German media inadvertently feed ISIS propaganda
Stern, one of Germany's big magazines, is running a title story this week with the headline: "Islamic State - the enemies of the world". This headline is scary in several ways, and not only because of the photo of machine gun toting jihadis that illustrates it. A huge problem is that the headline itself supports the ISIS ideology and, at the same time, advances the xenophobic ideas that are popular among right-wing activists like Alternative für Deutschland or Pegida.
It needs to be stated again and again, and then again, that most Muslims neither consider ISIS particularly Islamic, nor think that ISIS is in any way acting in their name. By far the most victims of ISIS terrorism are themselves Muslims who become victims because they do not accept the fundamentalist and murderous ideology of ISIS.
It equally matters that ISIS is not a state, at least not a state that is accepted by any government on earth. ISIS is a violent, terrorist organisation. Labelling it as a state lends it a legitimacy brutal criminals do not deserve. For good reason, the Financial Times has begun to simply use "Isis" as the name without further elaboration.
German media have a good habit of explaing acronyms. There is nothing wrong with informing readers that CDU means Christian Democratic Union or IMF International Monetary Fund. In the case of IS, however, they are overdoing it. It would be wiser to just speak of ISIS, or perhaps Daesh, using the Arab acronym, as some French media and government leaders do. Daesh is the term that is popular in Arab countries. It is a loose acronym for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, but has negative undertones, for instance because it sounds like Dahes which means "one who sows discord".
At D+C/E+Z we'll stick to "terror militia ISIS" because that is something understood by all readers. One nice connotation, by the way, is the one of the ancient egyptian goddess Isis. The term is not monotheistic. Should Daesh take hold in general-interest media in Europe, however, we'll be happy to go along.