New Orleans "insurgency"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Why Army journalists have chosen the word "insurgents" is a puzzle to me. Maybe they were trying to avoid the more appropriate "thugs," "hoodlums," "criminals," "hooligans," etc. Maybe somebody decided that these words could be read as inflammatory, since all such words were habitually used by Nazi and Communist propagandists to refer to real and fully justified insurgents. Just guessing here, but the Army may be trying to ward off accusations of having a "fascist" mindset.  Of course, they could still use phrases like "gunmen," "armed gangs," and so on.

Or they may simply believe that any armed population, that they may have to exchange fire with including obvious thugs, is properly referred to as an "insurgency."

JL


Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU> wrote:---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Benjamin Zimmer
Subject: Re: New Orleans "insurgency"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Benjamin Zimmer wrote:

>If you thought "refugee" was a loaded word... how about "insurgency"?
>
>-----
>http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1077495.php
>Army Times, Sep 2, 2005
>Troops begin combat operations in New Orleans
>[...]
>While some fight the insurgency in the city, other carry on with rescue
>and evacuation operations. Helicopters are still pulling hundreds of
>stranded people from rooftops of flooded homes.
>-----
>
>A Google News search also finds references to "insurgents", e.g.:
>
>-----
>http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/stories/20050903/localnews/11863.shtml
>Gainesville Times, Sep 3, 2005
>Local physician headed to New Orleans
>Col. Philip Marler served four months in Iraq last year as a member of
>the U.S. Army National Guard.
>Now, the Gainesville physician is heading to New Orleans to help his
>hometown recover from the ravages of Hurricane Katrina.
>[...]
>The parallels to Iraq are unsettling, Marler said. "In the Army, they're
>not referring to these people as looters," he said. "They're calling
>them insurgents."
>-----
>
>Further discussion of the Army Times article here:
>http://www.boingboing.net/2005/09/03/alcajun_army_times_c.html

Jonathan Lighter wrote:

>Many of us word cranks see this "error" as more politically correct. A
>"thug" is violent for the hell of it, but an "insurgent" has a social or
>political motivation.
>
>It would be very very condescending to make the assumption, prevalent in
>our sick society, that people who rape, shoot, and pillage cannot be
>motivated by lofty, albeit sometimes differing, ideals.
>
>The military has at last recognized this simple fact.

Cutting through the sarcasm here... As with "refugee"/"evacuee"/"displaced
person"/"survivor", there may be multiple motivations for word choice
here. One possible justification for the use of "insurgency" or
"insurgents" in the New Orleans context is based on the idea that the
looters are somehow politically motivated, rebelling against an uncaring
government. (I'm reminded of the L.A. riot of '92, which some thought
should have been called a "rebellion".) That's a pretty radical
justification, as in the usage below:

------
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20050903210425516
Provide solidarity with 'insurgents' in N.O. It is a very real possibility
that the next week will see the federal government engaged in a guerilla
conflict with citizens intent on defending their city. Solidarity could
means vocal support, material support, and/or attack on our own terrain to
spread the insurgency and weaken the forces of order. Any revolt, no
matter how wonderful, will suffocate if it's not spread. Their fight is
our fight- refuse to be divided from and condemned by potential comrades.
------

But the military usage is clearly not a radical or revolutionary one.
Rather, there's been a mapping of the situation in Iraq onto the situation
in New Orleans. It's this sort of homology that Xeni Jardin was
complaining about on boingboing.net:

------
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/09/03/alcajun_army_times_c.html
We often hear the term used by military leaders or politicians to refer to
armed entities in Iraq and other war zones overseas.
We are talking about fellow American citizens here -- in America.
Not insurgents. Not refugees. Not enemies. Americans.
------

So, as with "refugee", the concern is with what po-mo types would call
linguistic "othering".


--Ben Zimmer



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