Right wing fundamentalists

Greg Sheridan, foreign editor with The Australian, asks a pertinent question:

Do the extremists really represent a tiny fringe or is there some much bigger mainstream part of Middle East society that supports extremism? More particularly, is there an element inherent to Islam itself that lends support to extremism?

The answer is not quite as reassuring as we might prefer.

It is difficult to get a guide to Islamic public opinion anywhere. One of the best is a joint Asia-Europe Institute and University of Malaya survey of Malay Muslim opinion in Malaysia. I have referred to this survey before, but not previously given its results in any detail. It was exhaustive in its methodology.

About 65 per cent of Malaysia's population is Muslim, and only Malay Muslims were surveyed. Malaysia is a moderate and generally tolerant country. It does not persecute its religious minorities, and it has developed successfully economically so that it can just about be considered a middle-class society.

Certainly it is vastly more successful and wealthy than it was 20 years ago. If there's a Muslim population anywhere that should feel happy and content it is in Malaysia. Successful, increasingly rich, Islam afforded a special status in the constitution, Malays given substantial financial, educational, housing and other preferences, persecuted by no one, they should be among the least paranoid people in the Muslim world.

If they are, then that is disturbing, for the results of the poll are unsettling to say the least. Here are highlights:

• 73 per cent of Malays, if they could choose only one identity, would choose Muslim first, only 14 per cent would choose Malaysian while 13 per cent would choose Malay. So Islam trumps citizenship, which only just edges out ethnicity.
• 77 per cent believe Malaysians should be allowed to choose their own religion but this is contradicted by a massive 98 per cent believing that Malaysian Muslims should not be allowed to change their religion. Freedom of religion means you don't have to convert to Islam, but if you are a Muslim you should have no right under the law to change your religion under any circumstances. This belief is very widespread throughout the Muslim world.
• 73 per cent said their parents had had the greatest influence on their development as Muslims, an encouraging sign of the strength of indigenous Malay traditions as opposed to contemporary Middle East influences.
• 49 per cent thought the Malaysian Government sufficiently Islamic, but almost as many, 47 per cent, thought it was not sufficiently Islamic.
• 77 per cent do not want Malaysia to become an Islamic state like Iran, but 18 per cent do want Malaysia to become an Islamic state like Iran.
• 57 per cent say Islam and politics should be separate but a substantial 40 per cent say they should be mixed.
• 57 per cent do not want strict hudud laws (stoning for adultery, and so on) implemented in Malaysia but 32 per cent do want hudud laws.
• 60 per cent say non-Muslims should not be subject to hudud laws but nearly a third, 28 per cent, actually want hudud laws to apply to non-Muslims. Similarly, some 31 per cent want sharia (Islamic law) to replace the Malaysian constitution.
• 77 per cent, a staggering figure, believe that Malaysia's existing sharia laws (which govern family matters for Muslims) are not strict enough.
• 76 per cent believe men and women in Islam have equal rights.
• 57 per cent believe wives could disobey husbands to work, but 47 per cent say if the husband forbids work, the wife should obey.
• 97 per cent, encouragingly, believe it is acceptable to live alongside non-Muslims and 79 per cent believe Malays should learn about other religions.
• 62 per cent believe suicide bombings are wrong but a disturbing 12 per cent (the exact mid-point of Pipes's estimated range) support it.
• 1 per cent like the US, 45 per cent dislike it and 39 per cent hate the US.
• 3 per cent like Europe, 38 per cent dislike it and 19 per cent hate Europe.
• 4 per cent like Australia, 37 per cent dislike it and 18 per cent hate Australia.

Overall, these results are staggering. They show a substantial residual moderation, but a degree of genuine intolerance among even the majority and authentic extremism among a substantial minority.

It's hard to believe Islamic opinion is not substantially more extreme in the Middle East. The task of reforming the extremism in Islamic cultures remains vast.