education. you know, as robbie's charts clearly indicated there does tend to be a very strong age and education effect influencing attitudes towards islam, immigration and a number of other cultural religious issues as well. said the survey indicates all of the expected correlations with regard to african-americans, hispanics, muslims and immigrants patterns of social relations and the importance of religion itself. but, and this will be my concluding point, there were some surprises. we did not -- we expected to find a much bigger divide between the youngest and the oldest americans on the issue of whether reverse discrimination, discrimination against whites has become as important an issue at as discrimination against minorities. we expected to find a significant gap on the question of whether discrimination against minorities remains an important issue in american politics and society today and also on the question, the very dramatic question of whether muslims who commit acts of violence are indeed muslims and the survey did not reveal the kind of age effect that one might have expected. and so there are real discontinuities by age and education but also some important continuities. with that i will subside. [applause] >> thank you very much pill. if i could just reiterate to our audience that if you want to ask a question it is hashtag diversity poll. i think we might christine begin with one of our questions from outside the room when we get to the q&a. i'm grateful to robbie for mentioning the ford foundation is supporting both of us and i particularly want to think of sheila who has been a real friend to us. she has a passion for these issues and also a deep and broad knowledge of these issues so that is a really good combination we are very grateful to her. i also want to welcome my friend melissa rogers who is a nonresident senior fellow and a partner with bill and me on many of our religious and public life projects. if we had pulled other students of religion, religious pluralism and religious freedom and asked who should we invite -- somebody will help me on that -- to be the respondents on the survey they would have come up with dr. dr. muqtedar khan and dr. keeter without any of those demographic breaks. dr. muqtedar muqtedar khan is ar in the department of political science and international relations at the university of delaware. he is the founder of the islamic studies program at the university of delaware and was its first director from 2007 to 2010. his most recent book is debating moderate islam, the geopolitics of islam and the west. he will be our first respondents. dr. jose casanova is one of the world's top scholars in the sociology of religion. that is not a nice thing to say an introduction. that is actually true. he is a professor at the department of sociology at georgetown university. he has the berkeley centers program on globalization, religion and the secular. he has published works in a broad range of subjects including religion and globalization. migration and religious pluralism transnational religions and sociological theory. so i welcome first stop your khan and dr. casanova. and thank you so much for being with us. >> thank you e.j. and thank you robert for inviting me to this exciting discussion. i'm delighted to be back at brookings. i used to be a fellow here for a long time. there are several such surveys that are coming out about muslims and muslim attitudes about america and about american attitudes towards muslims. for me, who is consuming all of these surveys it is an emotional rollercoaster. i looked at a recent survey by gallup, which says that 80% of american muslims approve of obama. maybe they are not reading the news. 66% of the american muslims say they are thriving and happy to be here and they are doing better than anybody else. in terms of religious tolerance towards others, the american muslims, more of them than anybody else, one point about the mormons in the u.s.. that may be very happy and that i looked at the survey and i am really very depressed. , let me tell you the good news or get the good news is that regardless of the nature of the favorability that is reported, it has become obvious that attitude towards islam and attitudes towards muslims has become a constitutive element of american identity. you cannot be an american without having a position on islam and towards muslims. and the kind of position you take about islam and towards muslims will also define the kind of american you are. in that sense, islam is here and has become a part of a americas social, cultural and political identity and its fabric. so that is the most interesting thing that i find. attitudes and change. sometimes data looks different if the question is framed differently. that is the first thing. the second thing that i found was that muslim bindings to me were not surprising. they were concerning, some of the suspicions we have in the trends that we have observed based on several episodes. now we have the numbers that confirms the fears or hopes, depending on how you look at this. the number 47%, 47% of americans disapprove of islam and muslims particularly the disapproval of islam has been quite stable actually since 2002. the first time i saw that was in a pew study survey in 2002 and confirmed again and again and again. so that is constant. but what has changed is why the disapproval. that is to me the most dangerous and the most frightening thing. when you ask people in the past why did you disapprove of muslims or islam, the 47% who did disapprove talked about terrorism. now they talk about sharia. that is dangerous because terrorism is -- of politics changes. if bin laden is killed, if al qaeda is destroyed. that force of disapproval, that source of insecurity, which prompts unfavorable attitudes towards muslims can disappear. but if the source port is favorable attitude towards muslims is muslim adherence to sharia then this is never, ever going to disappear. i just spent a whole month, every living moment of that month, trying to apply sharia in my life. the whole point of ramadan is too fast and pray and to think of god and to internalize and internalize the sharia and muslims do that every year they will do that. so living by the sharia is an important aspect of muslim life and if they are going to be disapproved because of that than we are going to have a perennial problem. i think that is something we need to do, unless we do a better job of educating americans about what the sharia is. in my opinion, 90% of the sharia is already applied and the united states. thou shall not