Muslims, racists, individuals and attitudes.

[Prufrock]

Aye. Bangladesh needs to sort its shit out big time.

[Gary the Enfield]

Aye. Bangladesh needs to sort its shit out big time.

Scotland too.......

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ssage.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Bijou Bob]

Watching C4 tonight, the results of their survey of British Muslims are nothing short of frightening. And very sad.

[bobo the clown]

Watching C4 tonight, the results of their survey of British Muslims are nothing short of frightening. And very sad.

... and sadly inevitable.

[Montreal Wanderer]

Watching C4 tonight, the results of their survey of British Muslims are nothing short of frightening. And very sad.

For those of us who have never heard of C4 (I thought it was an explosive) can you provide an executive summary if what is frightening and sad?

[Bijou Bob]

Channel 4 (C4) had a documentary on last night relating the findings of a poll they had commissioned from ICM around the attitudes of British Muslims. If their data shows a true representation of their views, it confirmed much of what the right wing have been banging on about sadly ie. no intent to integrate shocking attitudes towards women and terror attacks and a desire to see Sharia law rolled out across the UK.

[Harry Genshaw]

Channel 4 (C4) had a documentary on last night relating the findings of a poll they had commissioned from ICM around the attitudes of British Muslims. If their data shows a true representation of their views, it confirmed much of what the right wing have been banging on about sadly ie. no intent to integrate shocking attitudes towards women and terror attacks and a desire to see Sharia law rolled out across the UK.

You're just trying to goad Spotty into posting again aren't you? !

[Hoboh]

Channel 4 has commissioned a NOP poll of British Muslims for Dispatches. Some of the results are in a pdf here, other questions are included. The Channel 4 website has all the questions here, but with results that differ slightly in places – possibly because they haven’t yet been weighted. Either way, the differences between the two sets of figures are trivial.

The pattern that emerges from the survey is familar from other surveys of Muslim opinion in the last year or so. There is no universal, monilithic Muslim opinion – there is as much variety as among non-Muslims. While a small minority of Muslims sympathise with extremism and Islamist terror, the vast majority do not.

Asked how important religion was to them 78% of British Muslims said very important, but 48% of them also said they never attended a mosque, with another 6% saying they only attended for special occassions. The actual religious observance of Muslims doesn’t seem to match with how important they say religion is to them (in some ways this is comparable to Christianity in Britain – in the census around 70% of people self-identified as Christians, but many of them say they don’t believe in a god and only a fraction attend church aside from for weddings and funerals).

61% of British Muslims said they thought of Britain as “my country”. There was support for some degree of integration – 94% of respondents disagreed that Muslims should live separately from non-Muslims but at the same time, given the choice 36% would prefer to have fellow Muslims as neighbours. Asked if they would prefer to live under Sharia law or British law, 30% said Sharia while 54% preferred British law. I mentioned in my comments on an earlier ICM poll Sharia law does not necessarily equate to the hand-chopping, adulterer-stoning version in the tabloid press, Western countries like Canada have in the past allowed the use of Sharia law under limited circumstances for things like inheritance law, so it was then impossible to tell exactly what people were supporting. In contrast NOP specifically stated in their poll “Sharia law, as practiced in such countries as Saudi Arabia and Iran” – perhaps explaining why the proportion of British Muslims supporting it was 10 percentage points lower than in ICM’s poll.

28% of British Muslims agreed that they dreamt of Britain one day becoming an Islamic state. Again, it’s worth putting this in proportion – I am sure many evangelical Christians would dream of the day when the whole world would embrace Christianity.

Asked about attitudes towards free speech, there was little support for freedom of speech if it would offend religious sensibilities. 78% of Muslims thought that the publishers of the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed should be prosecuted, 68% thought those who insulted Islam should be prosecuted and 62% of people disagree that freedom of speech should be allowed even if it insults and offends religious groups. This is one of those areas where it would be useful to have parallel polling of non-Muslims – we know from past polls that the general public think that things like the cartoons should be able to be published, but then, non-Muslims are not the ones offended by them. Perhaps the closest parallel of something that Christian groups thought was offensive and wanted banned was Jerry Springer the Opera – in that context a poll of the general public suggested that only 17% of people thought that programmes that might offend religious sensibilities should not be shown at all.

