Britain is one of the most racially tolerant countries on the planet, a survey claims.
The global social attitudes study claims that the most racially intolerant populations are all in the developing world, with Jordan and India in the top five.
By contrast, the study of 80 countries over three decades found Western countries were most accepting of other cultures with Britain, the U.S., Canada and Australia more tolerant than anywhere else.
The data
came from the World Value Survey, which measured the social attitudes of
people in different countries, as reported by the Washington Post.
The
survey asked individuals what types of people they would refuse to live
next to, and counted how many chose the option 'people of a different
race' as a percentage for each country.
Researchers
have suggested that societies where more people do not want neighbours
from other races can be considered less racially tolerant.
The
country with the highest proportion of 'intolerant' people who wanted
neighbours similar to them was Jordan, where 51.4 per cent of the
population would refuse to live next to someone of a different race.
Next was India with 43.5 per cent.
Racist
views are strikingly rare in the U.S., according to the survey, which
claims that only 3.8 per cent of residents are reluctant to have a
neighbour of another race
 |
| Diverse: The multicultural U.S. is among the least racially intolerant countries, according to the data |
Other
English-speaking countries once part of the British Empire shared the
same tolerant attitude - fewer than five per cent of Britons, Canadians,
Australians and New Zealanders showed signs of racism.
People in the UK are also tolerant
of other differences such as speaking a foreign language or practising
an alternative religion - for example, fewer than two per cent of
Britons would object to having neighbours of a different faith to them.
Similarly, fewer than one in 20 people in most South American countries admitted harbouring prejudice against other races.
The
Middle East, which is currently dealing with large numbers of
low-skilled immigrants from south Asia, seems to be a hotbed of racial
tension, however.
Europe
is remarkably split - the west of the continent is generally more
tolerant than the east, but France is a striking outlier with 22.7 per
cent of the French rejecting neighbourhood diversity.
Some
have pointed out problems in the survey data, claiming that because the
polls span a long period of time they are an unreliable guide to
current attitudes.
However,
a more serious flaw could be the fact that in most Western countries
racism is so taboo than many people will hide their intolerant views and
lie to the questioners.
Max
Fisher of the Washington Post suggested that maybe 'Americans are
conditioned by their education and media to keep these sorts of racial
preferences private, i.e. to lie about them on surveys, in a way that
Indians might not be'.
An
earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Hong Kong and
Bangladesh were two of the world's least racially tolerant countries. We
are happy to clarify this is not the case.
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