What People Think of Islam
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What People Think of Islam Readers' Comments LEFT, RIGHT & CENTRE Researched & Published By Islam Surveyed December 2015 2 Contents Page 1.0 Summary 3 1.1 What the Liberal Left Thinks of Islam 3 (Courtesy of the Guardian) 1.2 This Survey - What's Covered & How 6 the Information is Presented 1.3 Why Is There Such Widespread Dislike & Criticism 7 of Islam? 2.0 The Guardian 11 2.1 The Guardian Regarding the Paris Attacks 94 3.0 The Independent, The Huffington Post UK 108 4.0 The Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Spectator 129 5.0 Other including Regional & International Press 154 3 1.0 Summary This is a survey of readers' comments on articles about Islam and Muslims published by leading British newspapers. It concentrates on social, religious, cultural and political topics and mostly ignores armed conflict and terrorism. 1.1 What the Liberal Left Thinks of Islam (Courtesy of The Guardian) The Guardian newspaper publishes an enormous number of articles by Muslims and their supporters complaining about the mistreatment of Muslims by the Media or the government, or supporting Muslims in the latest controversy concerning Islam. Here are the titles of some recent examples: "The fight against Islamophobia is going backward" "How the hijab – and H&M – are reshaping mainstream British culture" "The Guardian view on Muslims in the west: marginalised by mistrust" "It’s time the media treated Muslims fairly" "Ministers fuelling Muslim radicalisation" "Why Islam doesn’t need a reformation" "Diversity and immigration are not the problem. Political courage is" To see such articles in a newspaper known for extreme liberal and left-wing opinions is not a surprise. What is a surprise – a shock, in fact - is the overwhelmingly negative reaction of the Guardian's own readers to these articles as shown by their comments and their votes on the comments. When it comes to Islam and Muslims Guardian readers don't follow the editorial line. A staggering 89% of Guardian readers are critical of Islam; .... nine out of ten!!!! It demonstrates a widespread distrust and dislike of Islam. And, they are Guardian readers! The comments are usually well written and knowledgeable, as one might expect. An analysis of 14 representative articles produced the following picture. Table 1 – Readers' Votes on Readers' Comments Comments that are: % of Votes Pro Article/Islam 5 Neutral or Unclassifiable 6 Anti Article/Islam 89 TOTAL 100 4 Table 2 – Readers' Comments % of Comments Pro Article/Islam 16 Neutral or Unclassifiable 20 Anti Article/Islam 64 TOTAL 100 Readers' Votes on Comments (Illustration of above Tables) Pro-Article/Islam 5% Neutral/ Unclassifiable 6% Anti-Article/Islam 89% Readers' Comments Pro-Article/Islam 16% Anti-Article/Islam 64% Neutral/ Unclassifiable 20% The Guardian, for reasons it keeps to itself, chooses to ignore completely this reader feedback. It is a remarkable publishing phenomenon. The Guardian doesn't care what its readers think of Islam. 5 As one Guardian reader put it.... "I don't think I have ever seen as many Guardian readers so diametrically opposed to the paper's editorial policy, and I have to say that I'm not surprised, because if you genuinely believe that Islam is the victim in all of this then you're hopelessly out of touch not only with the prevailing public mood, but also with the very values the Guardian is supposed to promote. The UK's leading liberal voice, bending over backwards to accommodate the sensitivities of a religion.... which hates gays, hates Jews, subjugates women and places arbitrary limits on free expression - I never thought I'd see the day." And as another put it: "If there is one thing I have learned from reading the Guardian it is that Islam is never at fault for anything." [1] One, perhaps cynical, reader also suggested that such an abundance of articles generating strong feelings and negative comment is a good way to generate site traffic, the articles are "click bait", boosting readership which is good for advertising revenue, even if the readers don't agree with what they read. That the comments and votes on the comments are coming from genuine Guardian readers is made clear when a comment makes a disparaging remark about David Cameron or the Conservative party or British foreign policy. Any anti-government comment gets a big vote whether it's following the Guardian Islamic line or not. And, comments in general are better written (and much longer) than corresponding comments in the Daily Mail, for example. A less cynical but even sadder explanation is that those responsible for this editorial policy unlike their readers believe all is well with Islam. Nothing needs to change, or if any change is needed Muslims can take care of it themselves. It is far more important to protect