为何大多数美国人对伊朗充满敌意？

WASHINGTON — Nearly a decade after Sept. 11, less than a third of the country feels favorably toward Islam. Most Americans reflexively oppose an Islamic cultural center near ground zero, and the lower the Christian president's approval ratings, the higher the percentage of people who think he's Muslim.

华盛顿：在9.11事件发生的将近10年后，美国少于三分之一的民众对伊斯兰怀有好意。大多数美国人本能地反对在国土的伊斯兰文化中心，和较低的基督教总统支持率，较高的穆斯林总统支持率。

Why?

原因为何？

Beyond the simplistic debate — are we patriots or bigots? — pollsters, historians and other experts say that the nation's collective instincts toward Islam have been shaped over decades by a patchwork of factors. These include demographic trends, psychology, terrorism events, U.S. foreign policy, domestic politics, media coverage and the Internet.

撇弃简单的辩论会---我们是爱国志士还是顽固不化者？--民意调查，历史学家和其他方面的专家说这个国家集体本能地对伊斯兰的敌意是由过去几十年一系列的因素塑造而成的。这些因素包括人口趋势，心理因素，恐怖事件，美国的外交政策，国内政策，媒体报告和互联网的传播。

Estimates of U.S. Muslims range between 2.5 million and 7 million, or about 1 percent to 2 percent of the population. There's no official data on U.S. Muslims' geographic distribution, but mosques are concentrated in metropolitan areas.

在这里输入译文据估计美国的穆斯林人口在250万到700万之间，占国家总人口的1%到2%。美国没有官方的穆斯林人口分布，但清真寺大多都云集在大都市地区。

Most Americans are Christian, and most don't have much direct exposure to Muslims. A quarter of Americans say they know "nothing at all" about Islam, the Pew Research Center found this month, and of non-Muslims polled, 58 percent said they don't know any Muslims.

大部分美国人是基督徒，大多数人都没有直接接触过穆斯林。四分之一的美国公民说对伊斯兰“一无所知”，本月佩由研究中心发现，没有穆斯林人参加投票，58%的人说他们不了解任何穆斯林。

It's natural for people who don't know Muslims to draw strong stereotypes from Sept. 11 and feel them reinforced by recent scares such as the Fort Hood, Texas, shootings and the Times Square bomb plot, said Leonie Huddy, the president of the International Society for Political Psychology and a political scientist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

自从9.11事件后对穆斯林一无所知的美国人理所当然地对其有着强烈的偏见，最近的恐怖事件更加强了他们的感觉，例如：德州胡德堡的枪击事件，美国时代广场的爆炸阴谋。国际社会的政治心理的主席，以及在纽约州立大学石溪分校的政治学家莱奥尼哈迪这样说道。

A Gallup survey last year found that Americans who don't personally know any Muslims were twice as likely to admit to "a great deal" of anti-Muslim prejudice. Republicans and those without college educations tend to be less favorable toward Islam.

去年的一项民意调查显示：自身对穆斯林一无所知的美国公众可能加倍有着反对穆斯林的偏见。共和党人和没上过大学的人更容易对穆斯林怀有敌意。

Muslims are "very much the new outsider," said John Esposito, the founding director of Georgetown University's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. "We've had Christian cults that have committed acts of violence; killings of abortion doctors. (Oklahoma City bomber Timothy) McVeigh. (However,) we have a gut context in which we place it. Muslims don't fit that profile."

穆斯林与“新来的门外汉十分相似”，约翰埃斯波西度这样说道，乔治敦大学的穆斯林和基督徒理解中心的创始主任。“我们的基督教邪教实施了暴行，杀戮堕胎医生。（俄克拉荷马城，提摩西麦克维的爆炸事件）然而，我们代替了本能的模式，穆斯林不适合套模式。”

So what shaped modern American impressions of Muslims?

是什么塑造了当代美国人对穆斯林的印象呢？

Long before Sept. 11, other high-profile terrorist attacks inflamed the public imagination. Consider the killing of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, the 1988 midair bombing of Pan American Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which took 270 lives, and the rise of suicide bombers throughout the Middle East.

