West-Islam civilisations clash rejected

Excerpts from here

WORLD opinion emphatically rejects the idea that Islam and the West are heading for an inevitable clash of civilisations, according to an ambitious poll of public attitudes across 27 countries, commissioned by The Age and the BBC World Service.

There was also a consensus in most of these countries that intolerant minorities on both sides, rather than fundamental differences between the two cultures or intolerant minorities on one side or the other, were to blame for tensions between Islam and the West.

The optimistic tone of responses was also reflected after citizens were asked whether differences of religion and culture or conflicts about political power were the source of tensions.

The most common view in 24 of the 27 countries was that tensions arose from conflicts about political power and interests — 52 per cent of the total sample of 28,000 respondents held this opinion.

Almost three in 10 surveyed said tensions primarily arose from differences in culture and religion.

"Perhaps the strongest finding is that so many people across the world blame intolerant minorities on both sides for the tensions between Islam and the West," the president of international polling company GlobeScan, Doug Miller, said.

The director of PIPA, Steven Kull, said the findings showed that the public rejected the notion that cultural and religious identity would be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world, resulting in an inevitable clash of civilisations.

Asked whether tensions arose from fundamental differences between the cultures as a whole or from intolerant minorities, only 26 per cent said they were due to fundamental differences in culture.

Almost 60 per cent attributed these tensions to intolerant minorities and 39 per cent said intolerant minorities were on both sides; 12 per cent said they were primarily on the Muslim side; and 7 per cent said they were mostly on the Western side.

The belief that violent conflict was inevitable was somewhat more common among Muslims (35 per cent) than Christians (27 per cent) or others (27 per cent).

A majority of the 5000 Muslims surveyed (52 per cent) said it was possible to find common ground, including majorities in Lebanon (68 per cent), Egypt (54 per cent) and Nigeria (63 per cent).

An analysis of the results found no consistent pattern on the question of whether the views of people who were more religious differed from people who were less so.

 

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The poll makes sense to me, it does jibe with most opinions and oulooks I've encountered in my travels. But since those proponents of a "clash of civilizations" typically dismiss opinion polls from consideration, I'm not sure how to put it to constructive use. Maybe the over-arching clash within humanity is really between those who consider intrinsic human nature a positive force, and those who do not.

 

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Of course whether there will or will not be a "world clash" is another thing. I thought it was more interesting from the point of view of how many people thought the conflict at hand is essentially cultural/religious and how many thought it was political.

Of course if a world clash does break out, one would expect that the numbers who thought it was cultural/religious would no doubt increase

 

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The poll makes sense to me too. Most people I have met only want the West to stop interfering in and destroying their lives with little thought of revenge, merely a sense of helplessness and confusion over why educated and rich people would behave like this.

 

lightgigantic: "Of course whether there will or will not be a "world clash" is another thing."

This clash between "The West" and Islam is often described as a global one, as in the Global War on Islamic Extremism (or whatever propagandists have been calling it most recently) and there's no denying sporadic globally-interconnected fits of violent reactionism.

But they are increasingly tempered by ever-advancing human mobility and consciousness. Humanity isn't nearly as culturally ignorant as in the days of the original Crusades. As cultures become increasingly familiar to each other, there's a clear trend for progressive resistance to culture-war- for all the seemingly endless attempts of a manipulative few to stir it up.

 

"90 percent consensus of "death to America" in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Palestine, and Iraq."

You're exaggerating, Fraggle and also confusing charged rhetoric with actual sentiment.

"a Stone Age religion"

Another exagerration, remember Islam is the youngest of the great monotheisic faiths.

"None of them pay any attention to the polls and they don't give a damn what anyone thinks of them."

How do you know this?

"The Religious Redneck Retards in America and their counterparts in the Middle East don't take anyone's counsel."

That doesn't mean that they invincibly control the majority.

 

It is stuck in time and hasn't progressed since the 12th century.
Time is relative in more ways than Einstein found out.
Islamists are living in the medieval dark ages, as Europe was 800 years ago.

Don't know about great, it is a great threat to common sense, which hasn't been all that common these last few years.
Other than that it is a very narrrowish view of the world.

 

There are all kinds of Muslims, both in and outside the Middle East.

 

Sure there are, all labels are general, but there is some middle ground,
and I think that in general Islam is what I said. I may be wrong, of course.

 

Its really aggravating sometimes how people forget that most Muslim extremism is directly related to political conflict or puppet regimes.

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Actually there were many other monotheisms that came about after the advent of Islam. I think the Bahá'í faith would probably be the last of the "great" monotheims.

Michael

 

Take in account the mentality of those people there too.
I mean, sometimes we in the north get very upset about something too,
but we have never gone blowing ourselves up.
It's just a different mindset for problem solving.
And their problem solving is too hazardous for the rest.

 

Well its a recent phenomenon there too, adopted from the LTTE of Sri Lanka, where militant Buddhists burn down churches and suicide bombers blow themselves up with over 400 recruits in a special suicide bombing group ready at any one time.

But of course, they don't affect the West so are not as newsworthy.

 

It doesn't matter from where they got the idea, what matters is, what is.
And their mentality is such that it is compatible with suicide bomber tactics.

 

It would be interesting to see how Eastern bloc countries would respond to an occupation today.

 

Avatar:" [Muslim] mentality is such that it is compatible with suicide bomber tactics."

Consider the reality that mentality is a product of more factors than religion alone.

Consider Muslim populations where suicide bombing is not an epidemic.

Consider places where suicide bombing has been phenomenal, and see if you can make out some causative factors beyond religion.

 

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS ... IN ALL OF HISTORY.

just fights and wars over limited resources.

the powers that be.... or was.... simply make use of culture clash.

and the un-educated public.... have always been fooled.


dont be fools.

-MT

 

Moshe: "There has never been a clash of civilizations in all of history."

The Crusades don't qualify as a clash of civilizations?

" the powers that be.... or was.... simply make use of culture clash."

That's contradicting yourself, but it's making more sense.

" and the un-educated public.... have always been fooled."

But we're getting smarter.

" dont be fools."

That's good advice.

 

Polled from nations with high theist populations who'd even dared to thunk such a thing?

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