Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August 2009, page 62
Muslim-American Activism
What Do Muslims Really Think?
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UNITY PRODUCTIONS Foundation (UPF) and Gardner Films presented the June 3 world premiere of “Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think” at Georgetown University’s Gaston Hall in Washington, DC.
The documentary film explores data gathered by Gallup, famous for its worldwide public opinion polling, whose team of interviewers visited Muslim homes in 35 different countries where Islam is the major religion. The resulting data from 2001 is the most extensive polling of Muslims ever conducted, having successfully reached out to 1.4 billion Muslims (the compiled book by the same title is available from our AET Bookclub). The poll couldn’t have been more timely, as researcher Jihad Fakhreddine stated in the film, because the attacks on 9/11 acted as “a wrench driven between us, the Muslim world and the West.”
During in-depth interviewing, Gallup pollsters fluent in the local language posed questions such as: Why is there so much anti-Americanism among Muslims? What do Muslims like about the West? Do you think women and men should have equal rights? What do Muslim women want? Answers to these questions had not previously been compiled, and UPF, committed to “working for peace through the media,” saw an opportunity to be a part of getting the word out about what Muslims really think.
Muslims come from every country and speak every language in the world, but 57 percent of the Muslims portrayed in the U.S. media are militants. This percentage stands in stark contrast to the minute percentage of the worldwide Muslim community that can be considered ideological extremists for viewing civilian attacks as completely justified.
The film reviews pertinent data from the Gallup poll interspersed with anecdotal stories from researchers and superb analysis by experts including Dalia Mogahed, executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies; Georgetown University Prof. John Esposito; Rami Khoury, editor-at-large of Beirut’s Daily Star; and Kenneth Pollack, director of research at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy and author of the 2002 book The Threatening Storm:The Case for Invading Iraq.
UPF co-founder Alex Kronemer introduced the film as proof that “real dialogue is truly possible between the Muslim world and the West, between Muslims and Christians.” He went on to explain that if we are left wading through the opinions of pundits, we are missing out on Muslim voices.
Director Rob Gardner stated that the Muslim perspective is “a picture that we all need to know a lot better.”
Keynote speaker Dr. Madeleine Albright began with an entertaining story: being the first secretary of state (under President Bill Clinton) to host iftar, she announced her intention to wait until after breaking the fast to give her speech. This was met with the response, “Finally, a secretary of state who understands the minds and hearts of Muslims!” Dr. Albright jovially added that, when dealing “with U.S. foreign policy, praying five times a day is just about right.”
On a more serious note, Dr. Albright charged, “too often we equate mere assumption with truth” and fall into the “sensationalism, violence, extremism, [and] chauvinism in the media.” It is rare that a film such as this one exists to set us back on the right track toward dialogue and understanding, she concluded.
For more information about this documentary or other UPF films, visit <upf.tv>.
—Nina Hamedani
