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).
I'd read about many Muslim leaders who preach the preach, but they themselves indulge -- booze, sex, and other nasty non-muslim world habits.
How true is this, I wonder.
Everyone is an infidel except me and thee, and I'm having doubts about thee.
I find this hard to believe. If the Palestinians, say, had really believed that 9/11 was a Jewish or Western plot, they would not have rejoiced when it succeeded.
From that source:
To the Muslims, eating is a matter of faith for those who follow the dietary laws called Halal, a term for all permitted foods. Those foods that are prohibited, such as pork and birds of prey, are known as Haram, while the foods that are questionable for consumption are known as Mashbooh. Muslims eat to preserve their good health, and overindulgence or the use of stimulants such as tea, coffee, or alcohol are discouraged. Fasting is practiced regularly on Mondays and Thursdays, and more often for six days during Shawwal (the tenth month of the Islamic year) and for the entire month of Ramadan (the ninth month). Fasting on these occasions includes abstention from all food and drink from sunrise to sunset.
My impression was that Arab society was progressing quite nicely until Islam came along. Where am I wrong?
You're welcome. If I had bothered to do a search like I usually do, I would have just pinged a bunch of people to the other thread, and you wouldn't have seen this. Perhaps I will never use search again. :-)
You're welcome.
But I didn't post it knowing about the first one. I just forgot to do a search. Help!
they were (and remain) buried up to their eyebrows in tribalism, blood-feud, folly, and indiscipline.
Under the hellenistic and, later, Romans, some civilizing took place in the levant. The Mede did likewise in their territories. The Ethiopians had some limited effect in the Hadraumat.
However, none penetrated into the interior of the Arabian peninsula, and none really crushed the tribalism endemic to primitive peoples.
The man I blame more than any other for the rise of Islam is Justinian "the Great" - his lunatic reconquest of the western empire bankrupted the East, creating a power vaccum. The plagues which followed (probably due to a volcanic-induced cold snap) didn't help. Additionally, in order to gain the support of the orthodox, alexandrine, and roman churches, he deliberately persecuted the monophysite christians of Syria, the levant, Egypt, and coastal Arabia. This drove these peoples from the church, and primed them for conversion to an indigenous creed which appealed to the austerity they had already developed.
All of this is Justinian's fault.
Had he abandoned the West, come to some form of agreement with Khosroes of Persia, and embraced the real strength of his empire (the "heretic" peasantry of the levant), Rome wcould have endured (flourished) to this day, and there certainly would be no Islam.
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.
One day perhaps the Brits will realize the Muzzies are not worth their friendship. Not worth it by a wide margin.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.