great idea. It denies them recognition and legitimacy.

If we described domestic terrorists (bomb makers, mass shooters, killers, etc) as 'that waste that killed a bunch of people in X during Y' and never /ever/ published their names (in the news anyway, court transcripts would need to show them) then it would make those actions a lot less sexy.

In that same way, we should also call the extremists in the middle east that; possibly picking an arbitrary flavor word that is of no relation to them just so we can make a distinction. There are /quite/ a few extremist groups in that area of the world.

"Call him Voldemort, Harry. Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself."

- Albus Dumbledore

“A nickname is the hardest stone that the devil can throw at a man.”

― William Hazlitt

ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh are all transformations of the same name (the first two are initialisms for different translations of the name into English, Daesh is a transliteration of an untranslated acronym.)

Using Daesh instead of ISIS is more like, stating a lack of fear for the thing itself.

> It denies them recognition and legitimacy.

This doesn't mean anything. We recognize them as a legitimate threat because of the land they've taken and the people they've murdered. This reeks of the "homicide bombers" campaign, or the people complaining that "Xmas" takes the Christ out of Christmas. If anything, it's even sexier that the greatest powers in the world are so terrified that they refuse to even say their name - is it for fear that they might appear?

It was disappointing to me that the SNP chose to make forcing the BBC to use "Daesh" their first issue after the elections.

I'm not sure that follows, or for that matter that there's any evidence to support your position.

These attacks are not the terrorist group form of advertising, getting the name out in the MSM? No, they are to drive home some kind of ideological point - that's going to happen whether you call them "ISIS" or "fuzzy pickles".

Your position is that propaganda is useful and we should structure our speech for maximum utility?

That way lies Newspeak.

Its interesting to read Daesh in Boston Globe, a western propaganda media. The usage of the degrading Daesh is very common in Russian friendly media like vineyardsaker or southfront.

Well, those old Russian propaganda experts knew, that its important to deny them their prefered words like "Islamic" and "State", but instead call them with a bad word, that accidentally is also an acronym of their name.

PS: consortiumnews is also using Daesh

Need to add (2014) at end of title.

Good point. This viewpoint is a bit dated, as the Islamic State now does act like a government in the areas it controls. (From a military perspective, it's easier to attack a territorial government than a terrorist movement, especially if you assume everyone who hasn't left supports that government.)

Daesh is a relatively small group, and propaganda is central to its growth strategy. Whether hijacking popular Twitter hashtags or using little known distribution channels to post videos to YouTube, their leadership knows that the war of words online is just as key to increasing its power and influence as the actual gruesome acts they commit on the ground.

The real issue is that the media and politicians use the term ISIS instead of IS because it's better for SEO. Basically we now choose which foreigners to genocide based on the vagaries of whatever terms Google Panda currently recognizes as stopwords.

The real issue is that the media and politicians use the term ISIS instead of IS because it's better for SEO

Got a citation for that?

Even if what you're saying were true, it could be more charitably described as "not using a term that shares a spelling with one of the mostly commonly used words in the English language".

Daesh is like the the hindi word for "country" written in english.

The spelling is something between Dash and Desh... Daesh is the closest and its a poor substitute, if the aim is to not call them a state. Now, we are just calling them a country.

That's like trying to start a campaign to call bullies "assailants" instead of "bullies". It will not change anything.

Also, the real "ISIS" is headed by Malory Archer, not Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

This seems like a great idea. What if we all decided to start calling them Idiot Squad or something?

Modified post in response:

https://plus.google.com/111448954253951919974/posts/Ujs3zjbs...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com