在9.11事件之前，其他令人关注的恐怖主义者助长课公众的想象力。想想在慕尼黑举办的1972年的奥林匹克运动会，11名以色列运动员被杀害，1988年泛美航空公司在英格兰上空的爆炸，其中270人丧生，和在中东地区日益高涨的自杀性爆炸事件。

While most Muslims aren't terrorists, most terrorist attacks on U.S. targets or allies over the past 40 years were committed by aggressors who were Muslim or Middle Eastern. Then came Sept. 11, 2001, and a decade of U.S. wars in Muslim lands.

尽管大多数穆斯林不是恐怖分子，在过去40年，大多数针对美国或其盟友的恐怖袭击都被确认为穆斯林或中东的攻击者。在9.11事件后，随之而来的是在穆斯林国土10年的乱战。

"There have been so many acts of terrorism connected to radical Muslims that it's not surprising Islam has a public relations problem," said John Radsan, a former assistant general counsel for the CIA of Iranian descent who's a professor at the William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minn.

“如此多的恐怖事件都与激进的穆斯林有关系，理所当然，穆斯林有着外交问题，”约翰Radsan，美国中情局的前助理总顾问，在圣保罗，明尼苏达州的威廉米切尔法学院的伊朗教授的后裔。

"Most Americans up until the Iranian revolution did not experience Muslims," Esposito said.

“大多数美国人在伊朗伊斯兰革命前没接触过伊斯兰，”埃斯波西托这样说道。

Iran's 1979 revolution overthrew the shah, whom Muslim revolutionaries denounced as a "U.S. puppet" installed by the CIA. There was little U.S. public understanding of the CIA's role in the 1953 overthrow of a democratically elected leader and widespread Iranian public anger toward the United States, Espositio said.

伊朗1979年的革命推翻了沙阿政权，被穆斯林革命者谴责为美国中情局安装在伊朗的“美国玩偶”。美国民众对中情局在1953年推翻民主选举的领导事件知之甚少，伊朗境内对美国的仇视日益蔓延，埃斯波西托这样说道。

U.S. political and cultural leaders also help shape public attitudes. Their reactions to the planned Islamic cultural center two blocks from the World Trade Center site offer an example.

美国政治和文化领导也帮助塑造公众态度。他们对准备建造在世贸中心的两座伊斯兰文化中心的反应就是其中的一个例子。

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and President Barack Obama supported the project's developers' right to proceed, and Obama spoke out against religious discrimination. However, the president sent a mixed message when he said the next day that he wasn't commenting on the wisdom of the project's location — a neighborhood filled with bars, restaurants, a strip club and a betting parlor.

纽约市长布隆伯格和美国总统奥巴马支持计划的开发者有权力继续建造，奥巴马也呼吁反对宗教歧视。然而，当他第二天不在评论计划建造地点是否妥善时，发出一个令人倍感疑惑的信息----一个充满了酒吧，旅馆，脱衣俱乐部，赌博房的邻居。

The outspoken opposition of prominent Republicans — including Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin — connects the Sept. 11 attacks to Islam. The issue could become divisive in some elections this November.

主要共和党领导人直言不讳地反对----包括纽特金尼奇和萨拉佩林---将9.11事件联系到伊斯兰。这事件可能在11份举行的一些选举上产生一些分化。

The Internet and social networking applications have bypassed the traditional media filter and magnified the influence of fringe activists on public perceptions of Islam.

互联网和社会网络的应用改变了传统媒体的过滤，夸大了伊斯兰公众的激进分子数量的影响。

Anti-Muslim feelings aren't likely to decline substantially until American attitudes improve toward the religion itself, said Dalia Mogahed, the executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.

反穆斯林情结不可能大幅度下降知道美国公众提高自身对宗教的看法，盖洛普穆斯林研究中心的执行主任的达利亚穆嘉赫德这样说到。

Muslims are the most negatively viewed faith community in the country, Gallup found. However, Pew polling found Americans also think that Muslims face the most discrimination of any U.S. religious group.

穆斯林是美国最被消极看待的群体，民意调查显示。然而，民意调查也显示美国人认为穆斯林在所有的宗教群体里最受歧视。

Catholics and Jews once experienced discrimination that's ebbed with time. So have U.S. ethnic minorities like Japanese-Americans and German-Americans been persecuted during eras of war with their homelands.

在历史潮流里，天主教徒和犹太人曾遭受歧视。因此像美国少数宗教人士，如日裔美国人和德裔美国人在与美国发生战争的时代都遭受到了迫害。