Poll: Majority Americans Favor Engagment with Muslim World

Wash Post ABC poll out today says: (Article and charts here)


Majority of Americans think it is important that the Obama improve relations with the Muslim World

65% feel they lack understanding of the Muslim World

29% think it encourages violence, 58% do not, 13% don't know

If any of those 29% are reading this, doubtful shot in the dark, I encourage them to consider that what makes people engage in violence might be about lack of political expression and political channels, lack of economic opportunity, lack of social outlets in society, not Islam. Islam legitimizes violence; it does not create it.

Robin Wright (author of recent new book on reform movements in the region, Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East) mentioned on Tom Ashbrook's On Point last night after talking about the poll that the language of Islam and symbols of Islam are used in opposition movements, "they provide vocabulary for revolution" (she was talking about soft revolutions), in the Muslim World to combat dictators for example, but the west should not fear or overemphasize the importance of Islam as reactionary and revolutionary - it is not about piety and "Islam is a means to an end not an end in itself."