I am really impressed by the protests staged in Tunisia and Egypt. Writing these lines in a predominantly islamic country (Malaysia), it offers the chance to re-adjust some conceptions about the Arabic world gained from German, English or American media, especially the idea that any islamic orientation in a political movement means fundamentalism. Well, you would not call the Zentrum of the Kaiserreich/Weimar or the CDU of the 1950s/60s Christian fundamentalists, would you?
The most interesting phenomenon in this context is the word "islamistisch" [islamitic], suggesting some form of headscarf+kalashnikov orientation. This word is omnipresent in German media when applying to diverse movements such as the Turkish AKP (which has effectively done more for Christians than the secular governments that preceded it), the Egyptian Muslim Brothers (which were even praised by the UN for their opposition work in the Egyptian Parliament), etc.
Why not the correct "islamisch orientiert"?
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