yolland
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If you want to read the whole report, it's available at the Pew Global Attitudes Project site.
This is just bits and pieces from various news articles about it:
This is just bits and pieces from various news articles about it:
June 22 — Non-Muslim Westerners and Muslims around the world have widely different views of world events, and each group tends to view the other as violent, intolerant and lacking in respect for women, a new international survey of more than 14,000 people in 13 nations indicates. In what the survey, part of the Pew Global Attitudes Project for 2006, called one of its most striking findings, majorities in Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan and Turkey—Muslim countries with fairly strong ties to the US—said, for example, that they did not believe that Arabs had carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the US.
"Many in the West see Muslims as fanatical, violent and...lacking tolerance," according to an analysis of the survey by the Washington-based Pew Global Attitudes Project. "Muslims in the Middle East and Asia generally see Westerners as selfish, immoral and greedy, as well as violent and fanatical." But the survey also found that was less true among European Muslims. "In many ways, the views of Europe's Muslims represent a middle ground between the way Western publics and Muslims in the Middle East and Asia view each other," it said.
Overall, Muslims in the survey--including the large Islamic populations in Britain, France, Germany and Spain--broadly blamed the West for the bad relations, while Westerners tended to blame Muslims. The survey found that negative views of Muslims had become especially pronounced in Germany and Spain, where only 36% and 29% of respondents, respectively, expressed favorable opinions of Muslims. Both marked major declines from the last Pew poll one year ago. By contrast, nearly two-thirds of French and British citizens said they had favorable views of Muslims. 56% of Russians agreed with that opinion, as did 54% of US respondents. Interestingly, British and French respondents were the most upbeat as well about the prospects for democracy in Muslim countries: 6 in 10 respondents in France and Britain said democracy could work well there, while only 49% of US citizens and an average of 4 in 10 Spanish and Germans agreed.
More than 60% of Indonesians and Jordanians said they had favorable views of Christians, followed by 48% of Egyptians. But only about one-quarter of Pakistanis described their views as favorable, while only about 1 in 7 Turks agreed, a possible reflection of growing anti-European and anti-US opinion resulting from negotiations over Turkey's admission to the European Union and popular anger there against the US invasion of Iraq. The religious divide was found to be surprisingly sharp in Nigeria, where, for example, nearly 3 out of 4 Muslims and Christians each ascribed negative traits to the other groups. Nigerian Muslims also constituted a "conspicuous exception" to the trend toward declining confidence in bin Laden in the Muslim world. In addition, nearly half of Nigeria's Muslims said suicide bombings could be justified often or sometimes in the defense of Islam.
By contrast, Muslims living in Europe were much more positive about Christians, one of a number of indications in the survey that European Muslims are not only considerably less alienated from the societies in which they reside than many recent analyses have suggested, but also that they could act as a moderating force in the Muslim-Western divide. 9 out of 10 French Muslims said they had positive views of Christians, followed by 8 out of 10 Spanish Muslims (in spite of the strongly anti-Muslim views of most Spanish). Roughly 7 out of 10 English and German Muslims also said their views of Christians were favorable.
Of all Muslim populations surveyed, French Muslims were by far the most positive toward Jews--71% said they had favorable opinions, roughly twice the percentage of Muslims in Britain, Germany and Spain. Elsewhere in the Muslim world, views of Jews were far more negative: in Indonesia, only 17% of respondents said they had favorable opinions; in Turkey, 15%; in Pakistan 6%; and in the two Arab countries surveyed, Egypt and Jordan, only 2% and 1%, respectively.
In follow-up interviews in countries surveyed about the results, Muslims attributed poor relations with the West to a variety of causes. But many pointed to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians as the main cause and accused the West of double standards on terrorism. Majorities in the Muslim world, Pew said, also expressed the opinion that the victory of the militant group Hamas in Palestinian elections in January would "be helpful to a fair settlement between Israel and the Palestinians"—a view that was roundly rejected by non-Muslim publics.
As to relations between Muslims and Westerners, majorities in 10 out of 12 countries described them as "generally bad". In Europe, the most negative views were found in Germany (70% said "generally bad") and France (66%). 55% of US respondents described it the same way. Turkey was the most negative of the predominantly Muslim nations, with nearly two-thirds opting for "generally bad"--though 77% of Nigerian Muslims made the same assessment--followed by Egypt (58%), Jordan (54%) and Indonesia (53%). Pakistan, where a slight plurality said that relations were "generally good", was the only exception.
The Pew analysis concluded that Muslims held "an aggrieved view of the West--they were much more likely than Americans or Western Europeans to blame Western policies for their own lack of prosperity. For their part, Western publics instead pointed to government corruption, lack of education, and Islamic fundamentalism as the biggest obstacles to Muslim prosperity." Similarly, Muslims, particularly in Asia and the Middle East, tended to blame the controversy this year over Danish cartoon depictions of Mohammed on Western disrespect for Islam. Majorities in the US and Europe, on the other hand, blamed the crisis on Muslim intolerance.
When asked to choose among a list of negative traits seen in the other group, Muslims in the Middle East and Asia--often by large majorities--generally viewed Westerners as selfish, arrogant and violent. European Muslims, however--particularly those in France and Spain--tended to be far less damning about the traits of non-Muslims than those in predominantly Muslim countries. At the same time, majorities of non-Muslims in most of Europe found Muslims to be fanatical and violent--although only minorities in Britain, the US and France subscribed to that view.
Pew found sharp divergences regarding respect for women: non-Muslims in the West view Muslims as lacking respect, the survey indicated, while Muslims outside Europe say the same of Westerners. In the West, where many see Islamic customs like mandatory veils for women and regulations barring them from working outside the home or driving as discriminatory, big majorities saw Muslims as not respectful of women. By contrast, fewer than half the Muslims asked in Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey said they associated Westerners with respect for women. European Muslims surveyed were more likely to view Westerners as respectful of women, in some places by wide margins.
The survey's findings suggested that French and Spanish Muslims were the least alienated from their surrounding societies, even if the general public in Spain was found to be the most hostile toward Muslims of any of the European societies covered by the poll. 4 in 10 non-Muslim Spaniards said they believed that most or many Muslims in their country supported Islamic extremism, but only 12% of Spanish Muslims agreed. Of the four minority publics surveyed, British Muslims were the most critical of their country, and "come closer to views of Muslims around the world in their opinions of Westerners".
The results were not uniform, and delivered some surprises. Support for terrorism declined in some of the Muslim countries surveyed, dropping sharply in Jordan, where terrorist bombings killed more than 50 people in Amman in November. Support for suicide bombing has also plummeted in Pakistan and Indonesia. In Pakistan now, 69% said the terrorist tactic was never justified, compared with 38% four years ago. Still, there was no obvious correlation between diminishing support for terrorism and more positive perceptions of the West.
