Church in the World

'Respect' is lacking between Islam and the West, according to new Davos report

Switzerland

Relations between Islam and the West are characterised by a perceived failure of mutual respect, according to a major report on dialogue presented to the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.  Islam and the West: annual report on the state of dialogue, whose lead author is John J. DeGioia, President of the Jesuit Georgetown University in Washington DC, includes a survey of attitudes in 21 Muslim-majority and non-Muslim-majority countries on how the different cultures perceive one another. "Large majorities in most nations surveyed do not believe the Muslim and Western worlds are currently getting along," the report says. "Perhaps of greatest concern, most respondents do not believe the Muslim and Western worlds respect one another."

The report finds a distinct "perceptions gap" between the two cultures. "Majorities in Muslim countries believe that the Muslim world is committed to better relations, but that the West does not share the same goal. Majorities in non-Muslim majority countries see the West, but not the Muslim world, [as] committed to better relations." Confidence-building exchanges are essential, the report concludes.

However, perceptions across either "world" are far from uniform. The Gallup Organisation which conducted the survey found that 75 per cent of Egyptians and 71 per cent of Turks thought the West and Islam were not getting along well, while the corresponding proportion of Bangladeshis was 37 per cent and of Pakistanis 26 per cent. And while an overwhelming majority of surveyed populations in Europe believe that greater interaction between Islam and the West is a threat, in the United States the opposite view, that more integration is necessary, is held by 70 per cent of the population. "The potency of the citizenship and integration issue is especially clear in Europe," the report concludes.

Defending its use of the categories of "Islam" and "the West", the 150-page survey, which includes contributions from the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey of Clifton, and the scholar, author and former nun Karen Armstrong, argues that these categories are "here to stay".

There is reason for hope, the authors find, in such exchanges as the Vatican's positive response to the invitation to dialogue issued by Muslim scholars, and the "historic" meeting between the Pope and the Saudi King at the Vatican in November.