The ‘Radicalization’ Fraud
16th February 2016
The post-9/11 era is rife with what Orwell called “the abuse of language” (“war on terror,” “overseas contingency operations”), but no abuse more obviously illustrates his complaints than the media cliché describing how a moderate Muslim becomes an Islamist: he becomes radicalized. This euphemism (a passive construction in grammatical terminology) denotes almost nothing. Orwell calls it a “verbal false limb,” that is, a device used to “save the trouble of picking out appropriate verbs and nouns.” It has become the default explanation for a phenomenon few want to discuss.
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There is much to dislike about both the passive “was radicalized” construction and the term “radicalization,” which comes from an adjective (radical) turned into a verb (radicalize) and then into a noun. The term “self-radicalized,” which appears to be a reflexive passive verb, if such a thing exists, is even worse.
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What Gore Vidal called “the popular Fu Manchu theory that a single whiff of opium will enslave the mind” is not a good metaphor for Islamism. Islamism is inculcated over time. Teachers spread it in schools with books. Imams and community leaders reinforce it in mosques and Islamic centers. Some communities ignore it, and some families tolerate it. Sudden Jihad Syndrome only appears sudden to outsiders.