Westerners and Muslims continue to hold negative stereotypes of each other, although views of Muslims in the West appear to have improved marginally over the past five years, according to a new survey released by the Pew Global Attitudes Project .
Nonetheless, the survey, which was based on in-depth interviews with respondents in six predominantly Christian and six predominantly Muslim countries, as well as in Israel and the Palestinian Territories (PT), used the same words as in its last study on the subject, released in 2006, to describe how each group saw the other. “Many in the West see Muslims as fanatical and violent …,” it concluded. At the same time, “Muslims in the Middle East and Asia generally see Westerners as selfish, immoral and greedy – as well as violent and fanatical.”
The survey, and the 34-page analysis that accompanied it, found that Westerners tend to hold more favourable views of Muslims than the other way around. Western or predominantly Christian nations covered by the survey included the United States, Spain, Germany, France, Britain, and Russia. Predominantly Muslim countries included Indonesia, Lebanon, Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey, as well as the PT. An average of 1,000 interviews was conducted in each country in March and April this year.
Nonetheless, the percentage of respondents in all Western countries who chose the “bad” option was lower – in the case of Russia, Britain, and Germany, substantially lower – than in 2006. As for predominantly Muslim countries, pluralities or majorities of respondents, ranging from 48 percent in Egypt to an overwhelming 96 percent in Lebanon, said they held a positive view of Christians. In contrast, however, only 16 percent of Pakistanis and six percent of Turks agreed – a decline of 10 percent in both countries from five years ago. Key finding includes widespread skepticism about the events of September 11, 2011 persists in predominantly Muslim nations.
There is no Muslim public where even 30 percent of the people accept that Arabs conducted the 9/11 attacks.
The survey also found that Muslim respondents tended much more to identify themselves as Muslims first and as citizens of their countries second than did Christian Westerners. That tendency was especially pronounced in Pakistan where 94 percent of respondents said they considered themselves Muslims first and Pakistanis second.
Muslims generally described the Westerners as “selfish”, “violent”, “greedy”; “immoral”, “arrogant”, and “fanatical” while Westerners described the Muslims as “fanatical” “violent”, “arrogant”; “selfish”, “immoral”, “greedy” and “honest”. The harshest views were found in Spain; the least harsh in Britain.
