The case for Daesh
Sir: For once the admirable Rod Liddle has got it completely wrong (‘You can’t take the Islam out of Islamic State’, 4 July). We absolutely shouldn’t call the homoerotic, narcissistic death cult ‘Islamic State’ — not because it offends ordinary Muslims, nor because it has nothing to do with Islam (it has everything to do with Islam) but because it legitimises and validates the preposterous project. The media has a responsibility not to run terrorist propaganda unchallenged. Politicians, including the Prime Minister, are starting to wise up to this and should be applauded for doing so. We are in an information war with our enemies. Let us take our lead from the Arabs, who understand the Middle East rather better than we do, and call them Daesh — precisely because the terrorists don’t want to be called by this pejorative word. We don’t need to be doing the terrorists’ work for them.
Justin Marozzi
London NW3
Spotting a shibboleth
Sir: In his lament on the cultural effects of the recent heatwave, Charles Moore decries the ‘grim word vibrant’ (Notes, 4 July). I’ve noticed that left-wing friends use the same word entirely positively.
In view of the recent failings of opinion polling, could reactions to this word be used as an alternative way of measuring political opinion and voting intention?
Dr James Hinksman
Canterbury, Kent
Greece’s union problem
Sir: Interestingly, amid all the comment leading up to the Greek ‘No’ we heard a lot about large public-sector pensions, tax avoidance and so on in the condition of Greece, but nothing about the effect of the Greek trade unions on the Greek economy with their regular ferry, bus and rail strikes; and their protest strikes against selling off loss-making state-owned enterprises.
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