Tension Is About Politics, Not Religion

By Rami G. Khouri
This commentary was published in The Daily Star on 15/12/2010 

Once in a while a piece of analytical research comes around that is truly essential reading for anyone interested in exploring why relations are so tense, aggressive, and occasionally violent, between many people in the United States, other Western countries and the Arab-Islamic region.

The report just released by the Gallup company, “Measuring the State of Muslim-West Relations: Assessing the ‘New Beginning,’” is one such study that deserves to be widely read by politicians, journalists, faith leaders and academics throughout the world (it is available for free at www.gallup.com). The survey data from interviews with over 123,000 people in 55 countries between 2006 and 2010 touches on critical core sentiments and issues that need to be better understood if we ever hope to reverse the cycle of violence and mistrust that now plagues so many Arabs, Muslims, Americans and Westerners.

Following up Gallup’s ground-breaking 2008 study, “Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think,” this new report explores three critical themes in how Muslims perceive Muslim-West tensions: the importance of politics as opposed to religion; the critical role of ‘respect’; and the role of conflicts in Muslim lands that involve Western powers. It also compares and contrasts individuals who express an interest in Muslim-West engagement and those who do not, and summarizes public attitudes in three conflict areas: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Palestinian Territories.

The following seem to me to be the most important findings of the report, which should be digested especially by policy-makers in Western and Muslim societies alike:

First, Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), compared to Muslims in other regions of the world, place the highest importance on the quality and importance of Muslim-West relations. MENA residents tend to believe Muslims communities are committed to improving ties with the West – yet only minorities in these societies believe that the West is equally committed.

Second, the up and down movement in Muslims’ views of the United States and others in the West reflects another study finding: 40 percent of MENA residents and Europeans see political differences as the cause of tensions – not religion or culture. This figure rises to over 50 percent in Syria, Palestine and Iran, and to 74 percent in Lebanon. That is why, for example, Arab approval of the US rose measurably when Barack Obama was elected president, even before his mid-2009 Cairo speech about improving ties with the Muslim world. However, Muslims’ approval of the US leadership has dropped since then.

Third, those who see political differences as the key cause of bad relations also feel that violent conflict between majority Muslim and Western societies can be avoided. Those who see religion as the main cause of tensions tend to feel that conflict is inevitable (44 percent in the US and Canada and 51 percent in MENA).

Note this carefully: a majority of Muslims feels that most problems with the West can be resolved because they reflect political differences, not religious or cultural fissures. We all need to focus more on political issues and foreign policies, and give less attention to purely religious matters as a means to better relations, because religion is not the problem – policies are the problem.

Fourth, mutual respect is seen as deeply lacking among most Muslims, given that 63 percent of surveyed Muslims believe their societies respect the West but only 28 percent of the same Muslims feel the West respects them. Over half of Americans (53 percent) also say the West does not respect Muslim-majority societies.

The analysis about how Muslims define “respect” is a key finding of this study. When I spoke to Dalia Mogahed, the executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, who also heads the new Abu Dhabi Gallup Center, she explained an important nuance in their analysis: Most Muslims, as expected, see respecting holy symbols such as the Koran or the Prophet Mohammad as important gestures of respect (72 percent); but also, a high 54 percent of Muslims surveyed said that being treated fairly in politics was also important to their sense of respect. “Many Muslims see fair policies by foreign countries as deeply meaningful, which is another way of saying that they attach great importance to being treated with a sense of justice,” Mogahed explained to me on the phone from Abu Dhabi.

And fifth, Muslims and Westerners by strong majorities say that interaction between their societies is a benefit and not a threat. Those Muslims who are “ready” for engagement and better relations with the West also tend to be individuals who practice religion on a regular basis, which – again – highlights the fact that politics, not religion, is the place to seek the causes of tensions, as well as their solutions.

This important new study verifies some things we already knew, clarifies others, and sheds new light on areas that were not well understood. It reminds us that respect and policy, rather than religion per se, are the critical issues in Islamic-Western ties or tensions.