Islamophobia worse in US now than after 9/11

More than half of US citizens believe there are more violent extremists within Islam than in any other religion and that the faith encourages violence against non-Muslims, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released on Mar. 9. Negative feelings towards Islam are much more pronounced now than in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the survey found. A majority, 58 percent, of those interviewed now believe that Islam has more violent followers than any other religion. The poll of 1,000 people was conducted by phone recently and has a three-point error margin. Since January of 2002, the proportion of those who believe mainstream Islam promotes violence against non-believers has risen from 14 percent to 32 percent. Analysts blame the surge on a confluence of factors: the proposed takeover of US ports operations by a Dubai firm (now abandoned); the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; the election of Hamas in the Palestinian territories; and, above all, the riotous protests across the Muslim world against Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed. "The coverage of the controversy over the cartoons showed that sort of violent extremist in a way that a lot of Americans found troubling," said Carroll Dougherty of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Attitudes in the US towards Islam were not out of step with Europe, Dougherty said, adding that there was more tolerance in the US towards the use of headscarves than in countries such as Germany or France, where there is strong support for a ban. But nearly half of US citizens, 46 percent, said they held unfavorable attitudes towards Islam–compared with 24 percent in January 2002. The Post quoted analysts as saying that the demonization of Islam by politicians and the media during the past four years had led to an erosion of tolerance. In the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush made a number of statements disassociating Islam and the general Arab and Muslim population in the US from al-Qaida. He also visited a mosque, a symbolic gesture that helped build a more positive image of Islam. "It seems counter-intuitive, but from the president on down there was a very strong message from Washington that this was not representative of Islam," Dougherty said. "In the intervening years there has been an absence of this sort of positive message. James Zogby, president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute, told the Post he was not surprised by the poll's results. Politicians, authors and media commentators have demonized the Arab world since 2001, he said. "The intensity has not abated and remains a vein that's very near the surface, ready to be tapped at any moment," Zogby said. "Members of Congress have been exploiting this over the ports issue. Radio commentators have been talking about it non-stop."