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"Rebecca Cohn" |
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ARTICLE: Canadians report least prejudice against Muslims
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Feb 12th, 2007 - 10:22:23 |
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Canadians report least prejudice against Muslims
Randy Boswell
CanWest News Service
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Canadians are least likely among citizens of 23 western countries to
have bigoted attitudes toward Muslims, according to a new international
study that measured the level of "Islamophobia" in each nation.
More than 32,000 respondents from 19 European countries, plus Canada,
the U.S., Australia and New Zealand, were asked the question: "Would you
like to have a person from this group as your neighbour?"
Of the nearly 2,000 people surveyed in Canada - which has recently drawn
international attention for the CBC's airing of the prejudice-piercing
comedy Little Mosque on the Prairie - only 6.5 per cent said they would
not like to live beside a Muslim. Respondents in Greece ( 20.9 per
cent), Belgium (19.8), Norway (19.3) and Finland (18.9) were most likely
to answer "No" to the question.
Results in Britain and the U.S. were 14.1 per cent and 10.9 per cent
respectively, and the average percentage of negative responses across
all western countries was 14.5 per cent.
Despite the West's "reputation for liberalism, there can be little doubt
that, in the past decade or so in western countries, there is an
increasing awareness of, and a hardening of attitudes towards, people
who are 'different,'" argue the study's co-authors, economists Vani
Borooah of the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland and John Mangan
of the University of Queensland in Australia.
"Arguments about the Muslim veil in Britain, and the headscarf in
France, are part of a wider debate ... about the erosion of national
identity through the steady drip of special demands predicated on
tolerance for cultural diversity," the authors state in the paper titled
Love Thy Neighbour: How Much Bigotry Is There In Western Countries? to
be published in the journal Kyklos, International Review for Social
Sciences.
Salma Siddiqui, an official with the Toronto-based Muslim Canadian
Congress, told CanWest News Service on Wednesday that the survey results
reflect the fact that "Canada is a very tolerant nation.
"We are lucky to be living in a country that recognizes all human
rights," she said.
The Quebec town of Herouxville has made news around the world recently
after adopting a controversial code of conduct that welcomes newcomers
to the municipality of 1,300, but explicitly warns that its residents
will not tolerate alien cultural practices such as stoning or burning
women or forcing them to wear a veil.
Some Muslim groups, arguing that the town's expression of community
"norms" is specifically and unnecessarily targeting certain Muslims,
have threatened to lodge a formal complaint with Quebec's human rights
commission.
Siddiqui said the MCC, which has campaigned against the use by Muslim
women of the full face-covering veil known as a niqab, does not oppose
the Herouxville declaration.
"When someone says 'I want to see your face,' I don't think that's going
out of line," she said.
The Love Thy Neighbour study also gauged the level of intolerance in
each country for four other groups: immigrants in general, people of
another race, Jews and homosexuals.
Canadians ranked among the most tolerant nations in each of those
categories, as well. Fewer than five per cent of respondents from Canada
said they wouldn't want to have a neighbour who is Jewish, an immigrant
or of a different race.
Homosexuals were more likely than any other group - in Canada and nearly
every other country - to be shunned by a potential neighbour. Just over
17 per cent of Canadians said they would not want a gay person living
next door; the overall percentage for western nations was 19.6, with
Italy (28.7) and Sweden (six per cent) at the opposite ends of the
range.
Rebecca Cohn
Communications Officer/Agente des Communications
United Nations Association in Canada/Association canadienne pour les
Nations Unies
300-309 rue Cooper Street
Ottawa, Ontario
K2P 0G5
+1(613) 232-5751x.245
www.unac.org
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