SPIEGEL ONLINE: One in Four Americans Holds Anti-Muslim Views

(By Ray D.)

See! This is what our magnanimous friends in the German media have been trying to tell you bigoted, mind-numbed, neo-con Americans all along! This type of anti-Muslim resentment is just unacceptable racism! These horrible attitudes are clearly contributing to the cycle of violence. Osama bin Laden would forgive you if you just embraced the goodness of Islam and the Sharia. Why can't we all just love one another? Thank goodness Americans have SPIEGEL ONLINE to show them the error of their ways and point them in the right direction...It's just too bad that the American people can't be as enlightened and tolerant as their generous European brothers and compatriots in Germany...

WHOOPS! Don't let anyone see these numbers...

"When asked what they think of in association with the word "Islam" some 93 percent of Germans said "oppression of women", 83 percent said "terror", 82 percent said "fanatics and radicals", 70 percent said "dangerous", 66 per cent said "backward." (Poll results from Germany's Allensbach polling agency via expatica.com.)

Could this be another case of SPIEGEL ONLINE bashing America and ignoring domestic issues when the situation at home in Germany is in fact far, far worse? Well, I guess we can't blame them, defaming America and Americans has become a national sport over the past few years in the German media. And besides, introspection hurts and it doesn't sell nearly as many magazines!

Comments

[karsten]

Hi David,

the one thing i'd add to this, because that same spiegel headline made me chuckle at the idiocy and shake my head at the fact germans will take this to heart is, the US study that was done was done by an american-islam society, which to me, points to tremendous bias due to the fact that these groups are created in order to further islamic causes, and one way to do that is to guilt americans into treating the muslim community better by saying that so many of them are racist.

Wow, that was one sentence!

[Trish]

Hi David,

boy am I glad you keep a cool head. My blood started to boil - but then I saw the poll is allensbach -

"dass der Islam Hass und Gewalt predigt, oder dass Muslime das Leben weniger schätzen als Angehörige anderer Kulturen. 29 Prozent der 1000 interviewten Amerikaner waren der Ansicht, dass Muslime den American Way of Life ändern wollen."

This statement is true if you exchange islam with islamo-fascists.

thanks
Trish

[Pamela]

karsten
one way to do that is to guilt americans into treating the muslim community better by saying that so many of them are racist.

And, believe me, it won't work.

[Don]

I'm willing to bet that a lot more Americans were anti-German during and after WWII!

I came across a novel in a resale shop from a fovorite author dating from those years. I'd never seen it before, and for good reason. It was set in 1857 and was a story of conflict between 'good' Irish laboreres and the German millowners. The Germans were portrayed as lacking in any human sentiment. War propaganda. Not her best work. I've read many books of hers which were far better.

[Don]

One more thing. With Bin Laden and the militants lopping off heads of hostages being the public face fo Islam in the community these days, such perceptions are inescapable.

I suspect that if a similar poll were taken about perceptions of Christians in the US, the words backward, dangerous, and fanatic would be prominent.

[Thomas Hazlewood]

"When asked what they think of in association with the word "Islam" some 93 percent of Germans said "oppression of women", 83 percent said "terror", 82 percent said "fanatics and radicals", 70 percent said "dangerous", 66 per cent said "backward"

Oops! Thought this was a 1936 poll of German views on the Sudetenland. (Or, maybe it's a 2004 poll of the French on Israel) Yah, sarcasm...hehe

[Jeff]

Don is correct. Islamofascists may have crossed the tipping point with the carnage in Belsan. Before they had always gaines some sympathy fighting the imperialist and "oppressive" West. But when you start attacking children, people's perceptions change drastically. That sort of attrocity hits too close to home.

However, I will note this rule does not seem apply to Israel.

[Jeff]

Fair enough. But the attention was much more focused on the children in the Russian incident than in those prior ones.

[Schulz]

Leaving aside the anti-American spin of the German media for a moment, does the Allensbach poll really show that Germans have racist attitudes towards contemporary Islam, or does it show a rather realistic view?

[doug]

Morning all. Lets see if I can type today without leaving out every 3rd letter. :-)
I just don´t know anymore. Can it be that we are just beating our heads against the wall. Everytime I try to discuss any of these topics with friends and colleagues all i get are polite smiles (poor naive idiot) or blank looks.
I don´t think that anything is going to change. And maybe we should accept this. I´m so tired of being angry all the time. I don´t mean admitting defeat. I mean just let it go and sit back and watch Europes downward spiral. I was in the Bahnhof this morning. i wnated to buy a paer. so i went to the huge newsdealer that we have here in the Nürnberg Hauptbahnhof. And right inside of the main entrance is a huge table of anti-American and anti-bush books. This display is placed that you are forced to go around it when you walk in. How do you combat this bullshit. It is plain and simply Volksverhetzung. An old Fascist and communist trick. It makes me sick to my stomach. No matter what we do America with or without Pres. Bush will remain the enemy/Feindbild. The refuse to see us in any other light. Weither we are stupid racists who hate Moslems. Or Neo Fascists. Or Zionist dupes.
Or what ever. They wish to believe in these lies and will accept any drivel that re-enforces this belief system. There is no discussion or debate on this/these topics in the German/euro media. And as long as this doesn´t change their will be no dissenting views put before the public. We should simply write off these folks and move on. You can lead a horde to water. But you can´t make him think.
and what makes me so disgusted with myself is that a part of me wants to see this place crash and burned just so I can feel vindicated.
And that makes me very disgusted with myself to even feel this way. I´m better than that. but then again so should the majority of people over here. but it looks as though maybe they aren´t. who knows. Time will tell. WE HAVE DONE NOTHING TO DESERVE THIS!!!!!!

