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Can “jihad” be rebranded?
It's an uphill fight, but Muslim activists are trying to reclaim a holy word that's become synonymous with terrorBy Alex Seitz-Wald
MyJihad.org bus ad featuring two volunteers, an American-Muslim and an Israeli-Jew. (Credit: MyJihad.org)
So you want to rebrand a word. Its hard to think of a more difficult rebranding project than jihad.
Since Sept. 11, the term has become synonymous with terrorism and villainy but now a group of Muslims is trying to reclaim the word from the extremists, and redefine jihad to mean something normal and peaceful and good. They realize this wont be easy.
The campaign hinges on the idea that jihad has two commonly accepted usages. One is the violent, physical struggle most of us are familiar with. The other, which many Muslims and Islamic scholars consider the more correct definition, refers to the inner struggle to do good and follow Gods teaching; Muslims strive to attain this every day. This is the proper meaning being promoted by My Jihad, a public education campaign recently launched on billboards and on buses in Chicago.
One would think that My Jihad is exactly the kind of moderate Muslim voice that Geller who claims to be so threatened by Muslim extremists would want to promote. But in reality, the extremists on both sides need each other for validation. And were a threat to both, Rehab said
Rehab and his compatriots realize it will be difficult to change the meaning of jihad, but hes hoping the campaign will at least start a conversation about a concept that is critical to the practice of Islam, yet completely misunderstood. The same could be said about Islam more generally in the West. The religion, omnipresent in pop culture and foreign policy debates, is still mysterious to so many Americans and its popular image too often dictated by the extremists, and not its everyday adherents. If nothing else, the fact that Geller feels threatened shows theyre doing something right.
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/09/can_jihad_be_rebranded/
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Can “jihad” be rebranded? (Original Post)
Douglas Carpenter
Jan 2013
OP
patrice
(47,992 posts)1. I think that's a very useful effort, but I can't think of another word that conveys the sense
of it: reality check? self evaluation? examination of conscience? . . . ??
I like Paulo Freire's use of the term "praxis", but, like jihad, that's too specialized.
onehandle
(51,122 posts)2. Possibly, because most people probably have no idea what a jihad is. nt