In J K Rowling’s Harry Potter books, almost all the characters avoid saying the name of the series’ arch-villain, Voldemort. No matter whether they’re good or evil, all but a couple of characters refuse to name him out of fear. Voldemort’s own followers call him “the Dark Lord”, while everyone else refers to “You-know-who”.
But Harry’s mentor and Voldemort’s oldest enemy, Professor Dumbledore, constantly rejects this fearful gambit. “Always use the proper name for things,” Dumbledore says. “Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.”
The same can be said of Islamic terrorism.
Whenever a particularly swivel-eyed follower of the Prophet blows up a concert, rams a truck through a crowded market or stabs and decapitates their way through a Western city, the media will avoid even reporting it at all, if they can. As reported recently on The BFD, there have been attacks or planned attacks every fortnight in France for months – with almost no mention from the global media.
If they must report terror attacks, the media will twist themselves through all manner of linguistic contortions to avoid saying “Islam” or “Muslim” in connection with the attacker or his motives.
Consider the latest wave of Islamic violence (the latest that the media have bothered to notice, anyway).
When a Muslim “immigrant” ran amok, waving a Koran, screaming the Islamic battle-cry and murdering three of the congregation of a Church in Nice, how did the world’s media report it?
“A man armed with a knife”, reported the Guardian. Anyone foolish enough to read the Grauniad has to drill down eight paragraphs to even find a buried mention that the Muslim terrorist “said ‘Allahu Akbar’.” Any mention of “Islam” or “Muslim” is buried even deeper, and never in direct connection to the attacker.
The BBC contented itself with describing the attacker as “a man”. Sure, just some random bloke with no particular motive.
At the supposed other end of the political spectrum, The Australian described the attacker as “a 21-year-old Tunisian migrant, Brahim Aoussaoui, rampaged inside the church, screaming ‘Allahu Akbar’”.
They almost got there.
Yet the Oz doesn’t hesitate to brand Generation Identitaire as “far-right”.
Perhaps the greatest verbal contortion, though, belongs to Canada’s CTV News: “Tunisian carrying Qur’an fatally stabs 3 in French church”. Frankly, it’s astonishing they even mentioned the Koran or his Tunisian origin. After all, the Charlie Hebdo killers were described as “French-born brothers” by the Canadian press. On the other hand, the same reports went out of their way to highlight that one of their victims, a policeman, was “Muslim”.
“Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.”
So, why do even those who insist we have nothing to fear from Islam so steadfastly refuse to even say its name in connection with the violence and terror of its followers?
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