by afew
Sat May 9th, 2009 at 03:44:06 AM EST
Fran posted a link in the Salon yesterday to a BBC article about a survey run by Gallup and the Coexist Foundation on Muslims in Europe, particularly (though not exclusively) in Germany, Britain, and France. The survey comes in fact from The Muslim West Facts Project, an initiative in favour of peaceful coexistence and understanding between the three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), in which the Coexist Foundation uses data gathered for it by the Gallup World Poll. The survey, entitled The Gallup Coexist Index 2009: A Global Study of Interfaith Relations, With an in-depth analysis of Muslim integration in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom can be downloaded as a .pdf here.
My particular identity as a practising SRA* was chafed by some aspects of the survey, (more of that anon). But there's a great deal of interesting stuff in there, and it almost entirely suggests that the people running around with their hair on fire yelling about civilisation clash and the growing Muslim threat to Europe are missing the picture (as most of us here have always thought... [NB This blatant appeal to indulge in confirmation bias probably deserves Devil's Advocate™ treatment]).
But here's a nice chart to start with:
*SRA secular republican atheist
And now for a breakdown on the same question regarding France, Germany, and Britain:
However, when the question is the degree of strong identification with one's religion, the results are mitigated:
The BBC article referenced by Fran chose these data to pinpoint because of the identification with the country of residence aspect. It's interesting to note that very or extremely strong identification with one's religion stands, in the non-Muslim public of all three countries, at exactly the same level, 23%, while identification with one's country is roughly similar in Britain and France, lower in Germany (unsurprisingly, given the low esteem in which nationalism is held there). But of course the extent to which Muslims say they identify with their country is the main point: more than the rest of the population in Britain and Germany, roughly at the same level in France.
One might expect a certain amount of bias here, in that Muslims, aware of the suspicion that surrounds them since 9/11 (and the London Underground attacks of July 2005), may want to underline their loyalty to the country they live in. Here's another question:
From which it's clear that only a minority of non-Muslim people in all three countries consider that Muslims living in the country are loyal, while Muslims consider themselves loyal by very large majorities, highest in Britain. That's almost a protest vote - which can only, it seems to me, be taken as a declaration of intent to live as normal citizens of the country.
Another question that reveals a wish to live tolerantly alongside fellow-citizens of other religions (and, one hopes, of no religion), concerns the kind of neighbourhood people would want to live in (the question also cites ethnicity):
A series of questions concerns terrorism - violence, attacks on civilians - and reprobation of such acts is general among Muslims. In Britain, though, the use of violence in a noble cause gets, for some reason, a different response than when the question is attacks on civilians (89% say these cannot be justified at all):
Perceptions
There are also a number of questions about the way people perceive their life, their experience, their feelings. One (that also includes the US) is based on a subjective current assessment of one's life along with a projection into the future, on a scale called Cantrill:
Respondents who say they presently stand on step 7 or higher of the ladder and expect to stand on step 8 or higher in five years are classified as “thriving.” Those who say they currently stand on steps 0 to 4 and also expect to stand on steps 0 to 4 five years from now are classified as “suffering.” Respondents who fall neither in the “thriving” nor the “suffering” category are considered “struggling.”
The following are intriguing, (though no results are available for German Muslims), particularly because of the low readings for positive life experience given by British Muslims, while French Muslims appear to perceive their experience of daily life as positively (if not more so) as the non-Muslim population:
Has anyone an explanation or comment to offer on this?
Gallup Coexist Index
OK, it's cool to have an index and do rankings, and they haven't resisted the temptation here. I rather wish they had, because this is the bit that irritates me somewhat. The index is based on responses - a rating from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) - to five questions:
- I always treat people of other religious faiths with respect.
- Most religious faiths make a positive contribution to society.
- I would not object to a person of a different religious faith moving next door.
- People of other religions always treat me with respect.
- In the past year, I have learned something from someone of another religious faith.
The assumption throughout is that the respondent has a religious faith, and this is borne out by the history of the index, originally developed "to measure Americans’ attitudes toward religious faiths that are different from their own" - a rather American assumption that everyone is some kind of religion or another. OK, I know all Americans don't share it, but it's much more general than in Europe: an index framed this way probably wouldn't have seen the light of day here.
It gets worse, imo, with the interpretation of the results:
From the combination of their answers, Gallup classifies populations as:
Isolated: Isolated individuals tend not to be members of any particular faith group, but if they are, they tend to believe in the truth of their perspective above all others. They do not want to know about other religions. They also neither respect nor feel respected by those of other faiths.
Tolerant: Tolerant individuals have a “live-and-let-live” attitude toward people of other faiths, and they generally feel that they treat others of different faiths with respect. However, they are not likely to learn from or about other religions.
Integrated: Integrated individuals go beyond a “live-and-let-live” attitude and actively seek to know more about and learn from others of different religious traditions. They believe that most faiths make a positive contribution to society. Furthermore, integrated people not only feel they respect people from other faith traditions, but they also feel respected by them.
It seems clear that the scale implies value judgements: it's assumed that having religious faith is a positive value in itself. The best case is "integrated", the worst "isolated", and to get to the better groups you need to be religious or at the very least have a very positive view of the role of religion. If you have no religion, you're going to be sharing the "isolated" box with both religious bigots and probably people suffering from real cultural isolation. There are values I can relate to in the "tolerant" section, and as far as I'm concerned no more should be asked of citizens than what's written there.
But, beyond the Index, there are lots more series (including "real" integration and ethical questions) in the survey, the questions are clearly quoted, it's well worth a look.
Note: the margin of error is +/- 5%
