Long Way to Go

President Obama is set to appear this week in Cairo for an address the White House is billing as another step in the administration's efforts to renew U.S. standing across the globe and in the Muslim world in particular. Already Obama is inspiring optimism among Muslims hoping to see a change in U.S. attitudes and policies towards the Islamic world. A recent poll cited by the Associated Press showed that 73 percent of people in six Arab countries held a positive or neutral view of Obama.

But the goodwill Obama’s election has generated will not erase some fundamental differences in worldviews any time soon. The Pew Global Attitudes Project in 2006 published the most comprehensive study I know of examining the sharp divergences in opinions and perceptions between Westerners and Muslims. The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims View Each Other offers a sobering reminder of how far apart Western and Islamic societies are today culturally and politically even as they increasingly share the same geographic space.