| [Six years afrer six years ago, t]he more perceptive writers will note that the vast bulk of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims continues to reject extremism. The less perceptive (and less travelled) will talk about a continuing war for civilisation. As well as considering the views of the various commentators, we would do well to stop a moment to consider the language in which they are expressed. For we have reached a critical moment in the war on terror ... |
Even if I was not anthologizing it and spoon-feeding you with it, Mr. Bones, but let you gaze upon Mr. Jason Burke's whole thing in the buff, you'd probably still be puzzled who his "we" are, and what seems to him so "critical" about their "moment" or anybody else's. Has Nostradamus or Stephen Hadley written somewhere that if M. Bin Ládin and Dr. Zawáhirí are not brought to vengeance in six full years, [1] they walk free forever? Unfortunately Mr. Burke is operating in pseudo-Confucian mode, however, and carries on the krusade at an obtuse angle:
| We have reached a critical moment in the war on terror. Sorry, let me rephrase that, we have reached a critical moment in our efforts to counter the terrorist threat. No. We are at an important juncture in the continuing process of countering Islamism... no... Islamic militancy... er ... modern Muslim radicalism... al-Qaeda... no, make that al-Qaeda-inspired violence... er... on second thoughts... For the semantics of the post-9/11 era have never been easy. From the mantraps of the use of words such as 'crusade' in the days after 11 September to difficult decisions by broadcasters and print journalists over whether they talk about 'terrorists', 'militants' or 'violent activists', the battle fought to ensure a language that more or less accurately describes the phenomenon that we have seen emerging in recent years, which I call 'modern Islamic militancy', for want of a better term, and the response to it has been as important as any other. And that battle is far from over. |
Ah! Nostradamus is dead, Gandalf is fictional, Master Hadley is uncredentialled, Dr. ‘Alláwí of the former Iraq is a woefully incompetent apprentice, yet does any of that anecdotal evidence prove that the ars magna does not work? Not to Mr. Jason Burke, anyway. If only he could find the True Name that he fumbles after there, the, uh, "entity" corresponding would be at his mercy, which it probably would not get much of. "Poof! Shazaaam! Take that, Bin Ládin!" And that would be the end of his we's crisis in even less than a moment. Perhaps we would never learn the Burkean we's exact identity, but "exact identity" sounds like it must be located somewhere in the neighborhood of True Name, so presumably the Weness of Them is very well defended by spells and conjurations. And it's not as if one cares, after all, is it, Mr. Bones? Whatever Jason the Conjurer may think he's doing, we think he's wasting his time except insofar as he collaterally benefits sceptics like us with a little light entertainment suitable to the Dog Days. Sit back and watch the show, sir! It will begin as soon as J. the C. gets done repeating that he believes in onamatomancy:
| It took many years to establish a vocabulary that was broadly accepted to adequately describe the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Finding an equivalent set of terms for the threat posed by bin Laden and others will take longer still, but as language often determines thoughts and, thus, policies, it is an essential process that we need to survey as carefully as our check-in queues. It is a counterterrorist effort as valuable as any other. |
As valuable as any other contribution that he can offer, perhaps. After the preliminary sales patter, why not a few testimonials from satisfied purchasers of the Burke's Verbal Witchcraft™ product?
| As in more conventional areas, this battlefield has seen victories and defeats. An example of the former is, following the arrival of Gordon Brown at Number 10, the consigning of the inflammatory and counterproductive term 'the war on terror' to the governmental linguistic dustbin. The term 'al-Qaeda' has also evolved. Senior British politicians now speak carefully of 'al-Qaeda-inspired' violence. There is now sufficient knowledge among the general population of the actual nature of al-Qaeda, an ideology as much as an organisation, for it to be impossible for a politician to claim baldly that any given attack is the work simply of Osama bin Laden. |
Hmm. In both cases the customer satisfaction and "victory" seems to reside more in Mr. Burke's imagination, or in his politics, than in the former real world. In any case, Dr. Brown has been deputy chief physician in attendance for only a few weeks, so is it not a little premature to acclaim his anti-inflammation therapy? [2]
Next comes a very peculiar attempt to recommend onomatomancy as a popular art:
| This reveals the mechanisms by which the vocabulary used to describe the terrorist threat against us evolves. Words, often originating in the specialist jargon of counter-terrorism, are introduced into general conversation by journalists and politicians. They are then tested at the bar of public opinion. Sometimes, they are rejected. Frequently, they are adopted, but only after their sense has been nuanced to be closer to general perceptions. The shift in the popular understanding of the term 'al-Qaeda' feeds back into political language, into the media and finally into policy-making. |
"We enchant, you decide," eh? I can see why such fake concessions to a low democratic age attract Master Jason, but surely he must really think that onamotomancy is on a par with brain surgery and Rocket Science, even though he does not want to offend the unsorcelled majority by snobbish frankness about his chosen expertise. He might have got away with honesty, though, at least if enough geezers still remember what Walt Disney did with Paul Dukas. [3]
Next we learn that onomatomancy depends to some extent upon places:
| Here, cultural and linguistic factors are interlinked. In the US, where individual responsibility is emphasised and analysts tend to express themselves in an apparently rigorous, precise and empirical style, the understanding of 'al-Qaeda' has always contrasted strongly with that in countries such as France, for example, where social and historical context is emphasised, the collective trumps the individual and analysts, policy-makers and commentators are far happier with ill-defined concepts and ideas. In the wake of 9/11, French analysts decided, rightly, that al-Qaeda was a 'nebuleuse', a word which has no direct equivalent in English and denotes a nebulous, floating, dynamically evolving phenomenon that is half-network, half-idea. |
There's quite a lot of irrelevant tripe and baloney in that passage, but evidently the true adepts of onomatomancy disdain to indulge in either the "apparently rigorous, precise and empirical" or in "ill-defined concepts and ideas." It's not difficult to guess where the happy via media between social scientizing and psychobabble is alleged to flourish. Perhaps at the end of the day Airstrip One alone can benefit from the knowledge of True Names? Say it ain't so, Massa Jason!
