Language and IS killers: Words and crime

It was George Orwell who warned what he believed to be our decaying civilisation about the consequences of debased language, noting that “if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought”.

Language is routinely and deliberately fouled by politicians, bureaucrats, and corporations to conceal an often unpleasant reality, but, as Orwell also saw, “… bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better”.

The careless use he had in mind can be seen and heard now in news reports about the men who travelled from a number of European countries to Iraq and Syria, to take up arms for Islamic State’s empire of evil. Some of these people are being held in Turkey and northern Iraq, while decisions are made — or delayed — as to the jurisdictions to which they should be returned to face justice.

They are commonly and inaccurately described as “fighters”, including by the Irish Examiner, in reports originating from agencies and freelancers.

This endows them with the sort of legitimacy possessed by members of armed services, called on by governments to enter battle on equal terms against adversaries. They are terrorists, merchants of gut-churning violence, who have butchered innocent, unarmed civilians and administered the enslavement of women and children. Opinions about the right punishments vary, but let us name them for what they are.