President Barack Obama and many liberal-minded commentators have been hesitant to call this Islamist ideology by its proper name. They seem to fear that both Muslim communities and the religiously intolerant will hear the word Islam and simply assume that all Muslims are being held responsible for the excesses of the jihadist few.I call this the Voldemort effect, after the villain in J.K. Rowlings Harry Potter books. Many well-meaning people in Ms. Rowlings fictional world are so petrified of Voldemorts evil that they do two things: They refuse to call Voldemort by name, instead referring to He Who Must Not Be Named, and they deny that he exists in the first place. Such dread only increases public hysteria, thus magnifying the appeal of Voldemorts power.The same hysteria about Islamism is unfolding before our eyes. But no strategy intended to defeat Islamism can succeed if Islamism itself and its violent expression in jihadism are not first named, isolated and understood. From: Maajid Nawaz's article titled, 'How to Beat Islamic State', December 11th, 2015.
About This Quote
About Maajid Nawaz
Maajid Nawaz.