Is It Time to Stop Using the Word 'Terrorist'?

posted on: Jan 30, 2015

Tarik Kafala, the head of BBC Arabic, prefers to avoid the word “terrorist”. He’s avoided it in coverage of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, saying it is a “loaded” term. Cue outrage: from Norman Tebbit, a victim of the Brighton bombing, and historian Anthony Glees, who said the executive “needs to consider his position”.

A value-laden term
What did Kafala actually say, again? He told the Independent that “we know what political violence is, we know what murder, bombings and shootings are and we describe them. That’s much more revealing, we believe, than using a word like terrorist which people will see as value-laden.”

Hardly the words of an apologist for jihadism, as his critics seem to be suggesting. And, in fact, very much in line with the BBC’s editorial guidelines, which say:

The word ‘terrorist’ itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding. We should try to avoid the term, without attribution. We should let other people characterise while we report the facts as we know them.

Political intimidation
So “terrorist” is a characterisation. Its meaning depends on context and intention (something crystallised by the line – often quoted but never reliably attributed – “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”). Those contexts and intentions have been set out by various national international bodies. The EU, for example, defines terrorism as acts such as attempted murder, kidnapping, etc, where the aim is of

Source: www.theguardian.com