Speaking of unrigour, Mr. Burke throws in an "also" suggesting that what follows is not just further considerations about the place of places in verbal witchcraft:
| Words can also collect different meanings. So 'jihad', already laden with several contesting theological interpretations, has further senses in the columns of, say, the Daily Mail and in the daily conversation among, for example, teenagers of Pakistani origin in Walthamstow. For the latter, sadly, 'jihad' is a glamorous, secretive, countercultural, ultra-violent lifestyle choice as much as a religious and cultural concept charged with centuries of Islamic history and religious argument. |
One could pick on that, but let's not pause now, when the announced topic -- the advertisement reads "'Islamism' has no place in terror's lexicon" -- hoves into view at last:
| Recently, a new label has been proposed for the diverse and dynamic phenomenon which threatens us: 'Islamism'. Sadly, this is not a helpful term. First, because it is already used by specialists to denote a fairly narrow ideology aiming to mobilise Muslims to take over existing modern states that differs substantially from the more eschatological ideas underpinning the project of 'al-Qaeda'. And second, because it implies a direct causal link between Islam and the violence we have seen in recent years. Islam may be part of the problem, but it is wrong to suggest that a hugely diverse and dynamic faith is the sole source of the current threat. 'Islamism' emphasises the religious above all other factors, the social, the political, the economic and the cultural. Its supporters should bear in mind that MI5 now describes terrorism in the UK as, at least in part, a 'cultural phenomenon'. |
It's a bit of a puzzle why MI5 should be a place specially privileged over Walthamstow and the Daily Mail and Paris and Kennebunkport and Crawford for purposes of verbal magic, yet perhaps only a practitioner could understand the rationale. From the ignorant outside there is a more serious difficulty still, namely that Mr. Burke seems almost to defect from his own standard. He does not mention the blatant verbal difficulty about "Islamism," -- how is one to pronounce it right so that one's spells are efficacious? Instead, he only raises objections to what it "denotes" or "implies," which is all very well in its way, but nothing much to do with onomatomancy. Any Soc. Sci. Yank or vague dreamy Gaul can do the job, for Pete's sake, if it's only to be about meanings that we talk! [4]
Considered in broad daylight without any circumambient nimbus of Wortzauberdämmerung, Mr. Jason Burke is not particularly impressive. He seems almost to agree with Ms. Conventional Wisdom that we are all to keep very quiet about having noticed very little you-know-what in the world recently that the you-know-who themselves do not account Islám-related, nay even Islám-mandated. So commonplace a position must have at least a little something to be said for it, but unfortunately one runs into Shaw's Paradox at this point: "It is impossible to explain what decency is without being indecent."
M. Pascal and I think that the decency school of counterterror thus get pretty much what they deserve, although ours is to be sure an ethical judgment rather than a political one. God knows best.
(( JB never does explain "our" "critical" "moment" -- go check for yourself if you don't believe me. ))
____
[1] Why should six be a magic number and not, say, 5.3069 or 137?
Not a hard question. As you must know, Mr. Bones, there used to be the Seven Deathless Kosmokratores (vulgarly called "planets visible to the naked eye") and they often mixed up with the stars of Charles's Wain somehow, and then specifically Hebrew Christojudaeanity came along and insisted that one of seven must be set aside for silly season purposes, and there you are, basically. I take it that the mathematical "perfection" of sextity (1+2+3=6, 1*(6)=6, 2*3=6) is only a lucky add-on to the different and earlier sextity (7-1=6) of Astrology and Superstition. The incantational community don't think such coincidences happen by chance, needless to say. There's also the Precession of the Equinoxes, of course, but it's too early in the morning for me to remember clearly about that rather tricky matter.
[2] The chief attendin' physician, Dr. G. W. Dubyus of Yale College and the Harvard Victory School, is rather notoriously at cross-purposes with his Airstrip One sidekick. If the Prime Minister dared to address his betters down at the ranch in Mr. Burke's tone and vocabulary, mightn't he get the current state of anti-inflammation and productivity and victory at good old British Basra thrown back in his teeth? (We do not maintain that words can never produce any effect at all, Mr. Bones!)
[3] Maybe the incantation community does require mass participation, though not mass comprehension of the technology involved. Perhaps merely ascertaining the True Name and uttering It out loud once in Dr. Faust's study is insufficient, and something more like a Nuremberg rally chanting It in unison over and over must take place before the desired results are forthcoming? (We unbelievers admittedly do not tend to know much about how the verbal witchcraft racket is supposed to work technically, taking for granted in advance that it doesn't ever work at all except by accident.)
[4] There is also the strictly linguistic point that Jason the Conjuror shows no interest at all in what M. Bin Ládin and Dr. Zawáhirí call their own stuff. Since he manages well enough here in his own way with jihád, he need not actually study much Arabic to do so.
He may consider professionally that whatever the faith-crazed fiends label their product cannot possibly be the True Name of it, for they have yet to achieve any solid and Faust-worthy results with their incantations. In that case, though, what about the Arabophone despisers of al-Qá‘ida? Perhaps exotic noises like salafí and takfírí do work, at least to a limited extent, with an onomatomantic effectiveness? Isn't it worth at least a try, O Merlin?
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