Back to the Muslim poll, NOP also asked if British Muslims thought that relgious leaders who supported terrorism should be removed – 68% agreed, with 22% disagreeing. Cross-referencing these results, NOP characterised 9% of the Muslims they surveyed as “hardcore Islamists” – people who thought that it was perfectly okay to speak in support of terrorism, but thought people should be prosecuted for insulting Islam. This small minority tallies with NOP’s other questions on terrorism – 9% of respondents said it was acceptable for religious or political groups to use violence, 13% of people said they understand why young British Muslims might become suicide bombers (though again, this needs to be put in context. Parallel polls of Muslims and non-Muslims have shown that there are a small minority of non-Muslims who think terrorist attacks on civilians can be justified).

NOP also gave respondents a list of people and asked them if they respected them or not. The most respected figure amongst British Muslims (out of those in the survey) was the Queen (69% respected her highly, or a fair amount), followed by Sir Iqbal Sacranie (48%) and then, perhaps surprisingly, Tony Blair (44%), narrowly ahead of George Galloway on (40%). More worryingly 19% say they respect Osama bin Laden (6% say they highly respect him), 17% respect Saddam Hussein and 16% respect Abu Hamza.

NOP also found a tendency for British Muslims to believe some, well, strange things. 45% thought that 9/11 was a conspiracy between the USA and Israel. 36% thought that Princess Diana was murdered to stop her marrying a Muslim. More seriously, only 29% thought that the holocaust occured, 2% denied it happened entirely, 17% think it was exaggerated (which is the stance proposed by most of today’s holocaust deniers), 24% said they had “no opinion” and 23% didn’t know what the holocaust was. Again though, putting this in context, non-Muslims think odd things too – an ICM poll in 2004 found 14% of people in the UK thought that the scale of the holocaust had been exaggerated, 27% of the general public told NOP in 2003 that Princess Diana had been murdered (a poll commissioned, unsurprisingly, for the Sunday Express). I can’t find a British poll on whether 9/11 was a US conspriracy, but I have little doubt that a substantial minority would say it was. Yes, a minority of Muslims believe bizarre things, but then a minority of non-Muslims do too!

[thebish]

^ that doesn't sound very scary?

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

People have different opinions that are sometimes inconsistent and seem strange to others shocker!

[BWFC_Insane]

^ that doesn't sound very scary?

That was my thought. If you surveyed ex-pats I reckon a high percentage would say they'd prefer British neighbours. I reckon there will be a decent percentage of white British people you could find who would support some fairly extreme points of view, more extreme than are laid out there.

[Gary the Enfield]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestantism_and_Islam" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Interesting read......

[Bijou Bob]

It may not sound scary when laid out as above, but the consequences of their beliefs on integration and violence as suggested in the programme, for my money are worrying. Unless you feel the idea of mono-ethnic communities, schools and workplaces, the potential growth of right wing extremism and the continuing maltreatment of women and other minority groups are a sound basis for the future success of this country and our safety and security? I'm sure no one on here holds those views.........

[thebish]

It may not sound scary when laid out as above, but the consequences of their beliefs on integration and violence as suggested in the programme, for my money are worrying. Unless you feel the idea of mono-ethnic communities, schools and workplaces, the potential growth of right wing extremism and the continuing maltreatment of women and other minority groups are a sound basis for the future success of this country and our safety and security? I'm sure no one on here holds those views.........

hoboh wants us to be mono-ethnic, I believe... (he keeps saying we shouldn't be multi-ethnic, anyway) Right wing extremism in the UK is by no means the sole preserve of Muslims - nor the maltreatment of women (as you well know MANY women are routinely beaten and murdered by their white british-born husbands/partners...) etc...

I guess I should watch the programme to be fair - but if you are saying that it sounded scary when channel four presented it - but it doesn't sound scary when the actual facts of the survey are simply written down - then I'd have to wonder if it's been a bit sexed-up to make it more scary/interesting for the telly... just a thought.

