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PEW research: Pakistanis disapprove of US raid on Abbottabad, still hate India
Ratings of Zardari and Gilani slip, while Imran and Nawaz remain popular. Economy and extremism growing worry.
Majority of people considered the killing of Osama bin Laden as a bad thing. PHOTO: PEW research organisation
WASHINGTON: A PEW research says that most Pakistanis disapproved of the US operation that killed Osama bin Laden. Even though the terrorist leader was not a crowd favourite, a majority considered it a bad thing. However views about the US and Obama did not get any worse after bin Laden’s killing.
With relations between the two war on terror allies moving towards breaking point, the research found that 63 per cent of the people did not approve of bin Laden’s killing while 55 per cent believed it to be a bad thing. A mere 37 per cent believed in using army to combat extremists in Khyber Pakhtookhwa and FATA areas.
The comprehensive report is broken down in six chapters, views on national conditions, ratings of political leaders and government institutions, death of bin Laden and the continuing efforts against terrorists, opinion about US and Obama, on extremism and how Pakistanis and Indians view each other.
Views on national conditions
With regards to national condition, the PEW research said that “Pakistanis continue to be highly dissatisfied with conditions in their country. Roughly nine-in-ten (92 per cent) are dissatisfied with the country’s direction. Almost as many (85 per cent) say the economic situation in Pakistan is bad. And optimism is scarce – 60 per cent think the economy will worsen in the next 12 months; only 13 per cent believe it will improve.”
Ratings of political leaders and government institutions
Ratings for President Zardari dropped from 20 per cent a year ago to mere 11 per cent. While ratings for the Prime Minister Gillani fared better, with 39 per cent, despite dropping from 59 per cent from a year ago.
In contrast, political rivals such as Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif saw their popularity soar with Khan getting 69 per cent and Sharif 63 per cent.
Chief of Army Staff, Ashfaque Pervaiz Kayani came in third with 52 per cent. However, the institution he represents, the armed forces were viewed positively with 79 per cent approval. The ratings for the army have fallen only four points after the OBL incident.
Death of bin Laden and the continuing efforts against terrorists
After the bin Laden operation, criticism of the army was rising home and abroad. According to the PEW research data “although Osama bin Laden was not well-regarded in recent
years, few Pakistanis approve of the military operation that killed him, and most say it is a bad thing that the al Qaeda leader is dead. Looking forward, many think the killing of bin
Laden will create even greater tensions between the US and their country.”
As criticism about drone strikes increase, more and more people seemed to be getting knowledgeable about what the hue and cry about it. In addition to that, almost 61 per cent of the people disagreed that they were necessary while 89 per cent thought that they killed too many innocent people.
Support for the fight against extremism using Pakistani forces to conduct operations in the troubled FATA and Khyber Pakhtoonkhw areas of Pakistan has also waned with only 37 per cent of the people supporting an Army operation.
Opinion about US and Obama
Pakistanis are ranked second in viewing the US as unfavourable to their cause. The PEW report suggested that percentage of people who viewed America as friendly slipped from 17 per cent in 2010 to 12 per cent in 2011. Only in Turkey was America viewed less favourably with only 10 per cent viewing the country in positive light.
Extremism
According to the PEW research, the views about Islmaic extremism slipped slightly in 2011 compared with 2010. However, with 63 per cent still worried about the extremism in the country, most Pakistanis continue to see it as a problem facing their nation. Many worry that extremists could take control of their country, and pluralities see al Qaeda and the Taliban as serious threats.
How Pakistanis and Indians view each other
Pakistanis continue to see India in a bad light, with the PEW research saying that views have gotten more negative about their arch rivals over the past five years. According to the research, only 14 per cent of Pakistanis view India in a favourable light. 54 per cent consider India to be a serious threat to Pakistan over Taliban (34 per cent) and al Qaeda (29 per cent).
On the flip side, Indians do not view Pakistan as any more favourable as Pakistanis view Indians. However, 65 per cent of Indians see Pakistan in a negative light compared to 75 per cent for Pakistanis.
