Widely respected world-wide as fair and objective, the Pew Research Center released on Jan. 8, 2014 the results of a study revealing that a majority of respondents in select Muslim-dominated nations believe women be physically covered by their clothing when in public.
The study was carried out by University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research and published under the impressive title of “Final Report — The Birthplace of the Arab Spring: Values and Perceptions of the Tunisian Public in a Comparative Perspective.”
When confronted with the question of whether members of the fairer sex should show any flesh in public, an overwhelming majority of those surveyed expressed a desire that women at minimum should wear a loose-fitting hijab.
Only in the heavily secular Turkey and Lebanon, which is almost one-third Maronite-Rite Catholics and other Christians, is there a sizable minority that finds it acceptable for women to appear in public without any head coverings at all.
Silence, Woman…
When given the statement “A wife must always obey her husband,” those surveyed who either disagree or strongly disagree with the statement stack up as following:
- 5% of Egyptians
- 11% of Iraqis
- 38% of Lebanese
- 8% of Pakistanis
- 21% of Saudis
- 22% of Tunisians
- 30% of Turks
Again, only the Lebanese and Turks reflect disagreed at all with the majority view.
Of the 3,070 respondents 55% were female, and a total of 17% had university education with a degree.
“Likely” to Be Involved in Political Violence …
Seen by many in the Western World as a moderate Muslim nation with close cultural ties to the former colonial power of France, Tunisia, also viewed as the birthplace of the Arab Spring, betrayed some troubling views:
With approximately about 8.2 million of the country’s estimated population in 2012 are age 15 or older, six percent of this population is 495,402 individuals.
For a country of about 11 million, this is a fairly large number of people who reported that they are likely to get involved in political violence.
Your Tax Dollars at Work …
Despite billions of dollars in American foreign aid sent every year to the target nations, violence against both American troops and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan is widely approved of:
- 58% of Tunisians
- 49% of Egyptians
- 38% of Iraqis
- 57% of Lebanese
- 56% of Pakistanis
- 41% of Saudis
- 10% of Turks
