Here is the fruit of years of relentless politically correct indoctrination about Islam as a Religion of Peace and Muslims as the peaceful, innocent victims of a decadent, rapacious West.
By Michael Gordon in The Age, with thanks to all who sent this in:
WORLD opinion emphatically rejects the idea that Islam and the West are heading for an inevitable clash of civilisations, according to an ambitious poll of public attitudes across 27 countries, commissioned by The Age and the BBC World Service.
But a significant minority across the world “” and a narrow majority in Indonesia “” said violent conflict between Islam and the West was inevitable.
Big majorities in Australia, the United States, Canada, Lebanon, Mexico and most European countries believed common ground can be found between the Muslim and Western cultures.
There was also a consensus in most of these countries that intolerant minorities on both sides, rather than fundamental differences between the two cultures or intolerant minorities on one side or the other, were to blame for tensions between Islam and the West.
The optimistic tone of responses was also reflected after citizens were asked whether differences of religion and culture or conflicts about political power were the source of tensions.
The most common view in 24 of the 27 countries was that tensions arose from conflicts about political power and interests “” 52 per cent of the total sample of 28,000 respondents held this opinion.
Almost three in 10 surveyed said tensions primarily arose from differences in culture and religion.
“Perhaps the strongest finding is that so many people across the world blame intolerant minorities on both sides for the tensions between Islam and the West,” the president of international polling company GlobeScan, Doug Miller, said.
Intolerant minorities on both sides? And just who is sawing off heads and calling for world conquest in Kentucky or West Virginia or Bend, Oregon?