Arab Spring Fails to Improve U.S. Image

[oberliner]

Excerpts:

The poll also highlights the extent to which extremism is rejected in Muslim nations, although there are notable levels of support for radical Islamist groups and suicide terrorism in some countries. Al Qaeda is rated negatively by majorities in all countries, but more than a quarter express a positive opinion of the terrorist group in the Palestinian territories. There is no country in which a majority rates the radical Palestinian organization Hamas positively – still, it receives considerable support in Jordan and Egypt. Among the Palestinians themselves, Hamas is less popular than Fatah, its more secular rival.

The militant Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah receives majority support only in the Palestinian territories. In Lebanon itself, views of Hezbollah reflect the sharp religious divisions within that society. While nearly nine-in-ten Lebanese Shia offer a positive view of Hezbollah, nine-in-ten Sunnis and three-quarters of Christians rate the organization negatively.

In recent years, Pew Global Attitudes surveys have documented a decline in support for suicide bombing in a number of countries, and today the percentage of Muslims who say this type of violence is often or sometimes justifiable stands at 10% or less in Indonesia, Turkey and Pakistan. Support for these acts is somewhat more common in Arab nations, although there have been steep declines over the last decade in Lebanon and Jordan.

Palestinian Muslims, however, remain an outlier on this question: 68% say suicide attacks in defense of Islam can often or sometimes be justified, a level of support essentially unchanged from 2007. And in Egypt, support for suicide bombing is actually on the rise – currently, 28% believe it can be justified, up from 8% in 2007.

http://pewglobal.org/2011/05/17/arab-spring-fails-to-improve-us-image/1/

[Igel]

1. In some ways, I don't trust such polls.

Not for the usual reasons. Things like "trust the US" or "confidence in Obama" are fine. I suspect that the translations of "trust" and "confidence" are fairly straightforward. The bases for trust or confidence may vary, but the words are equivalent enough.

But terms like "democracy" and "freedom of religion" have very specific meanings and contexts for Americans. I have no trust or confidence that they have the same meanings and contexts when translated into Arabic for people living in Egypt, Gaza, Pakistan, etc.

I say this because my undergrad training was in Russian. When American speeches were translated into Russian, "demokratija" was the word used; when Russians wrote in Russian, they used the same word. But the meaning of the Russian word was so different from the English word that to translate the Russian as "democracy" led to incoherence; unfortunately, seldom did newspapers quote more than a snippet, so the incoherence was masked. Everybody blindly falling into line behind Brezhnev and the CP was "democracy"; trusting leaders to do the right thing in spreading revolution, collectivization, and generally abusing one class of people to help supporters was "democracy." They had "freedom of religion," but it was important for religion to essentially be confined to a very narrow private sphere--rather like they had freedom of speech. Sure, you could speak or worship, but you pay for it by having scut jobs, possibly being sentenced to prison and put on trial, by having your wife suddenly unemployed and your kids unacceptable for admission to college or decent work. By the same token, we in the West had "freedom to rape" and "freedom to murder"--we could do it, few would stop us in the act, but we'd certainly pay for it later.

Of course, some Soviet citizens knew what the US meaning and contexts were. We had a common tongue, so to speak. Many others did not. You had to do more than ask a poll question to tell the difference.