Status: 01/10/2023 09:30 a.m
In the course of the protest actions by climate activists, the term “climate terrorists” was used, among other things. Linguists have now chosen the term as the nonsense of the year 2022. The activists would thus be “criminalized and defamed”.
The term “climate terrorists” was chosen as the word of the year 2022. This was announced by the language-critical “unword” campaign in Marburg. The expression was used in public discourse to discredit activists and their protests for more climate protection, the jury justified their choice.
Term shifts the focus of the debate
She criticized the use of the term because activists are “equated with terrorists and are thereby criminalized and defamed”. The jury complained that non-violent forms of protest, civil disobedience and democratic resistance were placed in the context of violence and hostility to the state. In addition, the term “shifts the focus of the debate from the legitimate substantive demands of the group to dealing with protesters”.
This time, the jury of the “Language Critical Action” received more than 1,400 suggestions, which interested parties could submit by the end of December last year. According to a jury spokeswoman, terms such as “special operation”, “special assets” or “free mentality” were also included.
Bad word 2021 was “pushback”
Since 1991, in the opinion of the jury, inhuman or inappropriate terms have been selected for the campaign that violate the principle of human dignity, embellish something negative in a misleading way or discriminate.
Last year, the term “pushback” was chosen as the word of the year. This glossed over a misanthropic process of pushing back refugees at the borders, explained the linguistic committee as justification. In 2020, two terms were chosen as non-words of the year for the first time: “Corona dictatorship” and “repatriation sponsorships”.