What a Billion Muslims Really Think

Today I stumbled across this very enlightening film, the result of a six-year project by the Gallup Poll:

Gallup researchers began by asking the questions on every American’s mind. Why is there so much anti-Americanism in the Muslim world? Who are the extremists and how do Muslims feel about them? What do Muslims like and dislike about the West? What do Muslim women really want?

Crucial policy decisions hang on these questions. They continue to generate passionate disagreements in the public square. Yet for all the heat and controversy, the actual views of the world’s Muslims have been conspicuously missing from this debate.

Now, we have the missing answers and statistics, gathered, parsed, and analyzed not by pundits but by professional researchers.

As part of this groundbreaking six-year project, Gallup conducted tens of thousands of interviews with residents in 35 predominantly Muslim nations, as well as smaller populations in Europe and the USA. The broad extent of the polling has delivered findings for the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims with a plus or minus accuracy of 3%

Focused on the issues of Gender Justice, Terrorism, and Democracy –the film presents this remarkable data deftly, showing how it challenges the popular notion that Muslims and the West are on a collision course. Like the research, the film highlights a shared relationship that is based on facts – not fear.

I've been wanting to find something like this ever since 9/11.  It was produced in 2010, before the "Arab Spring" uprisings this year.  You can watch the whole 58-minute film at Snag Films.

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A personal note:  I had a date one time years ago with a Muslim IT professional from North Africa; he was a sweet guy, very likeable.  I knew some Muslim foreign students in college, and have occasionally met or worked with some other Muslims through the years since.  Of course, none of them were monsters or terrorists.

But try telling that to all the proud ChristiansandAmericans here in small-town Texas.  The analogy of the Ku Klux Klan versus ordinary peaceable Christians they don't even get; washes right over their heads.

Which of course is the same reaction as with any other group that is Not Our Kind.  The old, old human story.