As President Pervez Musharraf
arrives in the United States, only four percent of Americans
say they have a “very favourable” view of
him, while 13 percent say they have never heard of him,
according to a recent Pew Research Centre survey. The
survey says that 23 percent have a “somewhat favourable”
view of the Pakistani military leader, while 20 percent
have a “somewhat unfavourable” view of him
as against 12 percent whose view of him is “very
unfavourable”. As many as 41 percent say they “do
not know”. Generally, people in the largely Muslim
nations surveyed are divided over whether suicide bombings
and other violence against civilian targets are justified
in order to defend Islam against its enemies. Forty-one
percent of those interviewed in Pakistan said suicide
attacks in the defence of Islam are justifiable. Forty-seven
percent of Pakistanis who were surveyed said that Palestinian
bombings against the Israelis are justifiable with 36
saying they are not. Six in 10 older Pakistanis saw suicide
attacks against Americans in Iraq as justifiable, compared
with just 44 percent of those who are younger. In Pakistan,
there was also a significant gender gap in attitudes toward
suicide attacks, with men roughly twice as likely as women
to say such violence against Americans and other Westerners
in Iraq is justifiable. Osama Bin Laden is viewed with
almost universal disdain throughout the European nations
surveyed as well as in Turkey, but the Al Qaeda leader
is regarded favourably by 65 percent of Pakistanis.
