The historic speech of president Obama at Cairo University revealed the US "intentions" in taking the relations with the Muslim world forward, based on the premises of trust, mutual respect and intercultural understanding. Despite the explicit renovated US intentions, the public "perceptions" of the Muslim world towards the US and vice versa can be still attributed by suspicion, mistrust and stereotyping.
An "intentions – perceptions" gap might result between the US intentions; represented in Obama's actionable speech on the one hand, and the Muslim populations' perceptions on the other hand; especially after a year passing since his historic speech with no real progress on ground particularly in some important issues of significance to the Islamic world such as resolving the Palestinian case.
Accordingly, the role of the public opinion polling becomes apparent and more compelling than ever before. Public opinion polling mirrors societal concerns, perceptions and stereotypes, which in turn lead to a more profound understanding of any cultural problems and the development of more effective strategies.
In an environment of mistrust and misunderstanding, public opinion polling would be considered an efficient mean of highlighting and analyzing the contemporary trends reflecting the opinions and perceptions of both Muslims and US citizens. It may also reveal consistency or gaps between the general public perceptions and the elitist perceptions on the issue in one society or the other
Famous opinion polling organizations such as Gallup, PEW and others have focused on studying popular perceptions towards foreign countries. Other serious attempts have also been undertaken in some of the Muslim world countries, yet the industry is still maturing in the Muslim communities. In this regard, advocating for an active polling marketplace in the Muslim world will help having home grown reflections about opinions on the US. It would also catalyze the process of reaching common grounds and improving mutual perceptions.
The public opinion polling comes as one of the follow up projects to the conference on the US- Muslim relations. It builds on the conference objectives in trying to identify, assess and resolve the existing tensions in the US-Muslim relations by focusing on the issues of (intentions) Vis a Vis (perceptions) and the role of public opinion polling as a tool of bridging potential gaps between intentions and perceptions.
The primary objective of the project is to ensure that all the debates and policies on US- Muslim relations should not be based on stereotypes but rather on information, data driven analysis and public perceptions through the role of opinion polling.
It is expected that the project may end up with set of recommendations for breaking stereotypes, promoting intercultural understanding and propagating for the "New Beginning" through the tool of public opinion polling.