Thursday, September 18, 2008
Anti-Semtic and anti-Muslim attitudes rise in Europe
The ABC in Australia have just posted a disturbing story about changing attitudes in Europe towards faith-based communities. Surprisingly it also shows a rise in anti-Christian feelings.
Anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish feelings are rising in several major European countries, according to a worldwide survey released overnight.
The Washington-based Pew Research Centre's global attitude survey found 46 per cent of Spanish, 36 per cent of Poles and 34 per cent of Russians viewed Jews unfavourably, while the same was true for 25 per cent of Germans, and 20 per cent of French.
In Australia the figure was 11 per cent.
Spain has not had a large Jewish population since expelling its Jews in 1492. The other four countries have a long history of anti-Semitism.
The figures are all higher than in comparable Pew surveys done in recent years, the report said, and "in a number of countries the increase has been especially notable between 2006 and 2008".
Opinions of Muslims are also dimming compared to previous years with 52 per cent in Spain, 50 per cent in Germany, 46 per cent in Poland and 38 per cent in France having negative attitudes toward them.
Associate director of the attitudes project, Richard Wike, said in an interview the poll did not try to find out why attitudes have changed, but other data indicates negative attitudes toward Israel could be driving anti-Semitic feelings.
He also said concerns about extremism and immigration may be a factor in negative views toward Muslims.
Britain was the only European country without a substantial increase in anti-Semitic attitudes, the report said, with just 9 per cent in that country rating Jews unfavourably.
In the United States 7 per cent had negative views of Jews.
But about one in four in the United States and Britain thought poorly of Muslims.
"There is a clear relationship between anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim attitudes," the report said.
"[Those] that view Jews unfavourably also tend to see Muslims in a negative light."
The findings were based on interviews with 24,717 people in 24 countries earlier this year.
The poll had error margins ranging from plus or minus 2 to 4 percentage points, varying by country.
The most extreme anti-Jewish feelings, the poll said, were found in predominantly Muslim nations, where favourable attitudes were only in the single digits among Turks, Egyptians, Jordanians, Lebanese, and Pakistani.
Suicide bombing support erodes
But in many predominantly Muslim countries there has been an erosion of support since 2002 for suicide bombing and other violence against civilians in the name of Islam.
In 2002, about 75 per cent of Lebanese Muslims said such attacks could often or sometimes be justified, but the figure dropped to about 33 per cent in the latest poll. Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri was assassinated in a massive explosion in February 2004, setting off a wave of political murders.
The survey also said positive attitudes toward Osama bin Laden have declined in several countries but the Al Qaeda leader still enjoys high support in Nigeria, Indonesia and Pakistan.
The poll also found:
- France is the most secular nation surveyed, with 60 per cent saying they never pray and only one in 10 rating religion as important in their life.
- Anti-Christian attitudes have been on the rise in Spain where 24 per cent now rate Christians negatively, up from 10 per cent in 2005.
- Majorities in Indonesia, Pakistan, Tanzania, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and Nigeria say they are concerned about Islamic extremism.
Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
The linked article has a clear bias against Muslims, nor does it reflect only the countries of Europe. While the several references of countries that favored Jews were listed; the only listings of Muslims were listed on the unfavorability of Muslims. This is actually ‘robbing the victimization’ off the backs of Muslims (not that Muslims want that title).
This is similar to the reporting on the black struggle and how in research, there is much comparison to the Jewish community. This is not to say that Jews have not struggled in the past. However, the strategy is to try and rest upon the sufferings of others, and eventually show how they were part of the struggle (veering away from any oppressive role, of course). This usually sets the stage for some sort of reparation for their part of the struggle while ignoring the overwhelming majority, when many times their struggle was more severe.
While mentioning several Muslim countries, there was still the negative reporting of Muslims or Islam, and absolutely nothing mentioned positive of Muslims. Of all the Islamic countries in the world, there was nothing positive to report about Muslims? It goes on to mention the association of Arab countries and the negative attitude toward Jews. It seems convenient to have left out Israel’s position.
This writing of the hodge-podge statistics attempts to steal any thunder that Muslims have in reporting the increasingly obvious violation of their human rights, and conveniently including their Jewish brethren.
It’s interesting to note that this poll did not include other religions and how they would compare to what people say. Is it safe to assume that there is no anti-Christian, anti-Hindu, anti-Buddhist, etc. bias? This poll had a psychological agenda from the onset. Since the numbers are already present. It might be useful to attempt to associate the ‘why’ with these numbers. Something tells me that the answers very different from the similarities attempted to be portrayed in this article. 5pillar.wordpress.com
Thanks for your comments, 5pillar. However you say there is no anti-Christian bias. Please note at the end of the story:
France is the most secular nation surveyed, with 60 per cent saying they never pray and only one in 10 rating religion as important in their life.
- Anti-Christian attitudes have been on the rise in Spain where 24 per cent now rate Christians negatively, up from 10 per cent in 2005.
Post a Comment