Canadians object least to a Muslim neighbour

[Kathryn41 3,205]

Canadians object least to a Muslim neighbour

But 17% surveyed would dislike a gay person next door

-Randy Boswell, National Post

Published: 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.

The survey asked respondents whether they would object to having certain kinds of people as neighbours. Only 6.5% said they would not want to live next door to a Muslim, the lowest of any of the nations surveyed. However, the survey found that more Canadians would object to having a homosexual neighbour than would object to a Muslim one.

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% of Canadians said they would not want a gay person living next door.

In Western nations, the overall percentage who objected to a homosexual neighbour was 19.6%, with Italy (28.7%) and Sweden (6%) at the opposite ends of the range.

"The question of homosexuality carries with it the moralistic connotations," said Wsevolod Isajiw, a University of Toronto sociology professor emeritus. "Nobody considers it a sin to be Muslim."

The survey also found that Americans were more tolerant of Muslims than most Western countries. In the United States, 10.9% of people did not want a Muslim next door compared with an overall percentage of 14.5% in western countries with the highest percentage being in Greece at 20.9%.

This comes as no surprise to experts, who say experience builds tolerance.

"Both Canada and the United States have a long history of experience with other cultures," said Mr. Isajiw, a prior holder of the Robert F. Harney chair in ethnic, immigration and pluralism studies. By comparison, European countries' exposure to massive floods of immigration is relatively new, said Mr. Isajiw, while Canada, with its official multicuturalism policy, and the United States, with what he termed "practical multiculturalism", have achieved a broader degree of acceptance.

The fierce nationalism fostered within many European countries can breed intolerance, the academic said.

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 coauthors, 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.

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?"

The groups were Muslim, homosexual, Jew, "of a different race" and immigrant or foreign worker.

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% said they would not like to live beside a Muslim.

Respondents in Greece (20.9%), 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% and 10.9% respectively, and the average percentage of negative responses across all western countries was 14.5%.

Fewer than 5% of respondents from Canada said they wouldn't want to have a neighbour who is Jewish, an immigrant or of a different race.

Salma Siddiqui, an official with the Toronto-based Muslim Canadian Congress, told CanWest News Service yesterday 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. CanWest News Service, with files from Natalie Alcoba, National Post

© National Post 2007

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/st...k=19497&p=2

Edited February 9, 2007 by Kathryn41