Thursday, January 13, 2005

It is Frustrating Trying to Understand the Arab/Muslim world

Even when the US is only helping out in Sri Lanka for the Tsunami relief they are still seen as invaders by the local Mujahidin. (Oh, and while we're at it, I am sure you've seen this picture. Look carefully at the T-shirt in the background.)

But more perplexing is what I am not getting today. According to every poll in the Arab/Muslim world, the 9/11 hijackings are widely believed to have been done by Jews. But now, according to the latest poll, only 35% of Jordanians and 22% of Palestinians believe that the hijackings count as terrorist acts.

So most believe they were done by Jews but they were not really acts of terrorism. Go figure. Of course, the same poll has almost everything else the Jews do as being a terrorist act. You can notice that the Palestinians seem to think anything done to them is a terrorist act.

But as I have said, before, confirmation bias overides consistency. Most people will just believe what they want to believe, regardless of how little sense they are making.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There was an interesting discussion on this here:

http://www.natashatynes.org/mental_mayhem/2005/01/disturbing_reve.html

I hold that without the historical framework of Europe the people polled don't really have a concept of tactics in war that aren't allowed (that is also appealling to them since they are weaker in standard military terms), and for translation reasons or otherwise simply call use of force that they disagree with terrorism and that which they support not terrorism.