http://www.thescavenger.net/people/intolerance-in-europe-new-study-sounds-the-alarm-682.htmlA new study by the Berlin-based examines just that. Mind you, Europe is the continent that brought us the Crusades, the Inquisition, nationalism, chattel slavery, modern imperialism, scientific racism, anti-Semitism, various fascist and xenophobic ideologies, and also National Socialism with everything that involved. How do Europeans feel about “the Other” sixty-six years following the end of World War II? Fifty percent of Germans and sixty percent of Dutchmen, Portuguese, and Poles believe that “Islam is a religion of intolerance.” While an average of 70 percent of Europeans regard immigration as an “enrichment” to their cultures to some degree, “about half of all European respondents said that there were too many immigrants in their country and that jobs should be given to non-immigrants first in times of crisis.”
Despite decades of “Holocaust education,” Jews remain among the continent's least beloved groups. Seventy-two percent of Poles and 68 percent of Hungarians believe that “Jews seek to benefit from their forebears’ suffering during the Nazi era.” Forty-eight percent of Germans share this view compared to just 17 percent of Dutch people . However, the Dutch hate Muslims just as much as everyone else. A mere five percent of Dutch people thought “Jews have too much influence in the country,” whereas a remarkable 50 percent of the population in largely Jew-free Poland believed this.
Africans still have a hard time in Europe, with around a third of Europeans claiming that there is “a natural hierarchy of races,” with whites on top and blacks at the bottom. A majority of Europeans also entertain sexist attitudes, believing that women should pay more attention to their roles as wives and mothers. Eighty-eight percent of Hungarians 87percent of Poles felt this way, while the Germans and Dutch were the most liberal at 50 percent and 36 percent respectively.
Overall, while just about everyone appears to dislike Muslims,
one can observe an otherwise clear decline in sexism, racism, and xenophobia as one moves from eastern to western Europe, particularly towards the northwest.Although prejudices sometimes appear to be isolated they are in fact closely interconnected. Three ideological orientations are especially associated with group-focused enmity: authoritarianism (an underlying attitude espousing law and order and discipline), Social Dominance Orientation (advocating social status hierarchies) and the rejection of diversity (a general rejection of cultural, ethnic and religious diversity within a country).”
Not surprisingly intolerance is concentrated in societies (and segments within society) that value "law and order and discipline", "social status hierarchies", and "the rejection of diversity" - all hallmarks of conservatism.
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