日本の高校生が抱くイスラーム像とその是正に向けた取り組み : 東京・神奈川の高校でのアンケート調査を糸口として(<特集II>学校教育におけるイスラーム)
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概要
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As many as 100,000 Muslims reside permanently in Japan today, but nonetheless a negative perception of Islam has spread throughout Japanese society, especially since the events of September 11, 2001 in the United States. These images, not helpful for fostering symbiotic relationships between the Japanese and neighboring Muslims, should be corrected as soon as possible. Until now, however, too few studies of perception of Islam have been done in Japan. In this paper, I will use a questionnaire survey of Japanese high school students to demonstrate one of the causes that generate negative images. In April and May of 2003, I sent these questionnaires to 23 national, public, and private high schools in Tokyo and Kanagawa Prefectures; 1670 first-year students returned completed forms. When analyzing and examining the answers, I divided the students into two groups for comparison. The 648 students in Group A had given correct answers to the three elementary questions: "Who is the Prophet?" "Where is the holiest place for Muslims?" and "What is the holy scripture for Muslims?". One the other hand, the 1022 students in Group B did not answer all three correctly. I therefore concluded that Group A has more knowledge of Islam than Group B. In addition, answers to other questions indicated that Group A appears to have more interest in various aspects of social phenomena than Group B. The Survey provides two especially interesting results. First, overall these high school students report having four images of Islam, as follows: (1) rigid, many commandments required, and not free ; (2) strange and incomprehensible ; (3) intolerant and aggressive; and (4) bearded people living in desert areas. It is worth noting that these negative images of Islam are more common in Group A than in Group B. Second, Group A gave more correct answers to most of the questions about knowledge of Islam than Group B did, especially about Islamic commandments generally regarded as characteristic of Islam, such as "Can Muslims marry four wives?" "Is it a taboo to eat pork?" "May Muslims drink alcohol?" "Do Muslims pray several times everyday?" "Do Muslims fast for a month?". But, strangely, Group A gave fewer correct answers to questions such as "Are most Muslims Arabs?" "Must Muslim women cover their whole body with black clothes?" and the like. Also, in answering the questions about whether Muslims are a majority or not in the six countries (Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Thailand, Mongolia, and India), Group A gave more correct answers for all countries except Indonesia. After considering all the results, we see that Group A is more influenced than Group B by the one-sided information about Islam spreading throughout Japanese society. Japanese television programs often represent Muslims as soldiers with beards or women in black veils living in the desert in the Middle East, and Japanese schoolteachers often explain Islam to their students in terms of Muslim obligations and commandments. It is natural that Group A, given such narrow views and knowledge, tends to hold tightly to the four images mentioned above. In conclusion, the results of the survey appear to demonstrate that a paradox exists in today's Japanese society. The more information high school students receive about Islam, the more negative images they have. In the same way, negative images of Islam among the Japanese people in general may be arising from one-sided information rather than from limited or inaccurate information. In addition to the questionnaire survey, I have also been doing some fieldwork about Muslims in Japan, on some occasions working with high school students. Based on these experiences, I am convinced of the necessity for actual interaction with Muslims if we are to avoid being influenced by one-sided information as it spreads widely. This interaction will be the first step towards reconsideration of negative images of Islam, towards realizing the gap between the information spreading throughout Japanese society and the knowledge that results from actual interaction.
- 日本中東学会の論文
- 2006-03-31