Interestingly, despite the visible hostility between the neighbouring countries, a large majority of people on both sides of the border want to improve relations.
The full research report can be read on the PEW research website.
Reader Comments (34)
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GReta. It seesm Imran and PTI are now the most popular in Pakistan. We are ready for change!!!!!!!Recommend
Since as per this poll, Pakistanis consider India to be the bigger threat ( 75 pct ) , above Taleban or Al-Qaida, then India must be the cause of the problems plaguing Pakistan.
Very good diagnosis.Recommend
wow we seem to hate those who are trying to help us while popularity ratings for terrorists who want to kill us remain unaffected. baffling!Recommend
” According to the research, only 14 per cent of Pakistanis view India in a favourable light. 54 per cent consider India to be a serious threat to Pakistan over Taliban (34 per cent) and al Qaeda (29 per cent).”
This is the reason for Pakistan’s impending doom.Recommend
Imran Khan is going to rule Pakistan.
I hope we people will turn in large numbers to bring Imran Khan in power.Recommend
Imran Khan is the leader for change. we love him.Recommend
What people can’t understand is that Pakistanis feel upset that our sovereignty was violated by an ally after all the sacrifices we have made to defeat the Soviets and now the criminals in Afghanistan. As for India, they are behind a lot of the criminality that goes on, especially through their lackeys in Afghanistan.Recommend
It is a shame that PEW Research survey shows so much support for Taliban, OBL and other extremists, who have killed tens of thousands of Pakistani civilians. No wonder their friends and supporters are gleeful and dreaming about making Pakistan a complete Taliban like state. Looks like there would again be a broad based alliance of right wing religious parties with PML-N and Imran Khan against the PPP. As history tells us none of these leaders/parties can compete on a national basis against PPP on their own and have to make an alliance for any real chance.Recommend
@Maria: thats may be true. BUT all the USA asked was that Pakistan stopped aiming to become a Nuclear power and gave them $ billions to sweeten the deal.. Pakistan repeatedly promised they would but didnt and ended up with nuclear weapons and supplying the plans and parts to North Korea and Iran too. This Embarrased USA who maintained to The world that Pakistan had stopped Nucklear proliferation.
So at least two sides to it as usual. They had the chance to impress on USA but let them down when it really mattered.Recommend
“According to the research, only 14 per cent of Pakistanis view India in a favourable light. 54 per cent consider India to be a serious threat to Pakistan over Taliban (34 per cent) and al Qaeda (29 per cent).”
This is called blind hate. Hate for no reason.
Al Qaeda and Taliban have killed more Pakistan than all the wars with India put together. Some newspapers in Pakistan put the figure at 35,000.
Who is the loser here? Certainly not India. They are the fastest growing nation on Earth, even Pakistan’s ally China wants to increase trade and exchange military cooperation with it. The World adores it. While nothing of the sort is happening with Pakistan.
Pakistan is the 12th most failed nation, and its economy is at a standstill with millions entering poverty every year the economy doesn’t grow more than 6%.
I guess the years of brainwashing by the Army and its stooges in the Urdu media have taken its toll.
While Indians have a reason to hate Pakistan(After all Pakistan is the most visible and the most dangerous external threat), Pakistan have no reason to hate India MORE than the Taliban or Al Qaeda. The fact that they do hate India more than Taliban should be a cause for worry and not at all a surprise for all those who have observed Pakistan closely for the past few years.
@Maria above is a classic example. The theory she propagates is straight out of the Urdu Media.Recommend
Though such polls should be taken with a pinch of salt since they cannot be seen as a surrogate for what the entire population truely feels (which is echoed through the chosen representatives only), it’s not quite revealing to note the lack public support for another military operation in any part of Pakistan (FATA in the survey). We’re all sick and tired of military operations to secure areas already ‘secured and defended by Pakistanis’…let’s give a breather and take one for our armed forces and reorient the entire damn policy towards development so that we don’t have to be forced into operations that destablize Pakistan.
