Expert: Le Anne Clausen - 8/31/2006

Question
Exactly how much percent of the world hate muslims?

Answer
Hi Sam, thanks for writing back.  Unfortunately, I don't think there are statistics for exactly how much of the world 'hates' Muslims.  In order to have an accurate number, you would need to craft a survey that asked people from all over the world how they felt about Muslims, either positively or negatively, and 'hate' would be an extreme negative response out of the possible responses received.  As far as I have seen, no such survey has been undertaken.

Meanwhile, I've been thinking over your last question, and thought I would add this:  one thing that happens during conflicts like these is that while the 'enemy' is often portrayed as being bad or worthy of hatred by political propaganda, there are always populations which will disagree with this portrayal-- by this I mean, people who are not similar to the 'enemy', and may not have known anything about them before the conflict began, but have since become aware of that group of people and now want to reach out and meet this group for themselves.  There have been thousands of peace activists either traveling to the Middle East to meet with Arabs and/or Muslims, to work for protection of their human rights, or are working locally to make Muslims/Arabs feel more welcome and safe in Western countries.  This is much of the work that I do, both in my hometown, my school area, and worldwide; but also, there are some organizations that coordinate efforts like this, which you may be interested in learning about:

Christian Peacemaker Teams: www.cpt.org  Delegations to Iraq and Israel and Palestine

Fellowship of Reconciliation: www.forusa.org Delegations to Israel/Palestine

Global Exchange:  www.globalexchange.org Delegations to Iran, Afghanistan, Syria/Lebanon, and Israel/Palestine.

Check out these websites, as well as the ones I recommended yesterday, and I hope this will help you with a broader understanding of public perceptions.  Good luck!

peace,

Le Anne