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Subject: tell us somethin we dont know...

recurve 26.02.15 - 09:34am
Their survey of British Muslims delighted the BBC: In fact, it contains some profoundly chilling findings, says STEPHEN GLOVER * +

recurve 26.02.15 - 09:35am


Yesterday, I awoke to hear what sounded like very good news on the BBC. A survey commissioned by the Corporation had found that the overwhelming majority of British Muslims oppose violence against people who publish images depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

Not only that. According to the same BBC ComRes poll, 95 per cent of Muslims in this country feel a loyalty to Britain a very reassuring tribute to the incomers' keenness to support this country's values.

But statistics, as we all know, can be very misleading sometimes dangerously so. They can be presented in a way that suits a particular agenda. For the truth is, the survey that so delighted Auntie contains results which most people, I believe, will find alarming.
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recurve 26.02.15 - 09:36am
A headline on the BBC's website proclaimed: 'Most British Muslims 'oppose Muhammad cartoons reprisals'.' But, looking more carefully, one discovered that 27 per cent of Muslims questioned said they had some sympathy for the motives behind the recent attacks on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, in which 11 people died.

Imagine if you read a headline which said 'Most people oppose the blowing up of Parliament'. That's not news. It's what you would expect. But a headline which stated that 'A quarter of Britons would be sympathetic to the bombing of Parliament' would be absolutely terrifying.

It is reassuring that most British Muslims oppose violent reprisals, but the really shocking thing for me (though evidently not for the BBC) is that more than a quarter of them have some sympathy for the killers who murdered 11 people in cold blood.
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recurve 26.02.15 - 09:37am
Of course, we don't know what having 'some sympathy' precisely entails. It obviously doesn't mean that a quarter of Muslims would have taken part in the attack if they had been invited to do so. But it indubitably implies a degree of support and endorsement for a murderous act. * +

recurve 26.02.15 - 09:37am
There were other disturbing findings underplayed by the BBC. Twenty-four per cent of respondents said that they supported violence against anyone who published images of the Prophet Muhammad, while almost half 45 per cent believed that extremist clerics who preached violence against the West were not 'out of touch'. Moreover, 11 per cent felt 'sympathetic' to jihadists who wanted to fight against Western interests.

Let me repeat what I wrote in this column after the Charlie Hebdo outrage. I said that the magazine plainly hated religion, whether Christianity or Islam, and did not respect the beliefs of ordinary religious people. But that, needless to say, did not justify killing its journalists.

So, I have a lot of respect for the 78 per cent of Muslim respondents who say they are offended when images of the Prophet Muhammad are published. I understand their feelings. I happen to be offended by crude depictions of Jesus Christ, as are most Christians.
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recurve 26.02.15 - 09:38am
But the lurch from being offended to sympathising with those who espouse violence against the people responsible for the images is enormous. According to the 2011 census, the Muslim population in Britain was 2.71 million, an increase of well over a million in only a decade.

The idea that nearly three-quarters of a million of them may theoretically be in favour of violent action against supposed blasphemers leaves me feeling very depressed about the future of this country.

A poll after the 7/7 suicide bomb attacks in London in 2005, in which 52 civilians were killed, produced remarkably similar findings. A survey of 1,000 Muslims suggested that 23 per cent thought terrorist acts could be justified because of the then Labour government's support for the 'war on terror'. The most hardline views came from Muslims under the age of 24.
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recurve 26.02.15 - 09:41am
There's no doubt that this often misguided war has resulted in the needless deaths of many innocent Muslims, and the persecution and even torture of a few of them. The anger of young Muslims is easy to understand, and I am sure I would feel it if I were one of them.

But being angry is one thing. Supporting violence and, in the most extreme cases, going to Syria to fight for ISIS, as several hundred young Muslim Britons have done is quite another.

Most British Muslims are plainly decent, hard-working people, often more loyal to their families and more caring of their elderly than their white British counterparts. The great majority of them are good citizens who feel strong affection for this country.

We have to face the fact, though, that a significant minority do not share British values of tolerance, and that for some of these people violence seems to be a legitimate response to perceived slights to their religion.
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