this sensitive community from criticism than to examine the causes of the distrust and dislike. Other Newspapers Readers of other newspapers, The Independent , The Telegraph , Daily Mail , The Spectator , show the same distrust and dislike of Islam as Guardian readers. It should be noted and emphasised that the distrust and dislike is focussed on Islam, the religion. A number of Daily Mail articles provide particularly strong examples of this. One was about a British Muslim who did a three-minute video verbal attack on violent extremists. The top rated comment on this article was "Brilliant. But we need more Muslims to openly condemn these atrocities". Another Mail article authored by a Muslim and entitled "We Muslims MUST stop blaming others for the way our young are radicalised, writes chairman of the Muslim Forum" got the top rated comment "Thank you from the bottom of my heart for writing this article! Everything you wrote just clicked with me! It’s true they play the victim card all the time and people are SICK AND TIRED of it!" 6 1.2 This Survey - What's Covered and How the Information is presented This is a survey of readers' comments on articles about Islam and Muslims published by leading British newspapers over the nine months February to November 2015. It updates a similar survey covering 2014 [2] It concentrates on social, religious, cultural and political topics and mostly ignores armed conflict and terrorism in Afghanistan, the Middle East, Africa, Israel and Palestine, and strongly cultural issues such as FGM and honour killings. ISIS is covered because it has such a strong Islamic dimension. It is divided into five sections, covering the Left, Right and Centre of British politics. Number of Articles The Guardian 64 The Guardian Regarding the Paris Attacks 8 The Independent, The Huffington Post UK (a website only) 21 The Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Spectator 29 Other (e.g. Times) including regional and international 10 For each article you are given: (1) Title and date (2) A short extract from the article giving the purpose or main message (3) The most popular readers' comments - those with the highest number of votes, or recommendations, or likes, from other readers. Where appropriate comments have been edited for brevity. A Huge Sample What you see here regarding the distrust and criticism of Islam comes from a huge sample of the British public. The 72 Guardian articles in this survey attracted on average 1053 comments per article. The most commented article attracted 2495 comments (until the Paris outrage when an article attracted 7155 comments). The top rated comment typically gets 300 to 400 readers' votes. We estimate that some 5,000 readers are involved in commenting and voting on just one article. Allowance has been made for the fact that readers can make more than one comment and vote on more than one comment. Altogether the section of this survey covering the Guardian could represent the views of some 50,000 to 100,000 people In the case of the Daily Mail, a single top rated comment attracts 10,000 to 20,000 readers' votes! 7 1.3 Why Is There Such Widespread Dislike and Criticism of Islam? For non-Muslims the answer is simple and obvious. Muslims do and believe many things that non-Muslims object to. Here are some of the things you could have read about recently in your newspaper, on the web, or seen on TV: ● British Sharia councils are leaving women open to abuse ● Sharia law is blight on UK .... a man may divorce his wife just by saying “I divorce you” three times ● Girls [banned] from mixed sports because it made "male staff uncomfortable" ● Teachers "gave pupils handout saying wives cannot refuse sex" ● ex-Muslim family are driven from their home …. after they converted to Christianity ● Muslim children could miss out on a free flu vaccine scheme due to it containing pig gelatin ● BBC has found evidence of young people suffering threats, in some cases, encountering serious physical abuse when they told their families they were no longer Muslims ● 'Free speech is dead!': Reaction after Students’ Union bans speaker over Islam offence fears ● .... the Imams we spoke too [had never] heard of marital rape; they weren’t aware it was against British law ● Islam isn’t a religion of peace, and the so-called extremists are seeking to implement what is arguably the most honest reading of the faith’s actual doctrine ● .... a 16-year-old .... admits it sometimes feels uncomfortable wearing a normal hijab when playing basketball ● Muslim countries refuse to take a single Syrian refugee, cite risk of exposure to terrorism ● .... the majority of mosques follow a patriarchal model with poor access for women, and women’s representation on mosques’ governing structures was non-existent ● Apostates and married adulterers too must be killed, like homosexuals.