Study released on Muslims and violence

A study that was conducted by UC-Berkeley Professor M. Steven Fish on the link between Muslims and violence has been cited in numerous news articles around the internet recently. In his guest post for the Washington Post, Professor M. Steven Fish provides an angle not often offered in mainstream media, citing statistics for murder rates in Muslim-majority countries as a counter argument to the viewpoint often asserted that Muslims are a more violent community than non-Muslims:

One explanation we can rule out is that Muslims are violent people. Predominantly, Muslim countries average 2.4 murders per annum per 100,000 people, compared to 7.5 in non-Muslim countries. The percentage of the society that is made up of Muslims is an extraordinarily good predictor of a country's murder rate. More authoritarianism in Muslim countries does not account for the difference. I have found that controlling for political regime in statistical analysis does not change the findings. More Muslims, less homicide.

Fish also re-ran numbers to exclude non-Muslim-majority states with extraordinarily high murder rates (Colombia, Guatemala, El Salavador, Honduras, Jamaica, Lesotho, South Africa and Venezuela). Countries with a large Muslim population were found to be less murder prone by a significant margin.

However, CAGE acknowledges that there are many other factors that contribute to violence rates, such as widespread poverty, institutional racism, corruption, how the law is implemented and how the justice system operates generally.

Whatever one makes of this study, CAGE welcomes discussions which aim to unpack the often prevalent narrative that Muslims are more prone to violence because of religion (a narrative exacerbated by government programs such as PREVENT). These ideas, if left unchallenged, only serve to perpetuate islamophobia, general ignorance and fear, which, in turn is then used to justify increased state power via draconian laws (such as the CTS Bill) and mass surveillance.




35 comments:

  1. There are two major value-systems on the world’s stage today that are diametrically opposed to each other: the Judeo-Christian ethic and Islam. We in the West know a lot about our own value system, but precious little about Islam’s. Since our ethic is in direct conflict with Islam’s, we need to learn a bit about the Koran and what the Bible predicts about the future of Islam. Islam has two faces, the benign face it prefers to show to the West and the militant face it openly displays in the Middle East. One face is true Islam, the other is a charade. According to the
    Koran, there are only two houses in Islam, the Dar el Salaam (the house of peace) and the Dar el Harb (the house of war). If you are a Moslem, you are in the Dar el Salaam, but if you're of any other faith, you are an “infidel” in the Dar el Harb and Islam is at war with you. That doesn’t mean that every Moslem is a terrorist, no, but all terrorists today are Moslems and all Moslems believe that the whole world must become Islamic.
    For over 40 years, Israel has been signing treaties with the Palestinian Moslems; to date, not one has been honoured. Since we are all infidels, as far as Islam is concerned, any treaty signed with non-Moslems is not binding on them unless it is in Islam’s best interests to observe it. Despite the wishful thinking of our ever so pragmatic politicians, that’s reality! It isn't that Moslems are worse than anyone else, they aren’t. They are doing their best to adhere to a religion that has a very aggressive history because that is what the Koran demands of its followers. Western leaders refuse to recognize the religious component of this war so our real enemy is not being confronted at all. This is a war of belief systems, not guns and bullets, and the West is fighting it just like the Bible said it might:
    1Corinthians 14:8 “For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?”
    During the second Gulf War, Islamic Palestinians in the West Bank and Jordan were rioting in the streets and Mullahs all over the Mideast were preaching against the United States, inciting thousands of jihadists to fight for Saddam. Did they do so because of any great love for Iraq's murderous secular dictator? Of course not. Jihadists came into Iraq – and still do – because infidels, despite their goals, had a military presence in an Islamic state.
    Middle Eastern Islam was just behaving Islamic. Regardless of where Moslems might live or any internal differences they might have between themselves, Islam is one entity with one book they follow and consider holy . . . a Koran
    That instructs Moslems to bring the world into Islam, if necessary by the power of the sword . . . to fight against, subjugate and even kill all who are determined to remain out of Islam. We may not be at war with Islam, but as their violent history shows, Islam has been at war with the West ever since its inception.

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    1. How cute. Have you checked which religion inspired almost all contemporary terrorist attacks?

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_battles_and_other_violent_events_by_death_toll#Terrorist_attacks

      The cat's out of the bag - the world knows that CAGE LOVES terrorism.

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    2. Its up to Islam to understand OUR values NOT the othe rway round.

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  2. This is a very stupid assessment of murder rates for a religious group. In the middle east, bombings through vehicles, suicide or planted explosives still count as murder. And its been murder ever since Mohammed died with Shia and Sunnis, taking each other on in a bloody war of attrition. Jihad will continue for ever with the non believers, as no populace will bow to the other, not entirely anyway. Human fact. In a nutshell we will continue to ruin each other and this land until we are exterminated as a race. Better tuck in for the long haul

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  4. murder rates may be lower (although can this really be the case in Iraq or Afghanistan?) but I would be interested to know how non-Muslim minorities in such countries fare...I cannot believe that Christians in Pakistan or Egypt, for example, feel especially safe.

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  5. This website is the Muslim equivalent of the EDL !!!! funny how only murder figures are used... Nothing about sexual violence to white females in northern England ??

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  6. This website is the Muslim equivalent of the EDL !!!! funny how only murder figures are used... Nothing about sexual violence to white females in northern England ??

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