What? What Poll?

Photograph by: Dario Ayala , The Gazette

What? What Poll? Leger Marketing?

How strange. Unless you live in Vancouver and read the Vancouver Sun, you won't have heard about, seen anything about, suspected that a pair of polls commissioned by the Association for Canadian Studies has born out interesting results. But you might have seen reference to it, in all places, in an online Israeli newspaper which carried the fundamentals of the story. A most important poll, with vital statistics, but obviously not important enough for other Canadian news sources to mention it, even in passing. How very odd ...

"It’s quite disconcerting that our poll results consistently show about 60 per cent of Canadians see the West and Islamic society as ‘irreconcilable.’ It puts you up against a dead end."

"As a liberal you struggle with her choice [Zunera Ishaq, 29, going to court to fight for her 'religious freedom' to cover her face with a niqab while being sworn in as a citizen.] Patriarchal views are repugnant to many of us in the West."

"...Liberalism isn’t in the vocabulary [in certain patriarchal nations]."

"Some people say the niqab reflects the oppression of women. Others say it’s just a piece of clothing. My view is it does represent the oppression of women."
"I’d like to think we’re not there yet [the West in a Cold War-era conflict with Islamic societies]."

Jack Jedwab, vice-president, Association for Canadian Studies

In response to questions addressed by the poll, it would appear that most Canadians feel there are "irreconcilable" differences existing between Western and Muslim societies. Hardly surprising, since activities and actions taking place both within those Muslim countries that have continued to make the news, and Western societies which have been impacted by Islamist fundamentalists from within Muslim societies cannot have escaped the casual onlookers' point of view.

The steady rise of violence committed by Islamist jihadists, most acutely have impacted peoples' impressions. From the targeted killing of free-speech advocates, the national dispute over the wearing of niqabs, the vibrantly jarring news out of the Middle East and Africa of terrorist groups revelling in atrocities and drawing the admiration and recruiting opportunities of Muslims living abroad, Canadian attitudes reveal anxieties over religion-inspired violence.

The poll conducted by Leger Marketing resulted in the finding that 63 percent of Canadian Protestants, 62 percent of Jews, 60 percent of Catholic and 46 percent of the non-religious demographic have a sound belief based on the evidence before them that Western and Islamic societies are "irreconcilable". Among those canvassed for their opinion were Canadian Muslims as well, and 42 percent of that demographic expressed the belief that the West and Islamic cultures are indeed irreconcilable.

A thousand people were expected to attend two related conferences in Vancouver. Where the topic of religion and social tension, and how both may conceivably be counteracted, is to be introduced to tease the minds of those attending. Jack Jedwab, who participated in the Our Whole Society: Bridging the Secular Divide, aiming to introduce opportunities for religion to be seen as and to become a more positive force in Canada's secular society, stated that the suspicion many Canadians have expressed "is a huge blow to interfaith dialogue".

Canada has experienced first-hand and with huge dismay, the issues of "self-radicalized" homegrown terrorists and border security. And the national debate over face-covering niqabs, with the Conservative government stating unequivocally that covered faces have no rightful presence in citizenship ceremonies, and the political opposition claiming their support for women's rights to cover their faces, as a cultural construct of 'modesty' posing as a religious requirement.

The venue for revealing the results of the poll questioning Canadians' impression on the topic, the results of two extensive polls relating to Canadians' views on religion, and religion's place in social tension or reconciliation is the 17th national Metropolis conference, whose title is Broadening the Conversation: Policy and Practise in Immigration, Settlement and Diversity taking place in Vancouver.

What the conference will grapple with is the belief of a clear majority of Canadians that the West and Islamic society are belligerents in an antagonism that appears inevitable, given world affairs. Mr. Jedwab points out that the thesis of political scientist and Harvard professor Samuel Huntington as expressed in his book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of Political Order will lead to conflict in the post-Cold War world has its reflection in the expressed Canadian attitudes.

Worldwide social hostilities involving religion reached a six-year peak in 2012, and has remained at that steady level, according to the Pew Research Centre, with close to three in four global citizens living in countries where religion-based conflicts roil society and are expressed in various ways, from vandalism of property and desecration of sacred texts, to violent assaults leading to injuries and deaths. Needless to say what is happening in Iraq, in Syria, in Libya and Yemen and Kenya go far beyond those relatively immoderate conditions.
 

Canadians' views, according to the polls, have led to a general public desire to begin to limit entry to Canada with tighter border restrictions. When asked whether governments should respond to security concerns by "making it more difficult for people to come across national borders", 68 percent of Canadian Catholics agreed, as did 62 percent of Protestants and Jews, and 51 percent of those without religious faith. Muslim Canadians expressed a 42 percent agreement.

Of the two thousand Canadians taking part in the two polls, 500 were born outside Canada. The polls, conducted in 2013 and 2014 have an accuracy of plus or minus 2.9 percent. There were no notable differences in response between the opinions of native-born Canadians and those who have emigrated from elsewhere to become Canadians. The turning point in such attitudes was identified as having made their appearance after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York.

Mr. Jedwab expressed empathy for Canadian Muslims whom other Canadians expect to condemn violent jihad when Muslim terrorists launch their attacks. He argues that Christians, Jews and Buddhists are not under pressure to denounce despicable atrocities committed by others adhering to their religion, so why should Muslims? He considers this a double standard, and in so doing reveals his liberal angst.

He, like others who express similar views appear to somehow sidestep the reality that Christians, Buddhist and Jews are not generally given to claiming their religion exhorts them to violence in the name of a religion of peace and tolerance which requires that blood be shed to convince non-believers that they must tremble before violations of their human rights and plead with that god to permit them to surrender to his demands, to save their lives.