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June 22, 2006

Islam: Poll Finds Most British Muslims Hate The West

A survey by the Washington based Pew Global Attitudes Project, described in the Guardian, Knight Ridder in Pioneer Press and the Fort Louis Dispatch has found that globally, countries are more opposed to America than ever. In Britain, for example in 2000, 83% held a favourable view of the States, but that has sunk now to 56%.

But in Britain, as noticed by the Guardian, whereas most Britains held a favourable view of Muslims (63%), the Muslims living in Britain were the most hostile to Western attitudes of any country in Europe. The Guardian states:

A significant majority viewed western populations as selfish, arrogant, greedy and immoral. Just over half said westerners were violent. While the overwhelming majority of European Muslims said westerners were respectful of women, fewer than half British Muslims agreed. Another startling result found that only 32% of Muslims in Britain had a favourable opinion of Jews, compared with 71% of French Muslims.

The poll surveyed 14,000 people in 15 countries. One of its co-chairs, Senator John Danforth of St Louis said: "It seems to me that where they (Muslims) really tilt against the West has to do with values or with lifestyle or with perceptions that the West is a place of selfishness and arrogance and violence. Where do they get that idea? Maybe on television, I don't know."

Indonesia's opinions of the US dropped from 75% favourable in 2000 to 43%. Turkey, which only had 52% holding favourable views had dropped to only 12%, less than Jordan, where 15% support the US.

The entire poll and its findings can be found at Pew Global Attitudes website. Most nations in 2003 had shown a drop in support for the US following the invasion of Iraq in March of that year, but some countries where there had been a drop in popularity, there were resurgences of positive support in subsequent years. In Turkey, for example, support for the US dropped from 30% in 2002 to 15% in 2003, and rallied to 30% in 2004.

The survey covers issues such as countries' responses to global warming, attitudes towards Hamas' election victory, views on the war on terror, but its findings regarding Muslim attitudes show some expected results and some surprises.

Muslims in Jordan were overwhelmingly anti-Jewish, at 98%, and in Egypt, 97% of Muslims were anti-Jewish. Amongst countries which are predominantly Muslim, the countries where fear of Islamic extremism were the highest were Morocco (73%) followed by Pakistan (53%) and then Turkey (47%).

Regarding the attitudes of non-Muslims towards Muslims in their countries, India and Russia had the highest worries about Islamic extremism, scoring 84% of their respondents, followed by Germany (785), Spain (77%), Netherlands (76%), France (73%) and the US and Britain had 70% of those polled being worried . Only 56% of Canadians were worries about Islamic extremism on their doorstep.

The section on How Muslims And Westerners See Each Other produced a marked split between Muslim and non-Muslim nations, when respondents were asked "which religion is the most violent?" 98% of Jordanians said Judaism, followed by Morocco at 83%, Lebanon at 66%, Indonesia at 63% and Pakistan at 51%. The only country to claim Christianity was the most violent religion was Turkey, which had 46%. 20% of Turks thought Judaism was the most violent religion and 15% thought Islam, the predominant faith in their country, was the most violent.

But Islam was named as the most violent faith by the Netherlands (88%) followed by France (87%), SPain (81%), Germany (79%), Poland (77%), India (73%), Russia (71%), the US (67%), Great Britain (63%) and Canada (61%).

France saw the strongest opinion that there was a "growing Islamic identity" in the country (70%), followed by Germany (66%), India (64%) Britain (63%), Netherlands (60%), Russia (55%), Canada (51%) and US (50%).

Where Muslims were asked about their views on the world, there was a marked decline in the support for suicide bombings, compared to last year.

Support for Osama bin Laden as a world leader was highest in Indonesia (58%) followed by Jordan (55%), Morocco (49%) and Pakistan at 45%. But in Nigeria, for some reason, his popularity had increased among Muslims from 44% to 61%.

The section on How Muslims See Themselves and Islam's Role relates to those polled in Muslim countries.

When asked "Do you consider yourself a Muslim or a citizen first" the only country to have ambivalent views was Lebanon, where 30% of Muslims saw themselves as Muslims first and 30% felt they were citizens first.

But the rest of the countries had most Muslims claiming to be Islamic first, and citizens of their country second. Pakistan was the least concerned with citizenship, with 79% considering themselves Muslim first, followed by Morocco (70%), Jordan (63%), Turkey (43%) and Indonesia (39%).

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at June 22, 2006 11:34 PM

Comments

Posted by: jovan66102 at June 23, 2006 12:48 AM

Posted by: WatchfulEye at June 23, 2006 9:38 AM

Posted by: WatchfulEye at June 23, 2006 9:40 AM

Posted by: Giraldus Cambrensis at June 23, 2006 5:37 PM

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