In the New Order era, we were spoon-fed by the regime into believing that there were no such words as ditangkap (being arrested), kenaikan harga (prices have soared), penjara (prison) and so on.

Instead they used the words like diamankan (being guarded) and penyesuaian harga (prices are adjusted) and lembaga pemasyarakatan to say the same thing. In the United States it is a bit difficult to find small eggs, but one can easily find “medium, large, extra large, and jumbo”.

For the last few years, we have been bombarded with deliberately misused terms such as “fundamentalist” or “fundamentalism”. When those two words are combined with the word Islam, then the meaning becomes extremely negative. Islamic fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalist are two words that are used to stigmatize others.

As a language teacher, I was interested to look up the definition of the word “fundamentalism” in a well-known dictionary.

According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the definition is: “a movement or point of view characterized by rigid adherence to fundamental or basic principles”.

The word “a fundamentalist” is the adjective to refer to a person who follows and adheres to the fundamentals of the doctrine or theory he is following. For a person to be a good English teacher, one should follow and practice the fundamentals of English teaching methods.

To become a good psychologist, one should be a fundamentalist in the field of psychology. So, to become a good Muslim, one should be a Muslim fundamentalist.

One cannot make a generalization about fundamentalists. Is a fundamentalist good or bad?

There is no single answer to the question.

A fundamentalist corruptor causes harm to society and is therefore undesirable. On the other hand, a fundamentalist teacher benefits society and therefore must be well respected.

The Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus (1996:994) defines “fundamentalism” as: strict maintenance of traditional Protestant beliefs such as the inerrancy of Scripture and literal acceptance of the creeds as fundamentals of Christianity”.

Thus, fundamentalism was originally used for a group of Christians who believed that the Bible was the word of God without any errors.

From the definitions given by the two authoritative dictionaries above, we can conclude that it is naïve to relate a fundamentalist with terrorism. The terms are inherently very different.

Everybody, whatever his/her religion is, should be a fundamentalist, without being a terrorist.

When a person terrorizes they must be called a terrorist whatever their religion. The action itself has nothing to do with a certain religion. So, there is no Muslim terrorist, Christian terrorist or Buddhist terrorist.

Terrorism spreads fear and destruction, while fundamentalism spreads love and peace.

A fundamentalist Muslim, Christian, Buddhist or other religions will not spread fear and terror

as they know and practice the fundamental teachings of their religions. And I believe that no religions teach hatred and violence to their adherents. My concern as a language teacher is to restore the words to their original meaning. The words “ fundamentalist” and “ fundamentalism” are neutral words so let us use them neutrally and without any fear.

The writer is a teacher in Yogyakarta. He graduated from the Yokohama National University Graduate School of Education and the Ming Chuan University Graduate School of Applied English, the Republic of China.

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