Reporting on Muslim polling (Moonie Times)

[eppur_se_muova]

A few days ago, I (and a few others) posted on a recently released poll of Muslim Americans (see http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=282944&mesg_id=282944 for example). Most press accounts emphasized the positive attitudes of the majority, while noting that a minority did express approval of fundamentalist extremism, including violence. One press outlet chose to see things differently, and I am printing a link to their editorial below. The tone of emphasizing the smallest bit of apparent wingnut confirmation while striving to misrepresent the majority of the facts (aka "cherry-picking") is strongly reminescent of Faux news' notorious Pollyannna's-evil-twin screen captions.

TODAY'S EDITORIAL
May 24, 2007

When polled, about a quarter of young American Muslims consider suicide bombing to be acceptable in some circumstances. This finding is contained in the Pew Research Center's wide-ranging survey of American Muslim opinion, which, with the usual polling caveats, is a mixed bag of positives and negatives overshadowed by this one hugely troubling item. 1.4 million Muslims live in America today. This means that we now count as neighbors hundreds of thousands of people who say that they sometimes approve of a means of warfare which normally involves deliberate attacks on innocent civilians, in the name of religion. That's news.

Naturally, in an act of egregious perception management, most major newspapers buried it in their coverage of the survey.

"Survey: U.S. Muslims Assimilated, Opposed to Extremism," says The Washington Post. "American Muslims reject extremes," says USA Today. The Chicago Tribune: "U.S. Muslims more content, assimilated than those abroad." (At least the Trib's subhead reads: "But 1-in-4 youths sympathize with suicide bombers.") USA Today features this summary prominently: "Muslim Americans are very much like the rest of the country." Those are the words of Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

These headlines and quotes are not wrong per se, just incomplete, misleading and indicative of the "kid gloves" treatment this issue receives. Sure, the majority of American Muslims are peaceable and well-assimilated. Many are not. No newspaper should try to "manage" away these facts.

For instance, the "good news" of "U.S. Muslims more content, assimilated than those abroad" is born out by some of the data, but it is probably not the case regarding the suicide-bombing question. In a survey released last month, the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes asked respondents in Morocco, Egypt, Pakistan and Indonesia whether terrorist attacks on civilians can be justified. The results: 27 percent of Moroccans, 21 percent of Egyptians, 13 percent of Pakistanis and 11 percent of Indonesians replied in the affirmative. If both polls are accurate, this means that American Muslims are twice as likely as Pakistanis to give the wrong answer. That's a big "if." But certainly the picture is less clear than the media portray it.

http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20070523-092313-6307r.htm

You can download the complete report (pdf) at http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=329. Go to p.54 to see the actual data. As you will see, the actual figures reported required a little SNOTT (selective neglect of the truth) to get that figure of "1 in 4" or 25% which is repeated THREE TIMES in the editorial, and interpreted as meaning "hundreds of thousands of our neighbors" are terrorists. For those who don't want to d/l a pdf file, here's some more excerpts:

Can Suicide Bombing be Justified?

In addition to being more concerned about the rise of Islamic extremism, Muslims in the U.S. are far less likely than Muslims in other parts of the world to accept suicide bombing as a justifiable tactic. The overwhelming majority of Muslims in the U.S. (78%) say that the use of suicide bombing against civilian targets to defend Islam from its enemies is never justified. In this regard, American Muslims are more opposed to suicide bombing than are Muslims in nine of the 10 other countries surveyed in 2006; opposition is somewhat greater among Muslims in Germany (83%).

There are few differences on this question in the United States across Muslim ethnic groups, but age is an important factor. Younger Muslims in the U.S. are more willing to accept suicide bombing in the defense of Islam than are their older counterparts. Among Muslims younger than 30, for example, 15% say that suicide bombing can often or sometimes be justified (2% often, 13% sometimes), while about two-thirds (69%) say that such tactics are never justified. Among Muslims who are 30 or older, by contrast, just 6% say suicide bombings can be often or sometimes justified, while 82% say such attacks are never warranted.

Unfortunately, even in the report, the answers "often" and "sometimes" are conflated. Still, it's clear that only among a certain age cohort is it at all common to express support for suicide bombers. And frankly, no one should get excited about numbers down in the 2-3% range, because that's below the margin of error of the poll (5% at 95% confidence)! Pick a sample of ANY group of people in a random poll, and ask "How many are just plain nuts?" and you'll get numbers higher than that, even when the answers are voluntary.

The WORST news out of this poll -- and the one that the Moonie Editorial Board chooses to regard as the only important news -- is that a substantial number of younger Muslims in America consider suicide bombings for the cause of Islam to be justified, at least sometimes, including "rarely". Given that about 28% of Americans consider it perfectly acceptable, even mandatory, to bomb people into bloody bits just for being Muslim, I can only say I am a little surprised it is that low.

One last thing I learned from reviewing this survey: I deeply regret that * is a bloody mass murderer, but still not a suicide bomber.





on edit: forgot a link.

[azurnoir]

1. Some of the other OMG we're in mortal danger

findings are that 40% of Muslims do not believe that Arabs carried out the 9/11 attacks, there is a CBS/Times poll that states 84% of Americans overall do not believe the governments story and that the government is covering up, now that should be eye opening but unless it's Muslims it is a big yawn

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/October2006/141006poll.htm