Ignorance breeds distrust

By Waleed Aly
June 30, 2006

A study has found Westerners and Muslims view each other in much the same way, writes Waleed Aly.

Relations between Muslims and Westerners are at present in a state of crisis. I can say this, now, without significant fear of contradiction. With all their disagreements, even contemporary Muslims and Westerners seem to agree on that much. Except, for some unexplained reason, in Pakistan.

At least, that is the portrait painted by a Pew Global Attitudes Survey, released late last week, on how Westerners and Muslims view each other.

It's the first significant survey of its kind, spanning over 14,000 people in 13 countries across Asia, Europe, Africa and America. And it makes for absorbing, compulsory reading for anyone interested in knowing to what extent the clash of civilisations is all in our heads.

To that end, the Pew survey unearthed some profoundly significant points of connection. Muslims overwhelmingly believe democracy can work well in the Muslim world. And perhaps most significantly in the contemporary political context, majorities in almost all countries are substantially concerned about the rise of Islamic extremism. In any struggle against such militancy, it seems most of the world, Muslims included, are on the same side. That speaks more to the possibility of an alliance of civilisations.

Certainly, there are enough differences in perspective to say the intercivilisational gulf will take some bridging. Each side is more inclined to blame the other for the world's woes than itself. Smaller percentages across the board hold both responsible. Yet, for all the glaring opposition of these views, they come ultimately from the same resistance to engaging in honest introspection (though this is less marked in the Western societies surveyed than their Muslim counterparts).

Perhaps as a result, Westerners and Muslims do not hold each other in especially high regard at present.

Western respondents tended to see Muslims as fanatical, violent, intolerant, and disrespectful towards women. This, frankly, is hardly a shock. What might surprise Western readers is that Muslim populations tend to think of them in precisely the same way - though they add that Westerners are selfish, immoral and greedy for good measure.

We should pause for reflection here. If Westerners immediately, and correctly, recognise that these Muslim perceptions of them are stereotyped nonsense, they may also be inclined to reconsider the accuracy of their own stereotyped view of Muslims. True, Westerners can point to cliches in support of their caricatures (terrorism, honour killings), but so can Muslims (military invasion, pornography). Each has some factual basis, but the result is a false, essentialised typecast of countless astonishingly diverse, complex societies.

There might be mutual hostility here, but there's a compelling symmetry, too. Indeed, paradoxically, these results may have highlighted some common ground from which an intercivilisational relationship can progress. Each may view the other as violent, intolerant and disrespecting of women, but at least everyone agrees these traits are worthy of condemnation. This implies that they may be the universal, or at least common, values on which further dialogue could be built.

But just as compellingly, the Pew survey demonstrates the importance of familiarity in such a process.

The pioneering contribution of this research is that, for the first time, significant Muslim minorities in several European countries were surveyed specifically as a separate group. Unlike their co-religionists abroad who have little or no contact with Western society, European Muslims' views of Westerners were generally positive: largely describing them as tolerant, generous, and respectful towards women. They reject, by large majorities, the suggestion that Westerners are violent. They are also more likely to accept that Muslims are at least partly to blame for Muslim-Western hostilities than societies in Muslim homelands.

European Muslims occupy a precious middle ground in what is otherwise generally polarised terrain. Undoubtedly this is due to their inevitably more nuanced understanding of both Muslims and the West, which neatly demonstrates that if a gulf exists between the Muslim and Western worlds, it will be people whose knowledge and experience spans both that are capable of bridging it.

Australia is no exception to this rule. A study of Australian attitudes to Muslims published earlier this year by Kevin Dunn at the University of New South Wales found that younger people, who had more contact with Muslims than did older Australians, were less likely to view Islam as a threat. Familiarity, it seems, does not always breed contempt. It might be our best hope.

The clash of civilisations, therefore, feeds off foreignness - literally xenophobia - not reality. To a very real extent, it is in our heads. Certainly, it is in our hands.

Waleed Aly is a secondee solicitor at the Human Rights Law Resource Centre.