Step away from the goat, slowly, Ahmed. I'm not some old fairy like you see in the movies...
Posted on 07/12/2006 8:21:35 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
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, Turkey) and four of them in Western Europe with new, minority Muslim populations (France, Germany, Great Britain, 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 9/11 attacks on the United States. The proportions range from a mere 15 percent in Pakistan holding Arabs responsible, to 48 percent among French Muslims. Confirming recent negative trends in Turkey, the number of Turks who point the finger at Arabs has declined from 46 percent in 2002 to 16 percent today. In other words, in every one of these ten Muslim communities, a majority views 9/11 as a hoax perpetrated by the U.S. government, Israel, or some other agency.
Likewise, Muslims are widely prejudiced against Jews, ranging from 28 percent unfavorable ratings among French Muslims to 98 percent in Jordan (which, despite the monarchy’s moderation, has a majority Palestinian 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 percent (in Pakistan) and 43 percent (in Jordan) blame the policies of the U.S. 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 reveals 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 percent (in Turkey) to 72 percent (in Nigeria). Likewise, suicide bombing is popular. Muslims who call it justified range from 13 percent (in Germany) to 69 percent (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 the most alienated: The United Kingdom 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 percent of the British sample view Muslims as violent, significantly less their counterparts in France (41 percent), Germany (52 percent) or Spain (60 percent). 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 9/11, 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 have generally the most belligerent views on such issues as the state of Western-Muslim relations, the supposed immorality and arrogance of Westerners, and support for 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 the U.K., 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.
Mr. Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures (Transaction Publishers).
Step away from the goat, slowly, Ahmed. I'm not some old fairy like you see in the movies...
Thought this looked familiar
I didn't see it, thanks for the re-post Tolerance.
ping
I can't help but say, reading your post allieviated some of my pent up frustration with the Muslum condition, it was witty and true. There is a Muslum owned store across teh street , he overcharges on taxes, and I spotted it, no receipts , and so they can't add either,,,,,,,,,OR do they like making extra money to send to Hamas etc. since he made it a point, as in a warning to me, the next day, that he was from Jerusalem, and not Jordan, an ally of the U.S. Now, I ask myself, why would the owner come up to me as I sat waiting for a bus, if not to indirectly threaten me?? as in, if I report it , well, out comes the knife????? anyway, they can't use a cash register properly either
"it ain't paranoia if they ARE out to get you"
eh?
Arabs drink coffee. Bedouin are (in)famous for it. Turks drink coffee, bigtime. iirc, coffee originated in Yemen, and was a treasure of the caliphates in much the way cotton was for the Indians and silk was for the Chinese.
Islam has many, MANY sins bound within it, but proscription of coffee??? That's one I hadn't heard of.
citation, please?
Thanks for the ping.
Muslims can nuts, period.
This assumes that muslims are capable of thinking, an invalid assumption.
BTW there readyfready did you see this?
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How Muslims Think ^
Posted by kromike
On News/Activism ^ 06/28/2006 9:34:08 AM CDT · 21 replies · 834+ views
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How Muslims Think ^
Posted by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
On News/Activism ^ 07/12/2006 10:21:35 PM CDT · 50 replies · 1,225+ views
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Maybe you should turn in your SAPP badge.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1664780/posts?page=30#30
Did you see post 30?
Yes, for me there is a major unfathomable mystery: why someone would want to convert to that "religion" in the first place? Especially, women. Why would a woman choose to become an anonymous, sub-human who must hide herself from view? I know women suffer more from self-esteem issues than men do, but I still don't get the appeal.
Good one re #30
I think a survey questionaire needs to be developed for posting-nannies, to be posed every time one of them demonstrates their fancied superiority by complaining when an article is revisited for the benefit of those who missed it the first time around. Of course they would likely not fill it out (at least not honestly), knowing that doing so would highlight some of their quirky psychological qualities that led them to the posting-nanny klub in the first place. This particular one successfully demonstrated that he has discovered a bit of military lexicon as well as how to namecall with a "superior" flair, LOL.
I can't figure out why they just don't skip over it and ignore it. That's what I do when I see reruns. I don't live on FR 24/7, if I did, I wouldn't miss anything; but I don't, so I do. Besides, sometimes the comments are better on one thread than the other. Some people need to loosen up.
This is why every muslim needs to have it's journey to the 72 virgins accelerated.
"but I don't, so I do."
the above words (not in your context, tho) are tantalizing as one of the multiple-choice answers for the questionaire, LOL
"This extremism results, no doubt, from the violent state of Christian-Muslim relations in Nigeria."
Brought on, of course, and as ALWAYS in the modern world, by Islam's determination to Islamicize animists and Christians, stone women, multiate non-believers and blow up churches and non-Islamic plcaes of worship.
A more interesting poll would have been one conducted in a country refreshing free of Muslims as to the opinions of the people therein. My guess is 100% of people with no exposure to the real face of Islam whould not view Muslims as a violent belief system, in contrast with people like the Christian Nigerians and Copts who have to face these luantics every day.
Ther can be NO coexistence between Islam on the one hand and Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Animism, or any other belief system.
Islam is at war with the rest of the world, per the Prophete's directive of 1400 years or so ago. The sooner the ostriches in the western world realize it and respond appropriately by justing saying no to Mosques, madrassehs, and Isalmic immigrants or converts the better off we all will be.
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