I dont come to the D&D that often, but every time I do there is a thread about Islam(95% chance its negative). In every one of these threads, atleast someone posts the term "Islamic Fundamentalist" in reference to terrorist groups. This is probably one of the biggest factors in the misrepresentation of Islam. Some idiot decided it would be cool to label these moron terrorists, "Fundamentalist." What is so fundamental about their actions to Islam? I think, or hope, most people here have realized by now that Islam does not condone any of these actions. So my only request in this thread is to stop using the term "Islamic Fundamentalist" when referring to these ignorant morons. There is nothing Islamic about what they do and this term just gives the wrong idea to anyone who does not know about Islam. Thus perpetuating the misconceptions some people have about the religion. Like Martin Luther King said, "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
The term fundamentalist is usually used to describe any religious zealot who uses their religion to justify murder. It's not just an Islam thing. Look at the term "Christian fundamentalist" for example.
I know that, but my suggestion is that we still stop using this term to descirbe these people. Just a thought I had.
[RQUOTER] fun·da·men·tal·ism n. - 1. A usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism. [/RQUOTER] A partnership has nothing to do with two gay people on boats. You can't extract the full meaning of a word by breaking it into component pieces. It doesn't work that way. The word has been around since the middle of the 19th century. You don't get to redefine established components the English language on a whim.
The word "fundamentalist" was first used to describe Christian extremists in America, so it just became a word that's tossed around to describe any religious zealots. Technically speaking, no it's not the same as "terrorists" or even "radicals". A Fundamentalist would be someone like Jerry Falwell; a 'radical' would be someone like Pat Robertson; a terrorist would be a reference to certain acts of violence. But as I said, nowadays they are used interchangeably.
Based on memory, when the media refers to Islamic terrorists, they almost always use the terms "terrorist", "extremist" or "militant" instead of "fundamentalist". Some of the firebrand mosque leaders who publicly condone the actions of the above are labeled "fundamentalist" because all of them preach a very strict version of Islam. Personally, I don't see anything wrong with this. I do agree with you that anyone on this forum who uses the term Islamic "fundamentalist" to describe those who carry out terrorist actions is being lazy. But the media seems to have the terminology correct.
Yeah I guess they are more correct with the terminology these days, but I remember someone in the media saying it a few weeks ago and I just remembered it when someone said it in a thread here.
To put in context, think about how they've referred to revolutionaries, terrorists, and non-governmental combatants in the past 50 or so years. I can remember people like FARC or the Tamil Tigers being referred to Maoist insurgents or Marxist revolutionaries. The terrorists who worked for the PLO in the 70's were referred to as Palestinian terrorists, because they fought for a state, not an ideology. In Central and South America the Shining Path and other Marxists revolutionaries were always pitted against right wing para-militaries. There is also a series of terms to describe both sides in the fight in Northern Ireland, with Papist and Statist, and others coming to mind. People attach an ideological tag when describing terrorists and the like. Ossama bin Laden's ideology can be best described as fundamentalist. Just because he is described as such, it does not impugn all people with fundamentalist ideologies. Nobody ever thought the Pope was a terrorist when people described Northern Ireland's fighters as Papist insurgents. If anybody can suggest a common usage term other than fundamentalist that accurately describes bin Laden's ideology in contextually flat terms I would be willing to use it.
Those must be British terms because the one's I've heard are "Unionists" for those who want to stay in the UK and "Republicans" for those who want Northern Ireland to join the rest of the Irish Republic.
