The Language Trap

I’ve not really though about the issue before, but after listening to some opinions on the matter and considering the mammoth impact media hype has on humanities perceptions on the whole, I figured this issue deserved further thought.

Even though we have been moved by lyrics and poetry since time began we continue to under estimate the power of language. The revelation of the Quran more than 1400 years ago led to most of the known world submitting to the message it brought as the Arab peninsula was captivated instantly by the lyrical style of God’s word.

Words like ‘war’ as used in the current crisis in the Middle East to denote an equal battle-field an idea that couldn’t be further from the truth. US aid hardly means food for the starving but rather the opening of a pathway into a country to assess assets!

In the past the ‘branding’ of the unknown - read ‘not the west’- and the stigmatisation of such places as uncivilised and barbaric, -in fact not much has changed looking at the US’s campaign to ‘selflessly’ take on the mantle of liberators of the ‘backward’ Muslim nations and more importantly their subjugated and long suffering women.- Led to many believing that the world needed urgently to be rid of these ‘fundamentalists’ and ‘extremists ‘ (interestingly enough know one even remembers these words are English words and are not descriptions for Taliban style dressed Muslim men.)

So as ‘fact finding mission’ actually translates into UN employees on a five star holiday in a ‘developing country, let us take a pact to NOT do a dis-service to the struggle with our language!