Survey of World's Muslims Yields Dismaying Results
by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun
June 27, 2006
How do Muslims worldwide think?
To find out, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press carried out a large-scale attitudinal survey this spring. Titled The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims View Each Other, it interviewed Muslims in two batches of countries: six of them with long-standing, majority-Muslim populations (Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Turkey) and four of them in Western Europe with new, minority Muslim populations (France, Germany, Britain, and Spain).
The survey, which also looks at Western views of Muslims, yielded some dismaying but not altogether surprising results. Its themes can be grouped under three rubrics.
A proclivity to conspiracy theories: In not one Muslim population polled does a majority believe that Arabs carried out the attacks of September 11, 2001, on America. The proportions range from a mere 15% in Pakistan holding Arabs responsible, to 48% among French Muslims. Confirming recent negative trends in Turkey, the number of Turks who point the finger at Arabs has declined to 16% today from 46% in 2002. In other words, in every one of these 10 Muslim communities, a majority views September 11 as a hoax perpetrated by the American government, Israel, or some other agency.
Likewise, Muslims are widely prejudiced against Jews, ranging from 28% unfavorable ratings among French Muslims to 98% in Jordan (which, despite the monarchy's moderation, has a majority Palestinian Arab population). Further, Muslims in certain countries (especially Egypt and Jordan) see Jews conspiratorially, as being responsible for bad relations between Muslims and Westerners.
Conspiracy theories also pertain to larger topics. Asked, "What is most responsible for Muslim nations' lack of prosperity?" between 14% (in Pakistan) and 43% (in Jordan) blame the policies of America and other Western states, as opposed to indigenous problems, such as a lack of democracy or education, or the presence of corruption or radical Islam.
This conspiracism points to a widespread unwillingness in the umma to deal with realities, preferring the safer bromides of plots, schemes, and intrigues. It also exposes major problems adjusting to modernity.
Support for terrorism: All the Muslim populations polled display a solid majority of support for Osama bin Laden. Asked whether they have confidence in him, Muslims replied positively, ranging between 8% (in Turkey) and 72% (in Nigeria). Likewise, suicide bombing is popular. Muslims who call it justified range from 13% (in Germany) to 69% (in Nigeria). These appalling numbers suggest that terrorism by Muslims has deep roots and will remain a danger for years to come.
British and Nigerian Muslims are most alienated: Britain stands out as a paradoxical country. Non-Muslims there have strikingly more favorable views of Islam and Muslims than elsewhere in the West; for example, only 32% of the British sample view Muslims as violent, significantly less than their counterparts in France (41%), Germany (52%), or Spain (60%). In the Muhammad cartoon dispute, Britons showed more sympathy for the Muslim outlook than did other Europeans. More broadly, Britons blame Muslims less for the poor state of Western-Muslim relations.
But British Muslims return the favor with the most malign anti-Western attitudes found in Europe. Many more of them regard Westerners as violent, greedy, immoral, and arrogant than do their counterparts in France, Germany, and Spain. In addition, whether asked about their attitudes toward Jews, responsibility for September 11, or the place of women in Western societies, their views are notably more extreme.
The situation in Britain reflects the "Londonistan" phenomenon, whereby Britons preemptively cringe and Muslims respond to this weakness with aggression.
Nigerian Muslims generally have the most belligerent views on such issues as the state of Western-Muslim relations, the supposed immorality and arrogance of Westerners, and support for Mr. bin Laden and suicide terrorism. This extremism results, no doubt, from the violent state of Christian-Muslim relations in Nigeria.
Ironically, most Muslim alienation is found in those countries where Muslims are either the most or the least accommodated, suggesting that a middle path is best - where Muslims do not win special privileges, as in Britain, nor are they in an advanced state of hostility, as in Nigeria.
Overall, the Pew survey sends an undeniable message of crisis from one end to the other of the Muslim world
9 comments:
Putting the fun into fundamentalism!
Here's an interesting article, arguing that it's a mistake to expect 'moderates' to police their own communities. Fundamentalists (so the argument goes) revel in splitting from their co-religionists.
Violent Islamic radicals know they are heretical
Extremists are proud of their deviance, and moderate Muslims can't be held responsible
Karen Armstrong
A few years ago at a conference in the US, a Christian fundamentalist erupted into the hall and launched a vitriolic attack on me and my fellow panellists. His words were tumbling over one another incoherently, but the note of pain was clear. We had obviously assaulted him at some profound level. For three days my colleagues and I had discussed complex and radical issues in theology, not once at a loss for words; but stunned by the impact of this attack, we could find nothing to say. Dumbfounded, we gazed bleakly at our assailant across an abyss of incomprehension, until he was hustled out.