[Der Falke]

The poll which was cited by SPIEGEL ONLINE was conducted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which is an islamist organization. Many of the statements which CAIR condems as "anti-muslim resentment" are actually promoted by CAIR itself. CAIR supports violence in the name of Islam (e.g. terrorism/"legitimate resistance" against Israel). One of CAIR's founders said that Islam should dominate America. What some people call resentment should rather be called realism. If Muslims want to change they way their religion is perceived they should fight the growing trend of islamic totalitarianism instead on attacking critics.

[ralph]

@doug

Doug,

I really share your exasperation though or because I hail from Germany. Your national pride is offended - so is mine:

I should love my country but it becomes more and more embarrassing even to appreciate her: I really feel ashamed looking at all those journalists and media pundits repeating their arrogant prejudices against the US, displaying their moral and intellectual superiority, they haughtily pretend to have.

You think you suffer from all that? Yes, sure, but you can consolate yourself just saying: "I´m a proud member of the US-citizenry", just shrugging off all the hatred and resentment; whereas I am condemned to witness the stubborn rivival of anti-western ideology -being the core or nucleus of German fascism and stalinism- that has seduced and led astray the "Volk der Dichter und Denker" already two times.

It´s not always our pleasure but it´s always our duty to care for our own country: There are many flaws, failures, mischievous decisions etc. to be detected in the history of the US (segregation; native americans ...): Actually, they did not remain concealed, eventually they were revealed, causing bitterness, anger but then they were cured by the american people without foreign teachings. If there are some failures within the american history one must admit that -as a whole- Germany´s history during the last century (1914 - 1989) came out to b e an ignoble failure and a prolonged vice. If we do not want to continue to go downhill we have to get rid of that anti-american resentment, for it is a dangerous impediment in our own development: For our own sake we should not prefer the German Way to at least essential elements of the american way of life.

Shall we become a mini-US, swallowed up by America? No!

Is she urging us to become such a mini-US? No!

Will there be a benefit for Germany having a close and friendly look at american, especially(neo-)conservative philosophy? Yes!

Should we simply copy it? No!

Should we open our minds towards the inspiring power and the overwhelmingly rich store of american right-wing thinking? Yes!

So Doug, there are so many reasons for you to be proud of your nation, which has always been -as Perl/Frum put it- "the hope of the world": For Germans who were compelled to leave the country, driven out by the Nazis for instant, that was true; for Germans who try to break the chains of self-sufficiency and resignation, in which our nation seems to be transfixed, it is true; and perhaps for a German just writing a book aiming at a reconciliation/"revividation" of German traditions with/by means of (neo-)conservative ideas this promising hope will be a true one.

So, Doug, simply shun these "newsdealers" and do not feel alone! You are not alone, since I share your indignation.

[Don]

Islamofascists may have crossed the tipping point with the carnage in Belsan.

I'm not sure there IS a turning point for the Germans, Jeff. Wouldn't the WTC disaster qualify as much as the Beslan atrocity? Yet they were yammering about Yankee warmongering within days or weeks. How about the Madrid bombings in March? That wasn't enough either. No, I think it would take something like the bombing of a German school. And not one filled with Turks, either!

The adopted homeland of Mohammed Atta isn't about to change it's collective mind....

[Ray D.]

@ Doug,

I feel your pain...I was in Nuernberg for 5 years...yeah, I remember the Hauptbahnhof well...here's another tip...don't go into the upstairs section of the Hügendubel on Breite Gasse...and keep your head up! They ought to be ashamed, not you Doug.

---Ray D.

[ohno]

Ah yes. Those horrible Germans. What good can all this negative thinking result in? One just has to hope the Germans will someday embrace Islam wholeheartdly.

Then they might be more in tune with the feelings of the tolerant and diverse Muslim world:

"Osama bin Laden, however, is viewed favorably by large percentages in Pakistan (65%), Jordan (55%) and Morocco (45%). Even in Turkey, where bin Laden is highly unpopular, as many as 31% say that suicide attacks against Americans and other Westerners in Iraq are justifiable."
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=206

See - only one in three Turks feels it is totally acceptable to kill innocent men, women and children.

And a whopping seven percent of Al-Jazeeras viewers feel kidnappings and beheadings aren't the way to go:

"The issue of foreign hostages in Iraq was examined this week on the most heated discussion programme on the Middle East's most-watched television station, al-Jazeera. (...)
[Iraqi politician, Karim Badr asked the viewers:]Is the killing of people and exploding cars in the streets an act of resistance? Is the kidnapping and murder of people in this manner an act of resistance? I am certain they do not represent the Iraqi conscience in any way at all.
Viewers were unmoved. In a phone poll 93% supported the kidnappings."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3684324.stm

Truly, Islam is the religion of peace.
We must let more muslims into the EU as soon as possible.

[Wired]

Some interesting essays on Islam and Islamofascism:

www.divine-salamis.com

A must-read!

[purplehaze]

My impression is that German PC-ism forces people to pay lip-service to tolerance in public and to express their suppressed, non- "salonfähige" opinions in the form of anonymous surveys or in private - or at the polling booths.