{"id":5444,"date":"2015-12-08T23:55:37","date_gmt":"2015-12-08T23:55:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/?p=5444"},"modified":"2015-12-08T23:55:37","modified_gmt":"2015-12-08T23:55:37","slug":"islamic-state-skwire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/blog\/2015\/12\/islamic-state-skwire\/","title":{"rendered":"The Islamic State by Any Other Name – Article by Sarah Skwire"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"The<\/a>Sarah Skwire<\/span>
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Terrorists Don’t Deserve to Choose What They’re Called<\/strong><\/div>\n
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ISIS does not want to be called Daesh<\/a>. The group considers the acronym insulting and dismissive. An increasing number of its opponents do not want it to be called the \u201cIslamic State.\u201d They fear that this shorthand reifies the terrorist group\u2019s claims to be a legitimate government.<\/p>\n

The debate reminds us that names have power.<\/p>\n

Avid readers of fairy tales have always known this. Calling Rumpelstiltskin by his real name banishes him and foils his baby-stealing plans. Speaking your name to a witch or wizard can give them power over you. Patrick Rothfuss\u2019s wildly popular Kingkiller Chronicles<\/em><\/a> contains a magic system where learning the name of an element \u2014 like the wind \u2014 gives a person magical control over it. And everyone knows what happens when you say Beetlejuice<\/a>\u2019s name three times.<\/p>\n

Converts to new religions often take new names to honor the transformation. We mark significant passages in our lives \u2014 birth, marriage, death \u2014 with new names. Miss Smith becomes Mrs. Jones. Junior becomes Senior when Senior dies. There\u2019s even an old Jewish tradition that says that, in times of serious illness, one should take a new name in order to fool the Angel of Death.<\/p>\n

Whether we believe in magic or religion or not, we feel the power of names throughout our lives. Who didn\u2019t go through a childhood phase of wanting a different name? I was wildly jealous of Catholic friends who got to choose confirmation names. A college friend declared that her first day in college was \u201ctime to get a nickname\u201d and had us all brainstorm until she found one she liked. It stuck for the whole four years, and long after. Other college friends made legal name changes to more accurately reflect their cultures or their lives. As an adult, I declined to change my name when I got married because I wanted to hold onto myself. I thought for months about choosing my daughters\u2019 names.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a strong advocate of calling people what they like to be called. My kids try on nicknames like I try on jewelry \u2014 experimenting with their identities from day to day and solemnly explaining that from now on, they shall answer to nothing other than \u201cPumpernickel,\u201d or that \u201cAbby\u201d is now verboten and \u201cAbigail\u201d is in favor. I happily acquiesce in all the changes as they figure out who they are. And I love the new nicknames they create for me. (The latest is \u201cBob,\u201d because that\u2019s what it sounds like when you say \u201cMom\u201d with a head cold.)<\/p>\n

I think, too, that it is important to use the names that transgendered individuals have chosen for themselves, and the pronouns that reflect their gender \u2014 even if it\u2019s an awkward or hard-to-remember change for me. The same goes for other communities based on culture, race, religion, or other common identity. At a bare minimum, as we go through the world, we should have the liberty to say peacefully who we are. And it is a small thing for us to do, generally, to give the respect and the acknowledgement that comes with using someone\u2019s requested name.<\/p>\n

But ISIS, or Daesh, is another matter entirely.<\/p>\n

It is too late to treat Daesh as Yoko Ono requested that John Lennon\u2019s assassin be treated \u2014 by denying it the dignity of a name we deign to speak aloud. We have done nothing but name it and talk about it and publicize its actions. It is probably inappropriate for a family publication to suggest that we might take the Wonderella<\/a> approach to express our contempt. But we certainly can use an accurate translation of the name they have chosen and turn it into a mildly insulting acronym.<\/p>\n

Apparently, it bugs them.<\/p>\n

Good.<\/p>\n

Sarah Skwire<\/a> is the poetry editor of the Freeman<\/em> and\u00a0a senior fellow at Liberty Fund, Inc. She is a poet and author of the writing textbook Writing with a Thesis<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0She is a member of the FEE\u00a0Faculty Network<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This article was published by The Foundation for Economic Education<\/a> and may be freely distributed, subject to a Creative Commons Attribution United States License<\/a>, which requires that credit be given to the author.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah Skwire ****************************** Terrorists Don’t Deserve to Choose What They’re Called ISIS does not want to be called Daesh. The group considers the acronym insulting and dismissive. An increasing number of its opponents do not want it to be called the \u201cIslamic State.\u201d They fear that this shorthand reifies the terrorist group\u2019s claims to be a legitimate government. The debate reminds us that names have power. Avid readers of fairy tales have always known this. Calling Rumpelstiltskin by his real…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87,5],"tags":[4432,2664,2665,84,4431,3046,1283,4433,1060,2207,4430,2662],"class_list":["post-5444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-politics","tag-daesh","tag-fee","tag-foundation-for-economic-education","tag-freedom","tag-isil","tag-isis","tag-islam","tag-islamism","tag-religion","tag-sarah-skwire","tag-terrorism","tag-the-freeman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5444"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5445,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5444\/revisions\/5445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}