The Star now says ‘Daesh’ instead of ‘the Islamic State’ or ISIS
By Olivia Ward, Foreign Affairs Reporter
Toronto Star | March 3, 2016
Everyone knows Al Qaeda, but most people have forgotten it means “the base.” Boko Haram, which kills and kidnaps schoolchildren, means, unsurprisingly, “Western education is forbidden.”
But the term that makes politicians, pundits and journalists slap their foreheads is Islamic State — or the awkward acronyms ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) or ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.)
That’s because the criminal gang that has murdered, raped and pillaged its way across the Middle East, while sending sycophants to slaughter civilians abroad, is neither Islamic nor an internationally recognized state.
So as of today, the Toronto Star is switching to the title Daesh: in long form Arabic, al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham.
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Amira Elghawaby of the National Council of Canadian Muslims says it’s important to go farther. She writes in the Star that there is an “almost immediate spike in anti-Muslim attacks and incidents reported to police” after any terrorist attack by a group claiming to represent Islam: a polarizing effect that is one of Daesh’s aims. And in a country that values its multicultural identity, one more reason to make the change.