Monday
Jun082009
Egyptian govt poll on Obama's visit
Issandr El Amrani
The Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC), a kind of think tank attached to the Prime Minister's office, conducted a poll on the awareness of and reaction to Barack Obama's June 4 speech at Cairo University.
Obama's Visit
From a quick look, most interesting is that respondents thought the Israel/Palestine segment was the most important, 37% believed what Obama said and 41% partly believed it, and the vast majority thought the speech would improve relations between the US and the Muslim world -- in fact only 1% was negative. The poll has a full breakdown of the people polled according to social class, education and more, with polls conducted before and after the visit. A lot of info to chew down here, as far as polls can tell us anything.
Obama's Visit
From a quick look, most interesting is that respondents thought the Israel/Palestine segment was the most important, 37% believed what Obama said and 41% partly believed it, and the vast majority thought the speech would improve relations between the US and the Muslim world -- in fact only 1% was negative. The poll has a full breakdown of the people polled according to social class, education and more, with polls conducted before and after the visit. A lot of info to chew down here, as far as polls can tell us anything.
Reader Comments (3)
Wishing Obama and Arab rights folks would focus more on women in the arab and muslim world. Outraged at every move israel makes (huge freedoms in that society and far from perfect) while not taking ownership for own messy issues: With women being stoned, raped, abused, battered, mutilated, and slaughtered daily by your own or various violent related factions--, violence that is so often perpetrated in the name of religion--- Yes the west has crimes against women but these are not scantioned by the local mullah. I was shocked Obama only mentioned rights related to wearing the head covering in France. I think if women were totally free and equal, the arab world would be a much safer and more productive society. If only Arabs glorified life and not wished for death of others by violence... jews are not blowing up bistros in Germany, nor are they murdering each other anywhere in the world. All people inside Israel have daily, humilating searches in schools, theaters, stores in Israel in fear of being blown up by a terrorist. Palestinians do not need to protect their school buildings from Jewish terrorists and have big inconveniences at checkpoints but they are not worried about being murdered. Wonder what the core difference--- When Obama and the arab world acknowledges this and stops the hate and incitement-- peace may have a chance.
I agree that women's rights is a crucial issue. Many Arab activists are dedicated to improving the legal and social situation of women in the Arab world, and in recent decades major advances have been made, even if it is hard to change social attitudes. It is a vacuous and offensive generalization to say that all abuse is sanctioned by the local mullah, or that Arabs do not value life. Jews may not be blowing bistros in Germany, but they are suppressing Palestinians and have been doing so for 60 years, killing hundreds of civilians as recently as last January. Your use of the issue of violence against women in the Arab world is deceitful, because you want to use it to deflect criticism of Israel. Palestinians do need to protect their schools from the Jewish terrorists in the Israeli armed forces who are bombing their schools.
We do not have to choose between women's rights and the Palestinian cause, or anything else in fact. We can be critical of both and much, much more. If you read through the archives on this blog you will see I am not short of things to be critical of -- in fact I wish I found more things to praise.
[...] Arabist has posted the results of a poll conducted by Egypt’s Information and Decision Support Center (similar to the American [...]