Do Words Cause Wars?

Anti-Muslim speech has been curtailed in the U.S. since 9/11 so far as official channels go. Popular sentiment and right-wing radio are another matter. The Bush administration has been chastised for using terms like "war on terror" and "clash of civilizations" as code for an attack on Islam itself. The Obama administration has tried to erase those phrases. But words don't cause wars, not directly. They reflect the consciousness of the speaker, which is a much more potent cause of conflict. By his relative silence, Feisal Abdul Rauf is following his long-avowed policy of not getting his hands dirtied with nasty politics. Yet many moderate Muslims have tried this tactic, only to find that they are leaving a vacuum that is quickly filled by extremist voices.

Like attracts like, and in the Muslim world the most powerful magnets are extreme. You are known by the company you keep -- so the adage goes -- but also by the words you share. When Sarah Palin tweets about stopping the "mosque at Ground Zero," she knows who will take the bait. Most obviously, it will be her base, but she is also rousing the opposition, people who know that there is no mosque being planned and that the location of Rauf's Islamic center isn't at Ground Zero. Palin knows this too, but demagogues don't bother with fact-checking. They want the war of words to continue. Their aberrations are deliberate and crude, mirroring the attitudes of xenophobia and intolerance that are part of their consciousness.

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