And stop the drone strikes (a gift of the Musharraf military regime) as every strikes questions the ability of our Armed forces and their professionalism not to forget the national sovereignty issue.Recommend
@Maria:
It might help a little if people were to look at their current concerns with the military and government and then combine it with America’s decision to judge motive. It’s not only you guys who experience it.
Also, they should take into the other frames of mind that exist beyond black and white. Them doing it that way even saved a lot of lives and I’m not talking about terrorist attacks.
It’s hard for anyone deny the location he was in and for how long does not justify caution with information on it. The valid worry of a leak comes with another unspoken concern that I have not seen mentioned a single time. If Pakistan was given the information beforehand and OBL did escape, it would not amount to verbal drama. America would almost be forced to treat Pakistan as an enemy in terms of declared war. The American citizens would have been angered beyond belief once they found out. Every time they acted like you were an ally of any sorts their support would be drifting into critical levels. The only way the government would be able to keep its head above water would be to stop all support and declare you a member of the same category that are currently being tracked down and an enemy. Betrayal brings out a whole new type of hostility than any other previous “misunderstanding.” The government would be forced into it because the citizens aren’t stupid enough to forget about other military action for less. It would be brought to the forefront and the government would have only these choices: Either declare war on Pakistan, or abandon all other military action everywhere else. They’d choose the former.Recommend
68% percent people support IK, 63% support Nawaz Sharif…naturally this represents the right wing vote bank of pakistan…but since the numbers are overlapping the biggest challenge for IK and his party would be would be to motivate the percentage he shares with NS to vote for him on the big day….i think even in 1996 elections IK would have very high approval ratings but did the people vote. However, this is again a good news for military establishment that their latest sweetheart is getting more popular each year!Recommend
@Maria:
Wow, You are better than ‘Rahman Malik’ !!!Recommend
Mullah Returns !!!Recommend
What is the point in presenting these statistics. Are the countries going to work out strategies to counter these negative trends?Recommend
Indians hate Pakistan. We do not see anything positive coming from Indian government employed trolls.Recommend
@ Mark
You may justify American position,but we as pakistanis are convinced that America stabbed us in our back,while we were sharing all the intellegence information with them.
If Pakistan failed in locating OBL, that doesnt mean that we were complicit.
What about America attacking Iraq on WMD issue, did your inteligence provided accurate information or the CIA was also complicit?
But as America has the character to use you and discard you so we expect the same.Recommend
The survey says 75% of Pakistanis see India as a threat to their country (with very good reason). The survey did not say that 75% of Pakistanis hate India. This is poor journalism. Really poor.Recommend
@Frank:
I agree – if you spend some time in this country, you will see that we are more steeped in Indian culture and entertainment, more enamoured of their future, than we are our own. India has one of the best marketing engines in the world, which is why Pakistan, as an ally of the US, is ‘a dangerous nation’, while India, at odds with every nation on her borders and tolerating several internal insurgencies, is a ‘peaceful country’. It’s also why you will see support for India on this board.
The poll also says that 63% of the nation disapproved of the OBL operation, not of the Taliban. The same percentage of people is extremely worried about extremism, so I would think the first statistic would have more to do with US boots on our soil than their love for OBL.Recommend
@Sabahat…I don’t what you know about marketing but as a business grad myself all I can say is that no amount of marketing can sustain a bad product. So, if world community is buying, and has been buying, into the so called marketing by India then obviously the product has to be good or the customers has to be buffoons. In later case only one country, Pakistan, in this world can be called wise, I think you would like to believe that.
If you can alight from you propaganda train and try to look around then you will realize that Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Burma have good relations with India. In fact, go through the wikileaks and find out how India saved Sri Lanka from international community’s censor during its war with LTTE. Few hiccups here and there is part and parcel of international relations that mature countries actually don’t cry about.