This type of incident is now common. Increasingly, people find it difficult to communicate with their co-religionists. The divide is as great as that between religious and secular people. Many of the faithful feel threatened by those who interpret their tradition differently; it seems their sacred values are in jeopardy. An apparently impassable gulf yawns between liberal and fundamentalist Christians, reform and orthodox Jews, traditional and extremist Muslims. Because of our preoccupation with the so-called clash of civilisations, this internal tension is often overlooked.
Read on.
And here is a letter from the times making the (important) point that the government often confuses culture with religion (and vice versa).
The letter writer describes the reaction of his Singaporean-Muslim fiance to the view of Islam in the UK:
She makes the point that we in the West, in our desire to protect minority rights, make assumptions that confuse religion with culture and vice versa. For her, coming from what is a first world, cosmopolitan city-state, her faith is not incompatible with democracy, the rule of law, equality for women or much of so-called Western values.
She believes that the frictions that exist within the Muslim communities of Britain are more expressions of local cultural traditions in the largely rural, conservative areas of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, whence the majority of British Muslims originate. For example, as a woman she can take no part in prayers at the local mosque in Leeds, whereas she can do so back in her native Singapore. She finds this at the same time annoying, strange and quaint.
Full letter here.
Mmm, mixed feelings about the Armstrong article. I think she's right to say the hard-core Islamists have nothing but contempt for the 'moderates', but she fails to provide an alternative strategy for dealing with them. And on whom are we supposed to put the pressure to stop more of the unpersuaded drifting into the extremist camp if not the 'moderates'?
Also one of the replies to her article deserves quoting:
dontbugme
July 8, 2006 02:50 AM
Having read most of Ms. Armstrong's work, I am surprised by the lack of logic exhibited in this article. The statement that "the chief problem for most Muslims is not "the west" per se, but the suffering of Muslims in Guant‡namo, Abu Ghraib, Iraq and Palestine" makes no sense. The Islamic terrorist attacks have been carried out for decades e.g. at Olympic Games in Germany, on US embasseys, two attacks on the World Trade Center, occurred years even decades before Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, or Iraq. So am I to assume that if US forces withdrew from Iraq immediately and Guantanamo was closed and the UN once more poured tens of billions of dollars in food, clothing, medicine, etc into Palestine unconditionally, that everything would be just rosy? The "chief problems"would go away. I can't believe that rational, objective person could possibly believe this.
Best quote from the Khan piece:
This was recently drummed home by an Afghan taxi-driver who told me that he could not understand the actions of the young Muslim men who demonstrated against the cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed and carried placards that clearly said, ‘Kill all those who insult Islam.’ He told me, ‘These kids have never lived in a war zone, they have never been in a country where you are persecuted for your religion and have no rights at all, where there is no support from the government to help you get food, education and healthcare, and where religious tolerance and democracy do not exist. I’ve managed to come to this country and I feel like I am the luckiest man in the world. I thank God every day for bringing me to this country. I wish I could send some of these young men to Afghanistan and get them to live in my village for a year and see if they would still feel the same way.’
If you happened to live as an integral member of a close-knit British faith community, large parts of whom were ambivalent or outright hostile to the host country, some members of which are engaged in an ideological and increasingly violent campaign against their fellow citizens, corrupting your own children in their poisonous death cult while you either stood by and did nothing, passively cooperated, quietly agreed with their aims if not their methods or stuck your head in the sand pretending nothing was going on, then yes, some pressure on you to wise up and take action might well yield results.
However none of this remotely applies to either you or the KKK, so I would be against such pressure being applied in your case.
Wembley, I'm afraid don't get your point either.
Moderate and Radical Islam are connected by a shared religious text – the Qu’ran. Both the moderate and Radical sides are currently involved in a struggle to persuade other Muslims that their interpretation of the Qu'ran is valid. In a way, that’s what Saira is attempting in her article, to make the case for the moderate side of the Muslim faith.
Personally, I appreciate JP’s mixed feelings here because if you believe Moderate Islam has little influence over Radical Islam then the Government’s strategy to help Moderate Muslims win the battle of ideas will fail.