kill, thou shall not cheatsheet, thou show not lie. i wonder if those opposed to sharia if they would find out that murder is prohibited by the sharia, will they approve? killing, robbing, creating krupp shin and society. all of these things are prohibited by the sharia. i have one more comment about the sharia. it is amazing these attitudes towards the sharia. especially by those who are more religious christians and those who are on the side of the republicans. for several decades, many hundred million americans have struggled hard to implement two elements of the christian sharia, banning abortion and preventing marriage. so how do they expect less than 2% of muslims, less than 2% of the american population, how do they expect less than 2% of the population to implement the entire islamic sharia in america? muslims has failed to implement the entire islamic sharia in countries where they have struggled with 100% muslims, 95% muslim, iran 95%. they haven't been successful in implementing. the point is really that sharia is just a prop, and attempts to say we don't like islam and muslims i don't know and i don't care. but if you want to have an excuse here is one. let's try sharia. i think that is what it is. i have one non-islam related -- about this report which i find perplexing and interesting. the favorability numbers towards african-americans are 89%. nearly everybody, 90% is a huge number. so why is race an issue in this country? why do people feel that they institutionalize discrimination in this country? what it tells me is there is no connection between favorability and institutionalized discrimination. so it is quite possible that you could have just favorability numbers very high towards muslims in the u.s. without having institutionalized discrimination against muslims and that is why you find of muslims in america are much much happier than this data actually suggest. that is why two out of three american muslims say they are thriving even though there are nearly half of americans that say they don't like them. there is no connection between surveys the major favorability and institutionalization of discrimination etc.. the second thing i found interesting is that mormons enjoy higher favorability ratings than muslims while -- don't. i'm assuming that the majority of mormons in a large number of atheists are white, so how does religion raise the dynamics play out in this connection. i don't understand and perhaps future study somebody could try to flush that out. they are disliked compared to muslims even though mormons are white. there is an interesting finding in this report, which is the marriage between knowledge and prejudice. this is fascinating. the people claim that they know most of islam are the people who are the most ignorant in my opinion but also the most prejudiced in their own opinion about islam. knowledge apparently is nurturing prejudice and that is because of our game equally new institution called. people who seem to watch "fox news" and trusted the most think that they know more about islam than anybody else and have extremely unfavorable ratings towards muslims. that is really fascinating. in the last two or three years, especially since you been to the mosque issue, islamaphobia has become a campaign strategy for the republican party. nobody cares whether imam is raising money or not for the mosque at wtc. it was only until november that it was such a big issue. i wrote weight until the elections are over and nobody will worry. we will see that issue come up again as we get closer to the next election. so islamaphobia in combination with fox has become a campaign strategy for the republican party. without urges toward muslim herman cain would have no status in this entire republican nomination. if it is one point candidate, i know how to hurt muslims and i can show you how. that seems to be his entire campaign strategy. the second thing that i want to point out is that if you look at this data about the media, you find that this number is very disturbing. americans to trust who trust broadcast news networks are least likely to report knowing a lot about muslims. so only 7% of the people who watch broadcast news say that they know about islam and understand it. people who seem to watch "fox news" seemed to claim that they know a lot about islam and they are prejudiced towards muslims. so i think that a lot of mischief that is being caused by "fox news" is the dividend of the stuff that broadcast news are not doing. if the mainstream news channels did a better job of educating the americans about islam and muslims, then i think that vacuum of knowledge will not be exploited as much by "fox news." and that is an important lesson i think from this report. i also want to talk about the good guys. at first when i read the report the first time i was constantly distracted by all the negatives. when i read at the second time, i said oh my god while bigots will be bigots the good guys are also scary. for example, if you look at the state on the question of feeling of -- of concern, muslims wearing the burqa, muslims at the mosque and muslims praying at airports etc. those who seem to be uncomfortable are 48, 56, 40%. those are really high numbers. and even from those who are democrats, and those who watch public television and those who do not watch "fox news," the numbers of ignorance about islam and prejudice of islam continues to hover around 30%. so while we can blame fox and right-wing leaders and preachers for fostering and nurturing the discourse of hate, against muslims probably, but the others are also not doing very well and that to me is also a worrisome issue. especially for american muslims who see america as their home, there is the idea of permanent deportation that is not possible. now nearly 40% of all american muslims are indigenous muslims and within another 10 or 15 years the majority of american muslims will be indigenous americans. so this whole idea that we will continue to be unaccepting of islam is disturbing. i also would like to add an impression to the -- how am i doing on time? >> pretty close. >> okay. i also have one question. beatitudes, the data that i am interpreting as perhaps prejudicial, how much of that is being affected by the general political climate in this country? the polarization that is taking place in the united states, united states, the perception that obama is not really one of us and this foreign guy from africa who sometimes wears a turbine is take no for our country. you know obama is the only guy i know who is converting to islam in slow motion. you know, and