Interessant undersökning om muslimer och inställning till integration

Gallups samlevnadsindex 2009 är en global studie som mäter relationen mellan personer med olika religiös tro på fyra kontinenter. Rapporten undersöker dessutom attityderna och uppfattningen av vad majoritetsbefolkningen och den muslimska befolkningen tycker om samlevnad, integration, värderingar, identitet och radikalisering i Storbritannien, Frankrike och Tyskland.

Undersökningen visar bland annat att inställningen till religion och integration skiljer sig markant mellan befolkningen och för muslimerna i Storbritannien, Frankrike och Tyskland. Muslimer i Storbritannien är till exempel betydligt mer moralkonservativa än muslimer som bor i Frankrike och Tyskland.

Andrew Brown skriver i en kommentar i Guardian om skillnaderna mellan länderna att

it is possible to see the outlines of a clear argument between the British, or multicultural, model of integration and the French, secularising one. On some measures, the British come out worse, or at least more boorish: only half of British Muslims strongly agree that they always treat of other faiths with respect, compared to two-thirds of French Muslims; in both cases, the figure for the general population is about 10% higher. Similarly, and this is surely part of the legacy of the Rushdie affair, five times as many non-Muslim as Muslim Britons feel that integration demands that people accept public comments they perceive as offensive about their faith or ethnicity. In both France and Germany, Muslims are less sensitive and non-Muslims less keen on their right to offend.

In practice, however, 90% of all the groups surveyed agree that they had been treated with respect all day the day before.

The French, however, are much more divided about issues of religious symbolism, and much less likely to tolerate headscarves as legitimate symbols of loyal diversity. More than half the British public thinks that removing the veil is necessary to integrate minorities, compared to only an eights of Muslims. But that was the only item of religiously identifying clothing which a majority of the British rejected, whereas clear majorities of the French rejected headscarves, yarmulkes, turbans and "visible large crosses" as well. About a quarter of French Muslims also thought these were obstacles to immigration.