ITEMS OF INTEREST March 19, 2007 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

with contributions from Tom Regan, Tim Funk

A POLL OF 28,000 PEOPLE Carried out for the BBC World Service found that a majority of surveyants from around the globe believe the main causes of problems between the West and Islam are not based on religious but political and economic factors....

The BBC reports that Doug Miller, the president of GlobeScan—the company which carried out the poll for the BBC—said the results suggested that the world was not headed towards an "inevitable and wide ranging clash of civilizations."

"Most people feel this is about political power and interests, not religion and culture," he said. He pointed to the polarization of communities in Nigeria (which was the one country in the survey where a majority see religion as the main cause of conflict) as a warning sign to others, but hailed the results from Lebanon, a country frequently caught up in conflicts. Some 78 percent of Lebanese strongly believed West-East tensions were politically motivated, while 68 percent felt common ground could be found between the West and the Islamic world....

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