Less Tolerable Polls

Polls, where would we be without them to inform us all about ourselves, our attitudes, our relationships, our priorities and values?

Of course we may not be personally represented by such poll results. That is, if we do not consider ourselves and our perceptions to be reflective of the majority. On the other hand, it is entirely possible that what we think of as our very particular impressions and beliefs are also shared by a significant number of other Canadians.

Polls may serve a purpose after all. Informing us that we may not be alone in how we think. Or, as it happens, conversely. One never quite knows. Poll results are an exercise in revelatory communion - or denial. Have it any way that suits the occasion.

On this occasion a poll was taken by Ipsos Reid to assess the attitude of Canadians in the wake of an international disaster and a steadily growing movement. We're informed by those who believe they know, that terrorism is on the wane. We're informed by those who believe they know, that terrorism is unhealthily alive and thriving.

One thing is certain, terror, which is to say the imposition of fear and dread on populations that have been targeted and assailed by the viciously murderous activities of a very particular brand of religious revivalism is present and accounted for. We do tend to worry, perhaps not excessively, but worry we do, at the revelations that among us live those who would prefer we don't.

Over half of Canadians surveyed for Postmedia News and Global TV appear to believe that Muslims in Canada are discriminated against more at the present time than they were before the advent of the 9/11 reproach from Islamists to the powerful United States of America.

Strange, that, since I could swear that other revealed data seems to suggest that there is far less discrimination than is thought to exist.

Muslims themselves enjoy pointing out that it is not only errant violence-prone Muslims joining offshoots of al-Qaeda and going off to jubilantly learn how to terrorize infidels and other Muslims alike that present problems in society. Norway's anti-Muslim killer being a case in their point of view.

As though such pathological incidents in their rarity are comparable to the more frequent charge of the jihadi light brigades sending their victims to hell and themselves to Paradise.

Norway's incident was a reaction to Islamist extremist slaughter. And the inexorable, objectionable alteration in national culture.

But these are mere details. Another detail is the unassailable fact that most terror incidents by far are committed by paranoid psychopaths engaged in psychotic atrocities of which they are proud and so are their followers who acclaim their heroic exploits in the name of Islam.

The poll concludes that 74% of Canadians agree that "our society has become less tolerant of others since the 9/11 terrorist attacks", to which one might venture to add that this is a perception, not a verifiable fact, and one which is most certainly an incorrect perception.

Further, that 60% of Canadian respondents think that Muslims in Canada are discriminated against more than before the attacks; again, wrong. The fact being that when acts of bigoted discrimination in general are assembled and details parsed, it is not Muslims, but rather Jews who suffer far greater acts of discrimination since 9/11, and why might that be?

Polls, it seems, do not really tell us what is occurring in certain circumstances; they tell us what people perceive to be occurring.

And those distinctions tell a totally other story.