“In our survey, carried out before President Trump’s executive order was announced, respondents were given the following statement: ‘All further migration from mainly Muslim countries should be stopped’. They were then asked to what extent did they agree or disagree with this statement. Overall, across all 10 of the European countries an average of 55% agreed that all further migration from mainly Muslim countries should be stopped, 25% neither agreed nor disagreed and 20% disagreed.”
Obviously, in some European countries, refugees from Muslim countries have a much larger social impact than in the US. However, surveys like this seem to be at odds with what European and other leaders say in public regarding their values regarding equality and humanitarianism. It’s a pretty dangerous situation, if you ask me, if they are basically ignoring or forcing the public to repress their sentiment, until it comes time to hold an election resulting in a “surprise” result where some weird candidate wins.
I don’t know any single person in Europe, including myself, who wishes a complete ban on Muslim immigration.
However, 99% of the people I know believe that Merkel’s reckless open-border policy is wrong.
Call me crazy, but I think that common sense should prevail in all things. Unfortunately there seems to be no middle ground on that issue and I think that Merkel is as crazy as Trump, just in the other extreme.
The question was pretty explicit: “All further migration from mainly Muslim countries should be stopped’”. So either the survey is biased (possible) or your view is insulated. That’s the problem. Even if the survey is biased, a significant number (40%? 35?) of Europeans would still have said yes to that question - maybe not on live TV or to someone like you who they know to be a social liberal, but in private, among their friends of similar mindset, and in the privacy of a voting booth.