one point he was 30% muslim and now he is 20% muslim. i think by 2012, by the time we are pulling in november he will be 50% muslim. so, and then the joblessness, the insecurity about the economy, and they think a major global restructuring of the united states as a less powerful economic and military entity i think is -- the shock that we are not the big honcho that we used to be, all of that also i think it's manifesting in their prejudices towards primarily islam and muslims and they think that perhaps while it is quite possible that the surveys may be underestimating the amount of prejudice there is towards muslims because nobody wants to tell people that look i am the bigot on the phone when they answer these questions, but even though they might be underestimating the prejudice against muslims that it is also quite possible that it is superficial and reacting to the current economic and political environment. and i think that once things get better, these numbers will get that are too. thank you. [applause] >> well the questioner works their way up i want reminded viewers to remind the viewers that they can comment -- i want to remind viewers they can comment at hashtag diversity pulled. we invite dissent as well as questions are many point of view including perhaps muslims who are republicans or "fox news" viewers. muqtedar thank you for joining our conversation. dr. casanova dr. said dr. casanova it is on the honor to have you here are too. >> i'm thankful for the invitation. i have for brief points or comments which i will keep to two minutes each will be sufficient. first, the relation between private opinion and public opinion, what we actually call public opinion is privately self opinions made public by such surveys of course as this one. it is important -- change by being made public and what are they reinforcing loops between the media, private prejudices in a positive sense and prejudgment approaching the negative sense of a not write views of things. so in the survey results we saw a striking look between the media, the media we watch and the pre-judgments we have, especially of course this comes extremely striking in the case of "fox news." and one question i have is do we have any evidence that, when public opinion is made public it ever leads to changing our prejudices or are we only reinforcing what we see in our selves in certain groups. i am not concerned about it so the public opinion reinforces that i belong to the right group. i don't think ever public opinion leads to changing prejudice him. this of course is a very interesting issue. the second is the striking points between views, opinions attitudes and prejudices towards immigrants. the striking consistencies are all groups in america, religious groups, white evangelical protestants, catholics, black partisans but also liberals and conservatives. they are very similarly favorable or unfavorable view towards muslims and this is striking because an american muslims and immigrants are two radically different groups. most immigrants are muslims and most muslims are -- in america muslims are a small proportion of immigrants and in one pull muslims are not -- so the fact that the two are put together is very interesting. imagine if actually they would be the same group. then of course the prejudice would be doubled which is what imagine what happens in europe. in europe, to be in the immigrant and to be of no racially -- imagine in the 19th century blacks and catholics. most catholics were blacks and most blacks were catholics. most muslims were hispanic and most hispanics were muslims or of course the prejudice would be of course very very striking. it is very interesting to us this question of how the two things are linked together. .. i'm not sure in the most striking that less favorable ambivalent views to words them in the hispanics immigration but here the important issue is how the immigration enters. it's a good thing for the minorities and in the country the prejudice we must watch had it not been this the case and we see for instance how the muslims also less favorable reviews are still 58% of americans not islam but of american muslims, much higher than the only 45% who have favorable views while 46% said unfavorable and the most striking difference with tear up where in europe you have the fusion of the religious prejudice, secular prejudice, politically right prejudice, left, the extreme right, the catholic center, the liberal sector, all of them gang up on muslims and islam. thank god in america we are divided. [laughter] we are divided and therefore we cannot to gang up on them. as in this respect to de nativism in america in the 19th century is easily unviable from the view because precisely the american society is changing so dramatically but also precisely because the majority is not possible. it would be precise in the republican majority and the white majority in the 19th century it is not possible to the society any more racially much more diverse and it hasn't even appears in the category. the age has disappeared. the chinese work in the most racially discriminated nativist attack. finally on the fourth and final point about the future about are they so much more open because as it points out they are the most religiously and ethnically diverse generation and the country and its one interesting point or is it because they're so young, namely the question is for the local port and as they grow older they will also become less tolerant of the diversity and this is of course the issue about young people being less religious. young people are always less religious and they become more religious and get married and have children. so this we know and this has been an issue that all argue against people using the evidence of the next generation therefore the american people are going to be in was religious because the generations are less religious. it is the communication of both factors and they are distinguished is disaggregate what is characteristic of the generation because they are young and what it is because they represent the future of the country. think you. [applause] i have this question in my mind of someone express's a private opinion and a forest and there's no pollster around to record of you what is the public opinion? what a wonderful presentation. before you go, raviv just wanted to put a few other numbers on the table in response and presentation and then we will go to the twitter feet and then opened up for questions but we will keep also going to the viewers on c-span. >> thanks, ej. there's one more thing i can respond to