CULTURAL ENRICHMENT — what to do when the people don’t like it?

As so often is the case today, a poll is carried out on public opinion and when it turns out that the public have the wrong views on whatever is the Dictate of the Day — the question then is asked, ‘What can people in positions of power do to ensure the public are made to think the right way?’

What is striking, is that despite the attempts to re-educate and otherwise alter the attitudes of the majority of the population, the population continue to understand — in ever larger numbers — that the problems lie not with them but with what is happening around them. As Daniel Pipes pointed out recently, for example, across much of Europe, Islam appears not to be growing as fast as negative perceptions of it.

As Pipes also cited, in Germany last year, a poll revealed that only 7% of Germans associate Islam with “openness, tolerance or respect for human rights.” 64% connect it with violence; 68% with intolerance towards other faiths, and 83% with discrimination against women. A poll in France earlier this year revealed that 67% of people believe Islamic values to be “incompatible with those of French society,” 73% view Islam negatively and 74 % consider it intolerant. If the problem of perception of Islam were limited to Dundee, that would be one thing. But the Dundee schoolchildren clearly perceive something which a growing number of people across Western Europe also perceive — as other people do about other problems surrounding them.