Insult or not?
The debate is whether it’s correct to use the term “Islamofacists” and generalize. The argument could be made that it’s a generalization that offends and brands a whole group. The other argument is that it’s an accurate description. The key to what is reality is that these folks are wrapping their communications and their justifications in religious language. So the phrase to some is not PC but it is logical that some people will assume that they are Islamofascists.
When someone says “Well, you didn’t call Hitler a Christian fascist” perhaps its because the Hitler and Nazis (who wiped out an entire branch of my family) didn’t usually kill people and say they were doing it in the name of Jesus Christ. The current crop of people on the scene who aspire to mass murder are using language that is unfortunately a tragic disservice to the truly God-fearing and God-respecting people of their own religion who don’t think about mass murder. I say this as someone who used to report from and stay in Bangladesh and stay at the home of Muslim friends.
So although the phrase has become a political football (some use it to appeal to certain constituencies who want it to be used; some blast it to appeal to some constituencies who don’t like it or to show that another person’s thinking is simplistic) it isn’t illogical that the phrase be used at all.
If they weren’t couching their pronouncements and justifications in specifically religious terms it’s less likely that the language would come up.
And the fact that not too many of them have sons or daughters who are being bar or bat mitzvahed or undergoing communion also has led to its use.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.