25% of Muslim youth young, hotheaded
A new survey released by the Pew Research Center is receiving widespread attention. The report, entitled “Muslim Americans: Middle class and mostly mainstream” is alarming to many people. Apparently, in the survey of 1050 Muslim Americans, fully a quarter of younger Muslims volunteered to strap on a suicide belt and detonate themselves in the name of Islam without prompting from the interviewer! At least that’s what I was led to believe.
Actually, if you’re going to parse it carefully, 26% of Muslims aged 18 to 29 in the United States said that suicide bombing of civilian targets could be rarely (11%) or often/sometimes (15%) justified. It’s very difficult to read that as support for Islamic extremism. (That’s probably what I would have answered.) Why? Because young people are more likely to take morally daring or morally equivocal positions than old people. No cause for surprise. Unfortunately they didn’t give comparable figures for non-Muslims. I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a significant percentage of youngsters who fell into that category.
posted by saurabh in Stackable Coffins | 3 Comments
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