22nd May 2007

25% of Muslim youth young, hotheaded

posted by saurabh in Stackable Coffins |

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 on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007 at 7:55 pm | Stackable Coffins | feed | reply | trackback

There are currently 3 responses to “25% of Muslim youth young, hotheaded”

  1. 1 On May 25th, 2007, hibiscus said:

    first the question the pew people asked was this:

    Some people think that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets are justified in order to defend Islam from its enemies. Other people believe that, no matter what the reason, this kind of violence is never justified. Do you personally feel that this kind of violence is often justified to defend Islam, sometimes justified, rarely justified, or never justified?

    both of the news stories mischaracterized the question as being related only to suicide bombings. the error comes from the executive summary of the report itself:

    In addition, younger Muslims in the U.S. are more likely than older Muslim Americans to express a strong sense of Muslim identity, and are much more likely to say that suicide bombing in the defense of Islam can be at least sometimes justified.

    also the support for al-qaeda is badly skewed by this:

    strong hostility toward al Qaeda varies widely – 63% of foreign-born U.S. Muslims say they have a very unfavorable opinion of al Qaeda, compared with 51% of all native-born Muslims, and just 36% of African American Muslims.

    IOW, black muslims are pissed. the chance that the suicide-et-al question was also skewed by this is high but isn’t addressed in the report.

    i like the free press headline. wouldn’t it be fun to see something like, “more than 70% of US christians call a nuclear first strike unjustifiable” — something that would really give the world pause. i have the feeling the nuke-’em crowd is maybe 25-30% but it could be a little bigger, seeing as there are tactical nukes and all.

    relating to the poll, if you throw palestine in with everything else, your numbers are totally useless. doesn’t matter how thorough you were.

  2. 2 On May 25th, 2007, hibiscus said:

    i am developing a real love/hate thing for polls these days.

  3. 3 On May 25th, 2007, hibiscus said:

    sorry can’t edit but something needs to be clearer.

    the importance of the black muslim response skewing the numbers is this:

    “by any means necessary” and “shooting a police officer” are well inside the definition “suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets”. you see arab; poll sees malcolm?

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