This week has seen the publication of the latest opinion poll by the Pew Global Attitudes Project. People in 13 countries — Egypt and Jordan were the two Arab countries included — were asked about their views of Westerners and Muslims. Views is too strong a word; this is the kind of poll that takes a pulse rather than a full medical history. For instance respondents were asked to indicate whether they have a favorable opinion of Jews, Christians, Muslims and Arabs. It’s the kind of question that is too vague to have any meaning. Say you were asked to indicate your opinion of “Americans”, would you understand that to mean your opinion of American citizens or of American policy-makers? What if, like many people around the globe, you disagree with American intervention abroad but think ordinary American Joes perfectly nice?
What this kind of question is good at is picking up baseline prejudice. Common sense predicts that we should rate most people at least somewhat favorably; it is only when we feel threatened that the balance tips the other way. Within the backdrop of the ongoing Middle East conflict, it is not surprising that Muslims in the Middle East rate Jews almost uniformly negatively, even if this is based on the erroneous assumption that Jew equals Zionist. The most interesting — and in my view encouraging — finding of this survey is that Muslims in France do not succumb to this prejudice, they were the only Muslim population surveyed where unfavorable views of Jews were not prevalent.
In fact, the results from France are altogether fascinating. French non-Muslims show the highest percentage of favorable views toward not only Muslims, but also Arabs and Jews. The poll results suggest that France may be a bastion of tolerance, a finding that at first sight looks a little surprising in a country where the extreme right enjoys a significant level of support. This trend is also borne out by questions about character traits associated with Muslims. The French were the most likely to assign favorable traits such as honesty, generosity and devoutness to Muslims, just as they were among the least likely to assign the negative traits — immoral, greedy, selfish, arrogant and violent — with Muslims.
The survey included four European countries — Britain, France, Germany and Spain — in which they also polled a Muslim subpopulation. The French Muslims, just like the French non-Muslims, showed themselves to be the most tolerant of these four subgroups. They had the highest favorability ratings for both Christians and Jews and also associated more positive traits with Westerners.
However in Britain there was a noteworthy mismatch between the opinions of Muslim and Non-Muslim. Whilst the general population had generally favorable opinions about Muslims, British Muslims polled held overwhelmingly negative views about Westerners, with majorities thinking Westerners selfish, arrogant, immoral or greedy.
The problem with opinion polls, particular those like this poll that only give us markers of public opinion, is that they shed little light on the reasons for these differences. Is there some kind of backlash among British Muslims following the bombings of July 7? What is interesting is that the bombings seem to have had little effect on how British non-Muslims think of Muslims; there was only a slight drop in favorability ratings between 2005 and 2006. This is in stark contrast to Spain where a sharp drop in favorability ratings has been registered: Only 29 percent of Spanish people polled had favorable opinions of Muslims compared to 46 percent in 2005. The Spanish also overwhelmingly thought Muslims fanatical and violent — two character traits that are now resolutely associated with Muslims. There was a consistent belief that Muslims are fanatical and violent in all eight non-Muslim countries polled.
The poll also confirmed another common stereotype about Muslims: That they are thought to be intolerant. Tolerance as a character trait was rarely associated with Muslims, just as Muslim intolerance was generally thought to be to blame for the controversy over the Danish cartoons. What I found more noteworthy than the poll’s result in this instance is the wording of the question; respondents were asked: “What is more to blame for this controversy, Western nations’ disrespect for the Islamic religion or Muslims’ intolerance to different points of view?” A loaded question which did more to confirm this stereotype.
Not that Muslims regard Westerners any more favorably. Quite the opposite, the data coming from the Muslim countries surveyed was worryingly negative, suggesting a deepening chasm between East and West. There is also widespread agreement that relations between Muslims and Westerners are generally bad. What I find most remarkable though is the way negative stereotypes often end up as mirror images. Take views of women, the majority of non-Muslims questioned believed that Muslims were not respectful of women — with the Spaniards once again leading the field — but the same views were also held by Muslims about Westerners.
Why do Muslims think that Westerners do not respect women? Is it a genuine belief or is it a knee-jerk reaction to prevalent portrayals of Muslim women in Western media? Or could it be that we understand respect differently, with Muslims seeing respect as protection and Westerners as empowerment. Polls like this one by their very nature raise questions but do not provide comprehensive answers. What they do is confirm what we suspect and indicate trends and common threads. They are most interesting when they throw up unexpected results.
Why did respondents in France show themselves to be more favorable toward Arabs and Muslims than their Western counterparts? Is it due to France’s long history of secularity and its rich ethnic mix? Could it be linked to its symbiotic relationship with its former colonies in North Africa? Why are Arabs and Muslims so poorly regarded in Spain? Is it entirely due to the carnage of the Madrid bombings? Could it be that in a country where 94 percent of the population is Catholic, a lack of ethnic diversity is tilting the balance in favor of prejudice? Or does the memory of being conquered all those centuries ago make Spaniards more vulnerable to feeling threatened by Islamist terrorism?
On the whole though this latest poll confirmed much of what we already know. It certainly confirmed something which every Arab knows: Conspiracy theories are alive and well in the Arab world. More than half the people surveyed in the only two Arab countries polled thought that Arabs did not carry out the 9/11 attacks. How depressing, if we refuse to take responsibility, what chance progress?
