Words into Plowshares

No one who is politically active would ever maintain that words are completely innocent. In U.S. politics, the question in the wake of the assassination attempt on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is how guilty they might be.

The debate is about whether the verbal radicalization of political debate might have played a part in the act of a possibly mentally disturbed individual. Regardless of the shooter’s motivation, the debate is urgently needed. Political radicalization has reached such proportions in the United States as to be unworthy of a constitutional democracy.

Above all, tea party supporters have elevated the militant rhetoric far above the norm. By the end of midterm election campaigning, they were depicting their political opponents in the crosshairs of rifle sights and employing double entendre language, calling upon their members to open fire on them, reload and eliminate them. It says volumes that tea party leaders, like former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, hastened to remove such clumsy metaphors from their websites.

But the Democrats would also be making a mistake to respond with equally clumsy accusations of guilt. That would only further poison the atmosphere and drive the tea partiers further into Palin’s corner.

The exact opposite is true. Words did not cause the attack, but the assassination attempt is reason for people to consider their words before they’re said. In the world of power politics, phrases can be as sharp as swords. They’re capable of breaking off relations and silencing one’s opponents. They divide our society.

Whoever claims that President Barack Obama is a Muslim bent on waging war on his own people, as a conservative radio commentator recently did, only makes dialog between political opponents impossible. Such language only permanently undercuts the foundations of democracy. That’s why a radical verbal disarmament is now necessary.

And instead of shaking their heads about what goes on in the United States, Europeans also need to reconsider the escalation of their own war of words. Right-wing populists in Europe are in the process of demonizing Islam as the latest enemy. Their words aren’t completely innocent either.