Bortom stereotyperna

Johan Norberg har visserligen skrivit ett gäng gånger om det tidigare (exempelvis här), men det hör definitivt till de ämnen som förtjänar att upprepas - från Fr33 Agents - fakta hämtade ur Who Speaks For Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think (som jag inte läst, och vars titel känns märkligt kollektivistisk):

When asked, “What do you admire most about the West?” Muslims surveyed ranked technology first and liberty/democracy second. Americans surveyed shared these same top two answers but in the reverse order. Further, when asked that if they were drafting a constitution for a new country, would they guarantee freedom of speech, defined as “allowing all citizens to express their opinions on political, social, and economic issues of the day,” a vast majority of Muslims said they would include that. This belies the hard-peddled notion that “they hate us for our liberty” and instead demonstrates evidence of common ground.

When asked whether the 9/11 attacks were justified (scale of 1-5), Muslims who responded that the attacks were completely justified represented just 7% of respondents. 55% said that the attacks were completely unjustified. Moreover, of the group who believed the attacks to be completely justified, not a single respondent, when asked about the reasoning for their response, gave a religious reason.

Och kontentan:

If the United States is ever to effectively deal with the issue of terrorism, we must move past inaccurate collectivist stereotypes and emotionally-driven knee-jerk reactions to just go out and satiate anger by senselessly killing more and more people. I encourage everyone to consider whether periodically throwing more combustibles on a fire is really a good way to put it out. I also hope each of us gives some thought as to what role propagating collectivist stereotypes may have in stoking that fire, and whether pro-freedom advocates ought to be a part of that.