Fun With Words (Al Jazeera and Juan Cole Edition)
Time for a little vocabulary lesson. Pay close attention.
"Condemn", as in al Jazeera's report about "the shooting of an Italian missionary nun... just hours after a Somali cleric condemned the pope's speech". Condemn:
"We urge you Muslims wherever you are to hunt down the Pope for his barbaric statements as you have pursued Salman Rushdie, the enemy of Allah who offended our religion... Whoever offends our Prophet Mohammed should be killed on the spot by the nearest Muslim... We call on all Islamic Communities across the world to take revenge on the baseless critic called the pope," [Sheikh Abubukar Hassan Malin] said.
"Protest", as in Juan Cole's update that "there were protests by Palestinians in Gaza". Protest:
Two West Bank churches were set afire early Sunday as a wave of Muslim anger over comments by Pope Benedict XVI construed as anti-Islam grew throughout the Palestinian areas. In the West Bank town of Tulkarem, a stone church built 170 years ago was torched before dawn and its entire inside was destroyed, local Christian officials said. In the village of Tubas, a small church was attacked with firebombs and partially burned, Christians said. Neither church is Catholic, the officials said. On Saturday, Muslims hurled firebombs and opened fire at five churches in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to protest the pope's comments, sparking concerns of a rift between Palestinian Muslims and Christians.
These are all sins of omission of course - they aren't actually using the words in this way, they're just not giving you enough details to let you know what's really going on. So neither of them are as bad as yesterday's NYT article, which actually did seem to define shooting a nun four times as a "protest".
"Condemn", as in al Jazeera's report about "the shooting of an Italian missionary nun... just hours after a Somali cleric condemned the pope's speech". Condemn:
"We urge you Muslims wherever you are to hunt down the Pope for his barbaric statements as you have pursued Salman Rushdie, the enemy of Allah who offended our religion... Whoever offends our Prophet Mohammed should be killed on the spot by the nearest Muslim... We call on all Islamic Communities across the world to take revenge on the baseless critic called the pope," [Sheikh Abubukar Hassan Malin] said.
"Protest", as in Juan Cole's update that "there were protests by Palestinians in Gaza". Protest:
Two West Bank churches were set afire early Sunday as a wave of Muslim anger over comments by Pope Benedict XVI construed as anti-Islam grew throughout the Palestinian areas. In the West Bank town of Tulkarem, a stone church built 170 years ago was torched before dawn and its entire inside was destroyed, local Christian officials said. In the village of Tubas, a small church was attacked with firebombs and partially burned, Christians said. Neither church is Catholic, the officials said. On Saturday, Muslims hurled firebombs and opened fire at five churches in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to protest the pope's comments, sparking concerns of a rift between Palestinian Muslims and Christians.
These are all sins of omission of course - they aren't actually using the words in this way, they're just not giving you enough details to let you know what's really going on. So neither of them are as bad as yesterday's NYT article, which actually did seem to define shooting a nun four times as a "protest".
