Awful business, and PIP to all concerned, natch. But I have a genuine question. I know I could Google this shit , but GetBig will give me the real answer
When a Muslim commits an act of terrorism, it is not called 'Islamic' but rather 'Islamist' Hence (theoretically) disconnecting the act from the religion, no..?
So what I genuinely do not know is that if a Christian person does something similar, how is it framed in terms of language..? 'Christianist'..? (Never heard that term but what do I know)
Sorry if the answer is obvious
Yeah, as you noted, the terminology used is often carefully chosen for political reasons (although there's often academic distinctions people argue over, too). Tactically, governments will want to avoid lending credence to terrorist acts committed in the name of a religion. By making distinctions between, say, 'Islam' and 'Islamism', the hope is to undermine the efforts of those appealing to their wider religious bases and lessen the opportunities to recruit others.
I suppose if Christianity still had the same power that it once had in Europe, and we had enough Christians running around carrying out religiously-motivated acts of terrorism, then the need for similar distinctions would emerge and we'd have 'Christianists' and other terms being banded around (I've not heard it used, either). You won't find 'Muslim terrorist' in mainstream terminology, though 'Christian terrorist' pops up fairly often. I suspect it's for the aforementioned reasons of tactics, magnitude of the threat, and a little bit of fear thrown in, too.
