CAIRO: A recent survey looking into Muslim-Western relationships showed that tensions still persist between Muslims and the west.
The US-based Pew Research Center recently launched a Global Attitudes Project conducting an array of public opinion surveys and polls around the world on issues concerning people’s views on the current state of the world and pressing issues in today’s society.
Both sides have appeared to hold negative stereotypical views of one another. Muslims are seen as fanatical and violent by westerners, and are believed to be intolerant and disrespectful of women. Westerners, in return, are considered selfish, immoral, and greedy by the majority of Muslims in the Middle East and Asia.
The survey, which also updates data from a similar survey on the topic conducted in 2006, shows that the percentage of US and European public who consider their relationship with Muslims as “generally good” has increased over the five years.
Muslim public opinion, on the other hand, points in the other direction. Muslim nations tend to have maintained their negative views of Christians and westerners in general. The study illustrates how Muslims in the Middle East and Asia hold the west responsible for various social, economical and political drawbacks known to the region as well as the relationship between Muslims and westerners. It has appeared that while Americans and Europeans have the tendency to blame Muslims for bad relations, significant numbers think of the west as responsible.
Both of the surveyed parties also agree on the fact that Muslim nations ought to be more economically prosperous than they are today. However, a median of 53 percent of the Muslims surveyed say US and western policies are among the main reasons as to why the Muslim nations are not more affluent. Americans and Western Europeans have proved to be more likely to say Islamic fundamentalism is a chief reason for economic setbacks in the region.
On the issue of prosperity, both westerners and Muslims believe that corrupt governments and inadequate education in the Muslim countries are at least partially responsible for the lack of prosperity.
The report also mentions that in light of the Arab Spring, it is feasible to predict that people from the west as well as from Muslim nations will be more likely than they were five years ago to say the “dearth of prosperity stems from a lack of democracy.”
