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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Do 1 in 5 British Muslims really ‘sympathise with Jihadis’?
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Do 1 in 5 British Muslims really ‘sympathise with Jihadis’?
As someone that has spent most of his professional life reading opinion polls I have always enjoyed this scene from Yes Minister where Sir Humphrey explains to Bernard how to rig an opinion poll.
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Oh, and first!
I don't know how I would have answered the original poll. A lot would have depended on which side of bed I'd got out of that morning, I suspect.
If you have converted, all I can say is Mazel Tov.
How useful are such polls without clear questions?
There are 4 possible groups:
1. Those who approve wholeheartedly of IS, its aims & means. They are willing/likely to join them.
2. Those who would not join themselves but understand IS's attraction (the "pull" factor) and/or have some sympathy for why others join (the "push" factor). They may be willing to assist/turn a blind eye to others' actions.
3. Those who abhor the violence used by IS but think in general terms that it would be better, cet.par., for Muslims to live in an Islamic caliphate subject to sharia law. Some of this group may also think that Muslims in a non-Islamic country should be subject to sharia law rather than the secular law of the country concerned.
4. Those who abhor both the violence used by IS & its aims i.e. they see themselves as both citizens of the countries they live in and Muslim and no contradiction between the two. Within this group there are those who feel that they should not be held responsible and criticised for the actions of those falling within 1 & possibly also 2) and those who, while agreeing with this, feel that in order to reduce the numbers falling within the first two groups they need to take more active steps to stop this happening. These latter two may also be the source of intelligence against those in 1 & 2.
Ideally, we'd like to have everyone fall into 4 and none in 1. That is not the case. Those in 2 are also a problem because they provide implicit support for those in 1 - the sea, as it were, in which the terrorist fish can swim.
No. 3 is a bit more ambivalent. Having a vague ideal which you do nothing to bring about and/or which you recognise has next to no chance of coming about is fine - though it may be perceived as less fine at a time of increasing terror risk & jangled nerves. It's when this morphs into providing a religious/ideological/intellectual/cultural [take your pick] justification for the actions of those in the previous two groups that it can become a problem. Separately, the idea that certain groups should be subject to separate laws based on their religion can be a real problem because it implies that not everyone is subject to the same laws/equal under them. This is heightened when one legal system is completely at odds with the main one in the country.
What is undeniable is that even if the numbers in 1/2 are relatively small even a small number can create chaos. After all, the actions of 8-9 people have led to a major European country into a national state of emergency. The consequent search for one man has shut down the capital city of another country for 3 days.
If the numbers are larger - and who would bet against that after recent events - that is going to have severe implications for the structure of & resources devoted to policing & intelligence work across Europe, which the political class have not even begun to digest.
A poor poll and poor journalism on the back of it.
Didn't PEW or a similar organisation commission a more thorough poll on this topic a while back?
In terms of genuine approval, you would hope and expect that an opinion poll wouldn't be able to pick up a statistically significant number of people (Muslim or otherwise) who think British Muslims going off to fight for ISIS is a good idea. Which is presumably why that question wasn't commissioned. Shame on The Sun for this one.
A laboratory test carried out for BBC Panorama shows that Volkswagen diesel cars programmed with a "defeat device" can cheat official European pollution tests, as well as tests in the US.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34857404
And then you've got to add in the Jezzarite sympathisers.
I suspect the CPS have gone for the charge that has the best charge of a jury returning a guilty verdict.
If the figures are 1 in 10, rather than one in 5 as the Sun claims, that is a quarter of a million adults.
Still poor form from the Sun tho'
Just fighters in Syria, which includes people fighting ISIS. as Mr Price points out below, sympathy does not equal support.
You could have sympathy for a fifteen year old brainwashed into joining ISIS
Edit: Also see the tweet below that I posted from Mike about how non Muslims polled in March felt about ISIS, comparable to Muslims
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CUfvY9yWoAAkvC3.png
not especially, but also not comfortable with dumping our western liberal values such as freedom of expression without due consideration
"But it isn't sympathy for ISIS.
Just fighters in Syria, which includes people fighting ISIS. as Mr Price points out below, sympathy does not equal support."
Straw-clutching methinks.
How many people really thought they were talking about Kurdish volunteers? Newspaper reports tend to be shite anyway - and I've never been a fan of any sociological poll. It is to science what I am to underwater ballet.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CMivPBlWcAAFpcq.jpg:large
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/#/politics/market/1.121439788
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2015/09/recipe-for-disaster-how-supporting-syrian-rebel-groups-has-turned-into-a-us-foreign-policy-disaster-.html
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2015/09/recipe-for-disaster-how-supporting-syrian-rebels-put-us-foreign-policy-into-disarray.html
"Not straw clutching, a similar poll of non Muslims earlier in the year found similar findings to this poll."
