Muslims shift from violence
By Brian Knowlton International Herald Tribune
FRIDAY, JULY 15, 2005
WASHINGTON People in several predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle
East and Asia see less justification now for violence against civilians than
they did a year or two ago, and they increasingly share Western concerns about
Islamic extremism, a new international poll has found.
But the peculiar entanglement of religion and politics in these
countries, and in Western countries with sizable Muslim minorities, produced a
conflicting picture, also reflecting overwhelming Muslim dislike for Jews and
powerful opposition to the U.S. presence in Iraq, the polling in 17 countries
shows.
The survey - conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project before the
July 7 bombings in London, which are now attributed to Britons of Pakistani
origin - found that the British public was among the least hostile to Muslims,
along with Canadians and Americans. That tolerance is not unequivocal: At least
four mosques in Britain have been set ablaze since the July 7 attacks.
Nearly four years after the Sept. 11 attacks, and with terrorist attacks
continuing around the world, a growing number of Muslims say that violence
against civilian targets is never justified, Pew found.
That figure is highest in Morocco, followed by Indonesia and Turkey, with
big majorities rejecting suicide bombing as an acceptable means of defending
Islam.
Yet, roughly half of the Muslims questioned in Jordan, Lebanon, and
Morocco said that in Iraq, suicide bombings against Americans and other
Westerners could be justified.
A belief that democratic governance would work for the Muslim world has
risen sharply. But at the same time, in many Muslim countries, support is
strong for a greater Islamic role in national governments.
The poll was conducted for Pew among 17,000 people from late April to
early June. It offers an unusually broad look at Muslim attitudes, and at
Western attitudes on a range of Muslim issues.
The survey found a sharp drop in the numbers of Muslims saying they would
support violence against civilians in defense of Islam.
This was most striking in countries that themselves have been hit by
high-profile bombings. Support for such violence thus dropped sharply in
Lebanon, where Rafik Hariri, a former prime minister, was killed in February,
and in Morocco, where suicide bombers killed dozens of people in Casablanca in
2003. (In every instance, support dropped sharply when people were asked to
contemplate attacks in their own country.)
Support for violence against civilians also decreased in Indonesia, which
suffered a big decline in tourism after the Bali bombings of October 2002.
Forty-five percent of Indonesians surveyed said they viewed Islamic extremism
as posing a threat to their country.
Still larger percentages in Morocco, Pakistan and Turkey said they viewed
Islamic extremism as posing a very or fairly great threat to their country.
There was no consensus about the causes of Islamic extremism. Lebanese
and Jordanians pointed to U.S. policies; Moroccans and Pakistanis to poverty
and joblessness; Turks to lack of education; and Indonesians to immorality.
The polling was conducted in six predominantly Muslim countries -
Indonesia, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan and Turkey - and in Britain,
Canada, China, France, Germany, India, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Spain
and the United States. Margins of error ranged from plus or minus two
percentage points to plus or minus four.
The responses amplified a Pew finding released in June showing that
anti-American feelings have been declining in the Islamic world but that
favorable feelings outnumber the unfavorable only in Morocco.
From its findings in the Western world, the new report sketched more
sharply some of the fault lines in nations where Muslims and others coexist.
In almost every European country with a Muslim minority, a majority of
respondents said they viewed Muslim immigrants as slow to accept and take on
local values and customs, and they overwhelmingly viewed a growing sense of
Islamic identity among Muslims in their countries as "a bad thing."
Nearly 9 in 10 Dutch respondents said Muslims in the Netherlands had a
strong sense of Islamic identity. And almost 9 in 10 Germans said Muslims in
their country wanted to remain distinct from the larger country, while only
half of Americans said this about Muslims in the United States.
Paul Scheffer, a professor of urban sociology at the University of
Amsterdam, said there was no doubt that the distance between Muslims and the
rest of Dutch society was growing in the Netherlands. "It's not just a mood,"
he said. For Muslims, he added, "reaffirming their religious identity is also
the result of not feeling at home."
Sizable majorities in every non-Muslim country except Poland said they
were concerned about Islamic extremism in their own countries, the poll found.
Still, in Canada, the United States and Russia, majorities said they had
very or somewhat favorable views of Muslims, as they did in France, with the
largest Muslim population in Western Europe - about 10 percent of the total
population of 60 million.
Only in the Netherlands did a bare majority hold unfavorable views, as
did nearly half of Germans. Majorities in Germany and the Netherlands said they
held negative views of immigration from the Middle East and North Africa.
Many respondents in Muslim countries appeared to confirm the perceived
separateness of societies, saying they see themselves first as Muslims, then as
citizens of their country.
In Europe, attitudes on Turkey's bid for European Union membership were
shaped strongly by attitudes on immigration. Majorities in France, Germany, and
the Netherlands said they opposed EU membership for Turkey, while majorities in
Britain, Poland, Spain and Turkey itself were in favor.
"You cannot separate the issue of Turkey from domestic politics," said
Cem Ozedmir, 39, a leading member of the German Greens party and member of the
European Parliament. "There is a very important trend emerging and we see this
in the Netherlands. Liberal-minded people who support gay rights and marriage
have a feeling that Muslim identity, combined with Turkish accession to the EU,
is putting into danger what the EU has achieved in their societies."
Johann Aguilar, 23, a newspaper vendor in Paris, said he opposed Turkish
membership in the EU, in part because he worried about immigrants. "We have a
lot of unemployment," he said, "and at one point it's inevitable to think that
they are taking our jobs."
In the Muslim world, majorities saw Islam as playing a growing role in
national politics. Majorities in most of the Muslim countries - 8 in 10
Moroccans, for example - termed it very important that Islam play a greater
role in the world.
Polling in most Muslim countries found falling levels of confidence in
Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda. But in Jordan, confidence rose from 55
percent two years ago to 60 percent, and in Pakistan, where bin Laden may have
sheltered at times while eluding his pursuers, it rose from 45 percent to 51
percent.
There was near-universal antipathy in the Muslim countries toward Jews.
In Lebanon, a remarkable 99 percent of Muslims and Christians said they held a
very unfavorable view of Jews; in Jordan, the figure was 100 percent. Views on
Christians were not as absolute, ranging from 21 percent favorable in Turkey to
91 percent favorable in Lebanon, which has a sizable Christian minority.
In Asia, views on religious groups were more moderate. In India, with its
large Muslim minority, respondents divided nearly evenly on their attitudes to
Muslims, with the favorable holding a slight edge; those favorable to
Christians outnumbered the unfavorable by 3 to 1; more than half offered no
opinion on Jews, but those who did had favorable views by about a 3-to-2 ratio.
Additional reporting from Judy Dempsey in Berlin and Marlise Simons and
Katrin Bennhold in Paris.
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