[Bijou Bob]

The comments written down lack some context. Unfortunately, Trevor Phillips seemed to believe the answer to integration is to set ethnic quotas for schools. That presupposes that both Muslim and non Muslim parents want to send their kids to integrated schools, which I'd suggest they don't and this can't obviously apply to faith schools.

[thebish]

The comments written down lack some context. Unfortunately, Trevor Phillips seemed to believe the answer to integration is to set ethnic quotas for schools. That presupposes that both Muslim and non Muslim parents want to send their kids to integrated schools, which I'd suggest they don't and this can't obviously apply to faith schools.

wasn't it a poll? what do you need to add in terms of context for the answers to a poll - other than the answers (and perhaps the questions asked)?

what evidence is there for your quite bold statement that "Muslim parents don't want to send their kids to integrated schools"? I could believe that if there was a "some" on the front - or even a percentage - but as it is, it doesn't chime with my own experience of muslim children in integrated schools in london...

as for quotas - that sounds daft to me...

[Bijou Bob]

The comments written down lack some context. Unfortunately, Trevor Phillips seemed to believe the answer to integration is to set ethnic quotas for schools. That presupposes that both Muslim and non Muslim parents want to send their kids to integrated schools, which I'd suggest they don't and this can't obviously apply to faith schools.

wasn't it a poll? what do you need to add in terms of context for the answers to a poll - other than the answers (and perhaps the questions asked)?

what evidence is there for your quite bold statement that "Muslim parents don't want to send their kids to integrated schools"? I could believe that if there was a "some" on the front - or even a percentage - but as it is, it doesn't chime with my own experience of muslim children in integrated schools in london...

as for quotas - that sounds daft to me...[/quote

If you'd read my post, you might have noticed I wrote Muslims and non Muslims, What evidence do I have? The significant numbers of Asian only primary schools in Bolton, Rochdale, Oldham, Bradford, Keighley and the well documented concept of 'White flight' in many areas. I could go on, but I won't. I may be talking rubbish, but if that's the case, as you seem to believe, then Trevor Phillips, who to be fair, should know a fair bit about this topic, also has it wrong. I suspect not.

[thebish]

The comments written down lack some context. Unfortunately, Trevor Phillips seemed to believe the answer to integration is to set ethnic quotas for schools. That presupposes that both Muslim and non Muslim parents want to send their kids to integrated schools, which I'd suggest they don't and this can't obviously apply to faith schools.

wasn't it a poll? what do you need to add in terms of context for the answers to a poll - other than the answers (and perhaps the questions asked)?

what evidence is there for your quite bold statement that "Muslim parents don't want to send their kids to integrated schools"? I could believe that if there was a "some" on the front - or even a percentage - but as it is, it doesn't chime with my own experience of muslim children in integrated schools in london...

as for quotas - that sounds daft to me...[/quote

If you'd read my post, you might have noticed I wrote Muslims and non Muslims, What evidence do I have? The significant numbers of Asian only primary schools in Bolton, Rochdale, Oldham, Bradford, Keighley and the well documented concept of 'White flight' in many areas. I could go on, but I won't. I may be talking rubbish, but if that's the case, as you seem to believe, then Trevor Phillips, who to be fair, should know a fair bit about this topic, also has it wrong. I suspect not.

tbh - never really been a fan of trevor phillips... have you?

[Bijou Bob]

Not particularly, but I do acknowledge his depth if experience and his opinions are always worth listening to, if only to start the debate.

[thebish]

Not particularly, but I do acknowledge his depth if experience and his opinions are always worth listening to, if only to start the debate.

to be clear - I don't think you're "talking rubbish", I just think that you have only offered evidence to suggest that "some" Muslim parents don't want to send their kids to integrated schools rather than your much bolder claim that "Muslims don't want to send their kids to integrated schools." I'm not aware that Trevor Phillips has ever agreed with the sweeping generalisation - so I am not accusing him of being wrong either...

what are you referring to when you suggest I am saying Trevor Phillips (in all his wisdom) is wrong?

i also don't see why the findings in that poll are particularly frightening...