READ JANUS
  • Venture Advice
    • Fundraising
    • Reviews
    • Experience
    • Contact
  • Books
    • Growth Company Guide >
      • The Back Story
    • Ancient Selfies >
      • Sample the Coins
      • Show Me the Money!
    • Passports in his Underpants >
      • 5-Star Review
    • Book Store
  • TrekPic
  • Venture Moola

venture moola

the photo blog about travel, history, and business

Wolves and the language of terror

6/28/2016

 
Picture
CAN WE STOP CALLING THEM LONE WOLVES?

If you enter the phrase “lone wolf attack” in your Internet browser you will  find page after page of links to articles about terrorists who act alone but are inspired by foreign terrorist organizations. The headlines for the top three in my browser state “Orlando Shooting: Lone-Wolf Attack Illustrates Islamic State’s Far Reach,” “Hillary Clinton Declares Stopping ‘Lone Wolf’ Attackers is National Priority,” and “Orlando Attack: ‘I am the lone wolf that terrorizes the infidels.”

Wikipedia even has a definition. A lone wolf is “is someone who commits violent acts in support of some group, movement, or ideology, but who does so alone, outside of any command structure and without material assistance from any group.” It goes on to say that “the lone wolf prepares and acts alone. . . [and] may be influenced or motivated by the ideology and beliefs of an external group.”

The phrase has become ingrained into our lexicon. It is used by law enforcement when they name groups to track and target these solo slaughterers.  It is used by media and political candidates.

You may think it’s no big deal. It’s only a phrase after all. But language matters. Language is what people use to communicate. It’s what authors toil over to reach just the right phrase to convey meaning and emotion. And we all know from experience that the right phrase can provoke action or defuse a situation.

And, phrases like 'lone wolf' are what terror groups use to recruit and what their recruits use to justify their deadly attacks on innocent people. According to the Christian Science Monitor (the last article identified above) “IS supporters were quick to promote the Orlando attack on social media, posting a flurry of images of wolves with the hashtag #OrlandoExplosion in Arabic, promising further IS-inspired terror.”

A wolf is certainly a predator. But the similarity to people who kill and justify their unjustifiable behavior with religion ends there. A wolf is a beautiful wild animal, created by God or genetics or both depending on your world view, that kills only to feed itself and its group. Wolves don’t slaughter just to slaughter. And, of course, they don’t use bombs or machine guns to accomplish their ends.

You might be interested to know where the phrase comes from. I was surprised to learn that the phrase is attributed to white supremacists from the 1990s. Leaders of the White Aryan Resistance, which the Southern Poverty Law Center designated as a hate group, advocated underground activity with individuals they called “lone wolves” who were charged with attacking government and other targets in anonymous acts. The term was picked up by the media and law enforcement and spread through our language.

So what we have done as a society is let the agents of terror define our terminology. And, not surprisingly, they are using it to their advantage. Using the romantic image of the majestic wolf, ISIS and other terror organizations are posting pictures of wolves on the Internet to recruit cold blooded killers.

Which begs the question: Why can’t we use a different and more descriptive phrase to describe these anti-social killers? When extremists started strapping bombs to recruits we called them suicide bombers. The expression is simple and accurate. And it doesn’t paint a romantic image of the perpetrator or his associates.

Why can’t we stop using the phrase ‘lone wolves’ and call these killers what they really are? We may not be able to stop terrorists from using the phrase but do we have to use it ourselves?

Public domain image of a  stone age cave painting of a wolf from Font-de-Gaume, France. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
The venture moola blog comes to you from Atlanta, Georgia. Find it at readjanus.com. Copyright Clinton Richardson.

Comments are closed.

    Subscribe to Venture Moola!

    Order: Ancient Selfies
    Growth Company Guide 5.0

    the blog

    Travel, business and history with original photos.

    your host

    Clinton Richardson - author, photographer, business advisor and traveler.

    Categories

    All
    African Safari
    Alaska
    American West
    Ancient Coins
    Blue Ridge Trail
    Entrepreneurship
    Life's Moments
    Lincoln Log
    Photography
    Photo Safaris
    Sky Above
    Venture Capital
    Where In The World?
    Wildlife

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    September 2022
    March 2022
    June 2021
    October 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    June 2017
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016

    Enter your email address to subscribe to venture moola:

    Follow us on Facebook

Check out Ancient Selfies: History Revealed Through the World's First Social Media - Ancient Coins
a 2017 International Book Awards Finalist in History and 2018 eLit Awards Gold Medal Winner and
Passports in his Underpants - A Planet Friendly Photo Safari a 2020 Readers' Favorite Winner in Nonfiction
Site Copyright 2022 by Clinton Richardson

  • Venture Advice
    • Fundraising
    • Reviews
    • Experience
    • Contact
  • Books
    • Growth Company Guide >
      • The Back Story
    • Ancient Selfies >
      • Sample the Coins
      • Show Me the Money!
    • Passports in his Underpants >
      • 5-Star Review
    • Book Store
  • TrekPic
  • Venture Moola