Sunday, January 30, 2011

The Extremists Won't Win, But The Moderates Are Pretty Extreme

This Pew survey from last year gives an indication of where public opinion in Egypt stands. It stands in the corner of the room marked "crazy"- with a large majority in favour of the public concerned about the rise of Islamic extremist but an equally large majority in favour of stoning for adultery and flogging for petty crimes.

So whilst the religious extremists probably won't take sole of Egypt, even the moderates & liberals aren't going tp be the Egyptian equivalents of Christopher Hitchens and will be likely to throw the Islamists a few bones.

3 comments:

James Higham said...

"Sole" as in throwing shoes or "soul" as in spirit of?

Anonymous said...

I recall doing a visit to egpt some years ago as a tourist. The tour guide was a university educated female and very friendly with us.

At the end of the week, i asked her for her views on Jews. She stated she was a moderate, but as such she still felt that Hitler didn't go far enough in trying to eradicate them.

Hate crimes for us british are normally centred on an out of date word or phrase that minorities can take offense to. In other parts of the world hate crimes is generally a short step to genocide.

Ross said...

James- I meant "Sole control" of Egypt. Well spotted.

Anon- I don't doubt that such sentiments exist, although we don't know whether they are lessened or exacerbated by rule by Mubarak.