12 September 2003
You Can't Fool All The People All The Time
- Mary Elizabeth Hansen
ABC News has published the results of a poll taken on the changing attitudes of Americans towards Islam. According the statistics released by the media giant, Americans, in general, have a less favorable view towards the religion of Islam than they did four months after the 9/11 attacks. Shortly after the terrorist attack, 14 percent of those surveyed believed mainstream Islam encouraged violence. By September 2003 that number had risen to 34 percent. The poll showed numbers unchanged in regards to familiarity, or lack of familiarity, with Islam. In 2001 and, again, in 2003 two-thirds of Americans felt that they did not possess a “good basic understanding” of the religion of nearly one billion adherents.
Of those polled, personal religious beliefs and politics influenced attitudes towards Islam. In a nutshell, evangelical Protestants and Republicans were more likely to express a less favorable view of Islam. Mainstream Protestants, Catholics and Democrats held more favorable views towards Islam. Younger and more educated people regarded Islam in a more favorable light. Those professing no faith at all had the highest regard for Islam overall.
The 20 percent increase in negative views towards Islam must be discouraging to those who have worked so hard since 9/11 to present an opposite message for public consumption. From academics to media pundits to the White House the message has been fairly consistent. Islam is a religion of peace. Jihad is, really and truly, an inner spiritual struggle. Only a tiny, tiny minority of Muslims wish to do harm to the West and most of those scoundrels could be found in the remote caves in Afghanistan. Anyone presenting a different view was, for the most part, in danger of being labeled an Islamophobe…or worse, a racist.
What does this survey mean for those minorities living in dar al-Islam and suffering for their differences? Some of the survey is good news. The American public, at least some, have minds of their own. Seeing is believing. The fact that 9/11 was not the last attack on Western interests has produced more skeptics, despite the PC message, “Islam equals peace.” To borrow an observation from a very wise past American president, “ You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”
Parts of the survey indicate that more education is needed, most urgently to those who consider themselves very educated and very enlightened. A great deal of discrimination, degradation and violence is experienced daily by non-Muslims living in Islamic-dominated countries. Personally and collectively, non-Muslims often live lives of poverty, despair and fear caused by unjust laws, corrupt governments and bigoted, close-minded neighbors. These conditions, repeated in countries as diverse as Nigeria, Iran, and Malaysia, must change for the better. But, before conditions can change, Americans and others in the West must be truthfully and fully informed about these injustices and abuses. Once informed, a demand for justice must follow, loudly and consistently.
What can Muslims, particularly those living in America, do in light of this survey? A long and self-critical look at their religious tradition and some of its bitter fruits should be the order of the day. It will be too easy and comfortable to play the victim card again. It will be harder to face some unpleasant truths and demand internal reformations for Muslims and justice for non-Muslims living under the yoke of Islam.
Changes can and should be made by Muslims, and they should begin with Muslims living in the West, enjoying freedoms and reaping the rewards of those freedoms. Those changes should then spread to the heart of Islam. Then, perhaps, future ABC surveys will show more willingness on the part of Americans to believe that Islam really is a religion of peace.
The changes cannot come soon enough for dhimmis living in the real world of Islam.
©Mary Elizabeth Hansen