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Politics : New FADG. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Hawkmoon who wrote (423)5/18/2007 10:30:53 AM
From: one_lessRead Replies (2) | Respond to of 4152
 
Silent majority? Sure but I find moderate Muslims getting shouted down more often by people like Nadine than by other Muslims ... at least in free society; and then I see them go silent with a 'what's the point?' attitude. They demand we speak out just so they can humiliate us in public ... sure that makes sense?

Resolution is to be found in reasoned discourse among people who have a common purpose to encourage well being among their brethren not by standing up moderate muslims as objects of ridicule. JMO

Have Peace,
Gem



To: Hawkmoon who wrote (423)5/18/2007 6:56:13 PM
From: kumarRead Replies (1) | Respond to of 4152
 
Majority Muslims reject terrorism: Survey

WASHINGTON/LAHORE: A large majority of Muslims across the world have been forthright in rejecting terrorism, according to a US survey that says the findings were "surprising".

But only 46 per cent US nationals and Europeans are ready to reject terrorism, while 24 per cent of those surveyed have said that terror attacks are "sometimes justified".

In an interesting twist to what has been touted as "a clash of civilizations", spurred by 9/11, even supporters of international mastermind Osama bin Laden "most overwhelmingly approved of specific American actions in their own countries".

Eighty-six per cent Pakistanis, 81 per cent Bangladeshis and 74 per cent Indonesians said they rejected terrorism.

Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Nigeria were the Muslim nations where 20 surveys have been conducted over the last two years by the University of Maryland that covered the US and Europe.

The Daily Times did not indicate which of the European nations were surveyed. Entitled 'Terror Free Tomorrow', the survey says a half of the Westerners associated Islam and Muslims with terrorism.

For most Muslims surveyed, their professed support of terrorism/Bin Laden could be more accurately characterised as a kind of "protest vote" against current US foreign policies, not as a deeply held religious conviction or even an inherently anti-American or anti-Western view.

According to the survey, "In truth, the common enemy is violence and terrorism, not Muslims any more than Christians or Jews. Whether recruits to violent causes join gangs in Los Angeles or terrorist cells in Lahore, the enemy is the violence they exalt. America's goal, in partnership with Muslim public opinion, should be to defeat terrorists by isolating them from their own societies.

"The most effective policies to achieve that goal are the ones that build on our common humanity. And we can start by recognising that Muslims throughout the world want peace as much as Americans do."

According to the Christian Science Monitor, public opinion surveys in the US and Europe show that nearly half of Westerners associate Islam with violence and Muslims with terrorism.

Given the many radicals who commit violence in the name of Islam around the world, that's an understandable polling result. But these stereotypes, affirmed by simplistic media coverage and many radicals themselves, are not supported by the facts - and they are detrimental to the 'war on terror'.

"When the West wrongly attributes radical views to all of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims, it perpetuates a myth that has the very real effect of marginalising critical allies in the 'war on terror'", says the Christian Science Monitor.

Indeed, the far-too-frequent stereotyping of Muslims serves only to reinforce the radical appeal of the small minority of Muslims who peddle hatred of the West and others as authentic religious practice, it says.

timesofindia.indiatimes.com