What’s in a name?

BY JAN BENVIE

I think words are important. Maybe it’s because of my background as a teacher. Or maybe it’s because for the past year and a half I have been working with children who experience communication difficulties, children who can’t find the words to express themselves.

The words and names we use for people and objects often have deeper meanings. This is something I have become more aware of over the past few weeks. Coming to a foreign land can involve more than learning a new language, sometimes it also involves changing some of your existing language.

For example, where am I living at present? Am I in Iraqi Kurdistan, the Kurdish area of Iraq, or Southern Kurdistan (Northern, western and eastern Kurdistan being the Kurdish areas of Turkey, Syria and Iran respectively)? Should one call the people Kurds, Kurdish Iraqis or Iraqi Kurds? People can be offended if you use the “wrong” term, even although there does not appear to be a “right” term. The answer lies in your perception of the situation here in Iraq—or should that be Kurdistan?

I have also been thinking about the names that are used in television and radio news and in newspapers to describe individuals and groups. It doesn’t always sound like a description, it is simply a name, but the name used often expresses an opinion.

The Middle East has been a top news story over the past two months. Israeli soldiers had been “kidnapped or seized” by Hezbollah and Hamas. The Israeli Defense Force “arrest and hold” prisoners.

I wonder how many people have noticed that countries have defense forces, never offense forces! Those [forces] denied statehood, like the Kurds, Palestinians or the black South Africans, are considered terrorists. I wonder if Nelson Mandela, during his long years of imprisonment for terrorism, dreamed he would one day be feted by world leaders?

Governments, eager to shape public opinion (generally) choose their words carefully. No more so than when naming military operations.
The invasion of Panama in 1989 was called “Just Cause,” Afghanistan was “Enduring Freedom,” and Iraq “Iraqi Freedom.” The recent Israeli invasion of Lebanon was called “Operation Just Reward,” and its military action in Gaza is called “Operation Summer Rain.”

This question of names is not limited to the political arena. A few weeks ago we met an Iraqi Christian leader who told us that we were not “loyal Christians” because we told him we did not agree with his anti-Muslim statements (said in front of our Muslim translator). It has from time to time been suggested, as it was again this week, that we change our name, omitting the word “Christian” because it would “put people off.”
What, indeed, is in a name?

Jan Benvie is a Christian Peacemaker Team member. The group is an ecumenical violence-reduction program with roots in the historic peace churches. CPT has been present in Iraq since October 2002.