Terror: Muslims & Polls : Jonathan Last examines two polls regarding Muslims in UK

Jonathan Last, Web Editor for The Weekly Standard puts out an email newsletter, as well as blogging for WS. In his last email, Last sizes up two polls of interest to refWrite readers.

It's an interesting exercise to contrast the results of two recent public opinion polls. The first is a survey of British Muslims conducted at the end of July. You can see the full survey here.

In it, Muslim respondents were asked their opinions about the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London. The good news is that 77 percent of Muslims surveyed said that the attacks were "not justified at all."

But deeper in the survey there is troubling data. Twenty-four percent of Muslims polled said that they felt some sympathy for the terrorists; 56 percent said they understood why the terrorists would act the way they did; 26 percent disagreed with Tony Blair that the terrorists' ideology was "perverted and poisonous"; 31 percent said that Western society was "decadent and immoral" and that Muslims should try to bring it to an end--albeit peacefully; 44 percent said that if a Muslim was arrested for the attack, he would not receive a fair trial; and, 14 percent said that if they saw suspicious terrorist activity they felt no duty to report it to the police.

The other survey was conducted in America, also in late July, and it examined Americans' perceptions of different religions. You can find it here (you can download the complete Pew report). When asked if they had favorable or unfavorable opinions of different religions, Americans gave their highest favorable rating to Jews (77 percent), then Catholics (73 percent). Only 57 percent had favorable views of Evangelicals, while a similar percentage, 55 percent, had favorable views of Muslims.

The most interesting question the Pew survey posed was whether or not "the Islamic religion is more likely than others to encourage violence among its believers." Thirty-six percent of Americans said "yes."

Blogger Dean Barnett had this to say (you have to scroll down to the August 26 blog entry, Pew Poll - P.C. and P.U. - Polliticarp):

Is it really a slam on Islam if you happen to notice that the vast majority of terror incidents committed over the past several years have been committed by the religion's practitioners? While I really shouldn't have to say this, in the interests of self-preservation I will: Obviously not all Muslims are terrorists. Obviously only a teensy-tiny portion of Muslims are terrorists. But, and the following is not really deniable, a high percentage of terrorists are Muslims. Facts are facts.

[You must read Mr. Barnett's entire post! - Politicarp]

It's interesting that after four years of the war on terrorism, we hear a lot of worrying about backlash against Muslims living in the West. Fortunately, there hasn't been much backlash and both Americans and Brits have conducted themselves, for the most part, the way in which we expect from tolerant, pluralistic societies.

If the poll from London is any indication, in the West, tolerance and pluralism may be something of a one-way street.

Thanks to Mr Last and Mr Barnett both, and of course to The Telegraph and Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life for their respective polls. Lots to think about. - Politicarp