On Monday 5 October 2009 Henry Hogger of Gallup will speak on “Muslim West Facts: Islam speaks for itself: Results of the The Gallup World Poll” followed by a commentary by a panel of experts from 12.30-1.30pm.
The World Poll is the flagship operation of the Gallup organization. For the first time, Gallup have included in it a section covering the opinions of people in some 35 predominantly or partly Muslim countries. Issues covered include democracy, extremism and women’s rights.
The results reveal some surprising – and for many Westerners probably counter-intuitive – facts about the opinions and aspirations of a representative sample of more than a billion Muslims. For example, the replies to questions about what people most and least admire about Western society overall bear a marked similarity to those given in a separate poll of public opinion in the USA.
Below is the link to the home page for the Gallup publication “Who Speaks for Islam?”, which summarizes the results of the Muslim section of the World Poll survey. The significance of these results, in Gallup’s view, is that they represent the opinions of Muslims themselves, as opposed to what other academics and "experts" think Muslims think. This view has led them to develop the Muslim West Facts project, in partnership with the London-based interfaith organization Coexist. The project aims to disseminate information about the data in the Gallup poll, as a contribution to ensuring that the debate on Muslim/West relations and the so-called “clash of civilizations” is better informed.
To support this effort, Gallup have appointed two “special representatives”, Henry Hogger, a former British diplomat, and Salman Shaikh, a former UN negotiator, to help increase awareness among "opinion leaders" in Europe of the data contained in the Gallup survey. The aim is to achieve this by briefing key politicians, academics, editors, business people and other opinion leaders on the results of the survey, and urging them to use the information in speeches, lectures and publications, so as to produce a wider public awareness of these results.
The special representatives will also be briefing their contacts about the outcome of a separate Gallup poll among Muslim communities in Britain, France and Germany, recently launched as the “Gallup Coexist Index 2009”. This contains some interesting insights into the attitudes of Muslims in Europe towards their host country: for example, answers to questions about the importance people attach to religion and country show that Muslims in these three countries are no less attached to their country of residence – and in some cases more so - than the general public as a whole; while Muslims in all three countries express a strong preference for living in mixed rather than monocultural communities. The information from this survey challenges some widespread misconceptions about Muslim communities in Europe, and should be of interest to Europeans who are concerned about the position of those and other immigrant communities within their countries. The full report can be downloaded from the second web link below.
Home page for Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think
www.muslimwestfacts.com
Mr Hogger’s presentation will be followed by a panel discussion with Nigel Inkster, Director of Transnational Threats and Political Risk at the IISS and formed Assistant Chief and Director for Operations and Intelligence at SIS, Robert Whalley, Consulting Senior Fellow at the IISS and former Director for Counter Terrorism and Intelligence at the Cabinet Office, and Dr Peter Neumann, Director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at King’s College, London.
This discussion will be moderated by Sir Hilary Synnott, Consulting Senior Fellow at the IISS. It will take place in the Lee Kuan Yew Conference Room at Arundel House, 13-15 Arundel Street, Temple Place, London WC2R 3D.
If you would like to attend, please RSVP Kelly Signorelli-Chaplin at chaplin@iiss.org.