@Frank…Can you share what is that “very good” reason because of which Pakistan views India as a threat. I wish to be enlightened.Recommend
@PoorPeace!:
Great marketing has done an effective job on you, from what I see. Great marketing continues to sell tobacco products to billions of people worldwide. Would you say that cigarettes are good?Recommend
@Sabahat
The Indian marketing engine is indeed very good. As anyone who has studied marketing will know the following ‘P’s are the most important elements of Marketing -
product, price, promotion, place, physical presence, provision of service, and processes
As you’ll see the only good P that Pakistan has is ‘place’, and perhaps to some extent Physical Presence (of nuclear weapons at least)! Everything else is awful.
In case of India, most things fall in place. One more thing that matters the most in case of creating value for a brand is – Promotion. I suspect that’s what you were referring to in your comment. The most important ingredient in the promotion of a country is “public relations”, as advertisements are useless.
And in PR, what matters the most is ‘Credibility’. Pakistan has lost that to a great extent, thus what ever it says is not taken by any other country with any degree of confidence.
So, you are right – Pakistan has a Marketing problem. To fix it it will have to fix it’s product, service, process etc. to improve credibility for better public relations.Recommend
The above survey is worrying for both India and Pakistan seem to be growing apart, rather than finding common ground.
One problem we have is very few people really understand the people of other countries. If only our TV channels can broadcast into each other’s country more people will be able to figure that normal, regular people are the same in both countries, but are just led by a bunch of idiots who can’t think beyond the immediate gains when it comes to mutual relations.
Atleast in India we have had two consecutive Prime Ministers (Vajpayee and MMS) who aren’t hawks in Pakistan relations, thus saving us from certainty of war in atleast two occasions. But, they are constrained by the establishments (their own and opposing ones).
At times I feel this whole thing is like a Ballistic missile without any control and will end up like a Greek Tragedy with we blowing up each other. :(Recommend
The feeling which Indians have about is not different from what Pakistani have for Indian.We love to hate each other.Recommend
PoorPeace
Are you trying to act cute? As long as India continues to occupy Kashmir we will NEVER normalize relations with India.Recommend
@Frank…Don’t bother yourself by thinking I am trying to be cute or not. As long as Pakistan continues to occupy their piece of Kashmir and don’t give up supporting cross border terrorism there CANNOT be any peace. Get that into your small brain, will you?
Don’t know how our administration on OUR kashmir can be a threat to an imploding nation.Recommend
@Sabahat…If people are buying cigarettes then they think its good for them. You and me are nobody to judge them.Recommend
Its not India but its own number one establishment is Pakistan’s biggest enemy. India has never harmed Pakistan in the past and its most unlikely that it will ever do it in future as well. However, the Pak military continues to play with the fire which will lead to self-destruction of Pakistan.Recommend
It would appear that Obama made the correct choice — only lost one point in the poll but he caught and killed the most wanted terrorist in the World. One has to wonder why catching and killing the most wanted terrorist in the World is only considered a bad thing in Pakistan.Recommend
what the heck PEW stands for?Recommend
Why should this Pew research survey be believed?Recommend
Please can some one tell me how a survey conducted with only 2000 people out of 180 million people can be stated as the true thinking of that nation….please do some one have any logic in that..I dont need arguments but tell me how come is it possible to show the thinking of 180 million by just taking survey from 2000 people..please dont jump on to the conclusion actually it is 1970 adults from all around the PAKISTAN…i cant ressit a smile on this….I dont know what these survey try to prove totally baseless and un realistic…if it would have done in any country having population near to 4,5 million ok then it would have made any sense but 2 thousand people out of 180 million is just a joke of the year…….Recommend
@ Saeed..Thanks alot..All this discussion is almost a waste of time :)
“Results for the April survey in Pakistan are based on 1,970 face-to-face interviews of adults conducted April 10 to April 26. Results for the May survey in Pakistan are based on 1,251 face-to-face interviews of adults conducted May 8 to May 15″
Recommend