No doubt some will reject the analogy, but for those who don't, the following just occurred to me:
You are in the 1930's and fear the rise of radical Germanism, yet doubt the ability of moderate Germanists to make their voices heard and persuade hearts and minds. What other policy options are open to you?
Not a leading question, just musing...
What British Muslims Think
by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun
July 11, 2006
The London transport bombings of July 2005 prompted no less than eight surveys of Muslim opinion in the United Kingdom within the year. When added to two surveys from 2004, they provide in the aggregate a unique insight into the thinking of the nearly 2 million Muslims in "Londonistan." The hostile mentality they portray is especially alarming when one recalls that London's police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, recently said that the threat of terrorism "is very grim" because there are, "as we speak, people in the United Kingdom planning further atrocities."
The July 7 attacks: About one in 20 British Muslims has voiced overt sympathy for the bombings a year ago. Separate polls find that between 2% and 6% endorse the attacks, 4% refuse to condemn them, 5% believe the Koran justifies them, and 6% say the suicide bombers were acting in accord with the principles of Islam.
Without endorsing the attacks, far larger numbers show an understanding for them: Thirteen percent say the July 7 suicide bombers should be regarded as "martyrs," 16% say the attacks were wrong but the cause was right, while 20% feel sympathy for the "feelings and motives" of the attackers. A whopping 56% can see "why some people behave in that way."
Help the police? A worrisome number of Muslims would not help the police if they suspected a fellow Muslim was planning a terrorist attack, ranging in different surveys from 5% to 14% to 18%.
Violence acceptable? Before 7/7, 11% found it acceptable "for religious or political groups to use violence for political ends" but only 4% thought so after the attacks, showing a rare improvement. Two polls turned up the identical figure of 7% of Muslims endorsing suicide attacks on civilians in Britain. (Among 18- to 24-year-olds, those most likely to carry out such an attack, the number jumps to 12%.) How about suicide attacks on the military in Britain? Positive answers came in at 16% and 21% (with 28% of 18- to 24-year-olds). Are the respondents themselves willing to embrace violence to bring an end to "decadent and immoral" Western society? One percent, or some 16,000 persons, answered in the affirmative.
Muslim or British: Polling indicates that a majority of Muslims perceive a conflict between their British and Muslim identities. Two polls show that only a small proportion identifies itself first as a British (7% and 12%), but they differ widely on the number who identify first with their religion (81% and 46%).
Implementing Islamic law: Muslims widely state that Shariah should reign in Britain. Forty percent approve of Shariah being applied in predominantly Muslim areas, and 61% want Shariah courts to settle civil cases among Muslims. All of 58% want those who criticize or insult Islam to face criminal prosecution. Schools should be prohibited from banning female pupils from wearing the hijab, say 55%, while 88% insist that schools and work places should accommodate Muslim prayer times.
Integration into Britain: In a nearly mirror-image of each other, 65% say Muslims need to do more to integrate into mainstream British culture, and 36% say modern British values threaten the Islamic way of life. Twenty-seven percent feel conflicted between loyalty to fellow Muslims and to Britain. Of those who despise Western civilization and think Muslims "should seek to bring it to an end," 32% endorse nonviolent means and 7% violent means.
Attitudes toward Jews: Polls confirm that the antisemitism widespread in the Muslim world also rears its head in Britain. About half the Muslims polled believe that Jews in Britain have too much influence over Britain's foreign policy and are in league with the Freemasons to control its press and politics. Some 37% consider Jews in Britain "legitimate targets as part of the ongoing struggle for justice in the Middle East," and 16% state that suicide bombings can be justified in Israel. (Among 18- to 24-year-olds, that number rises to 21%.)
In sum, more than half of British Muslims want Islamic law and 5% endorse violence to achieve that end. These results demonstrate that Britain's potential terrorists live in a highly nurturing community.
Excellent article from the Jerusalem Post SL. What's really interesting is how an army of Bloggers are exposing the inaccuracy, stage management or sometimes downright lies of the mainstream media. (Incidently, the Reuters photographer was dismissed following the controversy.)
I posted before on how a couple of blogs where questioning the veracity of some photos featuring a guy in a Green Helmet. It looks like that same guy has also turned up in footage taken ten years ago in Qana when it was bombed then.
Samizdata has the story.
Love that memri article SL dug up, always good to see Muslim conspiracy theories being turned inwards for a change. Next time you find yourself in a political argument at the Socialist Worker stall you could use a lot of this as ammunition ("you see? Even the Saudis think the Iranians arranged it all"). Fun for all the family...
Post a Comment