Populus poll of British Muslims
Populus’s standard monthly poll on voting intentions is not until next week, but today’s Times carries a separate Populus survey of British Muslims. As with previus polls of British Muslims, the survey suggests that the majority of British Muslims are opposed to terrorism and supportive of government efforts to fight extremism (though, as noted in the ICM poll last week, with some question marks over specifics), but a small minority sympathise with the terrorists.
13% of British Muslims questioned said the 7th July suicide bombers should be regarded as “martyrs”, 7% agree that suicide attacks on civilians in the UK can be justified in some circumstances, 16% of British Muslims say that while the attacks on London may have been wrong, the cause was right - although given that half of respondents thought that the main cause of the bombings was British involvement in Iraq, the cause in this context may be opposition to the Iraq war rather than whatever wider aims motivate Al Q’aeda.
Probably the most extreme question on the survey found that 2% of respondents would be proud if a family member decided to join Al Q’aeda and 16% would be “indifferent”.
A large majority (79%) of British Muslims believe that their community has experienced increased hostility since the July bombings and 74% feel that Muslims are viewed with suspicion by other people. 49% of Muslims say they are offended by the way that some people feel anxious when they see someone who looks Muslim on public transport carrying a backpack…but 18% of British Muslims say that they’d feel anxious themselves.
56% of British Muslims told Populus that the Government was not doing enough to fight extremism - this compares to only 49% of the British population as a whole, suggesting that while there are a minority of British Muslims who support terrorism, overall British Muslims are more supportive of government action to fight extremism than the wider population are. 50% of Muslims thought the intelligence services have the right to infiltrate Muslim organisations to gather information about their activities and the way they obtain funding and 65% say that their community needs to do more to integrate properly with British society. 35% say that they would feel proud if a close family member joined the police.
Finally, looking to the future 49% of British Muslims believe that further suicide bombings in the UK are likely - this is noticably lower than the British population as a whole, 78% of whom expect further attacks.
Filed under: Populus, Terrorism
We fought the nazis, we fought the communists and now our politicians have allowed our country to be invaded by a religion which is alien to us and is changing our towns and cities so much that it is like living in a foreign country. We do not want our neighbours to be dressed in burkas, or wearing compulsory scarves on their heads. Our ancestors fought for woman’s rights. If we were allowed to be honest, and not have ‘racist’ screamed at us, we would say we do not want muslims in our country. Our only consolation is they can never be English, as we can never be Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish. Our forefathers who fought evil ideas have been betrayed.
This poll is pretty meaningless and arguably racist unless put in context with what the population at large think, eg 7% say attacks on civillians can be justified in some instances. How many non-Muslims agree with that? How many non-Muslims agree that attacks on Iraqi civillians can be justified. We’ve killed so many Muslims we have not even bothered to keep count.
The racist post above is typical of a hysteria that the media generate and this poll is part of. Islamophobia has been promoted by Blair, and MI5 who only yesterday claimed 400,000 British Muslims sympathised with terrorism around the world. What reason do they have to make these claims? They say these things to stir up anti-Muslim feeling because it suits the neo-con policies of invading Muslim nations for military power and oil and it suits more draconian big-brother policies.
Then they say there are 1200 active terrorists. Well present the evidence then and arrest them, or stop promoting Islamophobia.
We are governed and manipulated by fear. What are we? A nation of apathetic mindless wimps who have to lay down and let Tony Blair save us from this manufactured threat that suddenly appeared when he became best mates with his warmongering fellow “Christian” who on God’s advice decided to wage a war that never needed to be waged.
Let’s not forget the 9/11 attackers were Saudis, not Iraqis. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Iraq had no WMD. We support the bombing of Muslims into submission, condemn all they believe in and then call them all the evil ones for being angry at us.
Only today Tony Blair says the moderate Muslims must do more to root out extremism. So even the moderate Muslims are at fault and Blair can wipe his hands of the blood and point the finger at the most moderate and decent Muslims who are a credit to Britain.
Margaret,
Maybe I missed something, but I thought we fought two wars so that people in this country could be free to live their lives as they wished.
I think it was the Nazi’s who wanted everyone to conform to their view of racial and cultural purity.
The only betrayal of our forefathers is your advocacy of the evil ideas they fought.
Peter.
Margaret Doughty:- You are absolutely 100% correct.
Peter Cairns:- And you have obviously “missed something” a lot in-fact. The wars fought by our fore-fathers were for the British to live the lives THEY chose, free of any foreign cultures or ideologies.
Go look at the objectives of Hitler and Fascism and compare it with Islam and the Muslim - there is no difference.
Invasion is invasion no matter what slant you put on it - and we are being invaded by a foreign ideology and Culture, not only that but bombed into the bargain by a known enemy within.
And what do the Politicians, and the likes of you do - Appease, and we all know where that got the country during the 1930’s.
[...] Today, secular culture is mixing very poorly with Islam. Polls in Britain show a sizable minority of Muslims support terrorists bombing the country in which they live (a later poll confirmed the results). Almost as many British Muslims want a separate system of law for themselves as do not. [...]