They are the Guardian-reading Jezzarites!
But they are all mouth and trousers (I'm sticking to the original phrase).
Edit - yes, if they are pressurising others not to vote.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/113064
Therefore they may well have some sympathy with those they perceive have been its victims who wish to fight against it.
and really... "but murdering people will just make things worse."?
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2783455/American-fighter-joins-Kurds-battle-against-Islamic-State.html
Let's do a straw poll right here on PB. How many:
a) sympathise
b).....
also plenty of preachers advise hell will result from different types of behaviours. are they not to be allowed to say so?
Saying that coveting your neighbour's wife is a sin is one thing, saying that taking part in a democratic election is a sin is another.
http://www.businessinsider.com/jeremy-corbyn-poll-numbers-v-ed-miliband-2015-11?r=UK&IR=T
https://twitter.com/search?q=#BrusselsLockdown&src=tyah
I have no sympathy whatsoever and neither has my wife.
Of course, there are sympathisers in the Muslim community. This is a problem and the scale is all we are arguing about. The non-Muslim sympathisers are the bed-wetters who see a different world to everyone else. They are no problem anyway as their idea of action is writing a severe reprimand.
It's the famous phrase in Trainspotting about Begbe .. along the lines of "he's a psycho but he is a mate."
"Well, I don't trust him either, but he is my friend!"
'It's not much comfort that even 5% of British Muslims have sympathy for ISIS joiners That's around a quarter of a million in the UK.'
So the February poll for the Telegraph after the Charlie Hebdo murders which showed that 27% of British Muslims sympathized with ISIS terrorists is also wrong ?
We are discussing what people are being apparently shown to have sympathy for. For those going off to fight against IS or those going off to fight for IS. The question doesn't make clear and it is possible to have sympathy for the person featured in the article I linked and that sympathy would have counted towards the "sympthetic towards jihadi" headline.
You may (and your wife) may have no sympathy for either position but that is a long way from what The Sun is trying to suggest by its headline.
Do you think that anyone asked that question immediately thinks of someone fighting against ISIS?
We'll have to agree to differ there.
But I do agree that most polls/surveys run my newspapers aren't worth the paper they use up.
Edit: "and my wife" is a Monty Python quote from "Life of Brian". Do you think we'll ever make the equivalent featuring a Mohammed character?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/23/cinema-ban-for-lords-prayer-ad-is-ridiculous-says-cameron
My other point was that just about the first story (from the DM!) was of a fighter going to fight against IS.
Without doing the point to death it is quite likely that a non-trivial proportion of those asked that question had any one of several recent media stories such as that in their minds.
Anyway, we agree that voodoo polls are voodoo polls....
My 84 year old neighbour carries around a walking stick capable of assaulting a policeman. That does not suggest that she has done it.
It requires extra evidence such as her stating that that was her intention, and perhaps the existence of a damaged policeman in her vicinity.
A misleading statement from the Beeboids unless they have some proof that it was used. They don't.
Regrettably common at the Beeb these days.
http://order-order.com/2015/11/23/miliband-burned-by-jim-naughtie/
My 84 year old neighbour carries around a walking stick capable of assaulting a policeman. That does not suggest that she has done it.
It requires extra evidence such as her stating that that was her intention, and perhaps the existence of a damaged policeman in her vicinity.
A misleading statement from the Beeboids unless they have some proof that it was used. They don't.
Regrettably common at the Beeb these days.
Well, if it is programmed to start 'cheat mode' as soon as the computer recognises the sequence of inputs that are used for a test, then it is VW in the slammer.
Thought as much
One in four (27%) British Muslims say they have some sympathy for the motives behind the attacks on Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
As ISIS wasn't mentioned in the question, and the question asked about some sympathy with the motives of the Charlie Hebdo attackers, who were nothing to do with ISIS.
I agree with this piece. On the other hand, when questionable methodology was used in a question which delivered a very low level of support for the tax credit cuts, the piece on that was simply reporting the low figure, not the questionable method.
Mr. Eagles, it's true Mr. Zims' was not accurate in that claim, but 27% having sympathy for the motives of mass murderers is still not great.
Easy to attack polls. Less easy when it someone who knows what he is talking about saying that there is a problem and it needs to be addressed rather than denied.
I'm not a fan of Khan generally but he should be given credit for that speech.
Almost all Muslims living in Britain feel a loyalty to the country (95%), Nine in ten (93%) British Muslims believe that Muslims in Britain should always obey British laws.