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FOES ARE STILL ALL AROUND?

In October of 2005 (article “Foes All Around?”) we offered to you analysis of the results of September’05 opinion poll presenting foreign political estimates and priorities of Belarusians. We asked these questions again in the April of 2006. You may see what have changed in Table 1 below.

Table 1. Dynamics of answers to the question “Please list five countries which you think are the most friendly and five countries which you think are the most non-friendly towards Belarus”, %

Country

09’05

04’06

Friendly

Non-friendly

Index*

Friendly

Non-friendly

Index*

Russia

71.4

2.3

0.691

85.1

1.4

0.837

China

21.9

2.8

0.191

43.1

2.1

0.420

Kazakhstan

21.0

1.0

0.200

23.2

2.3

0.209

Cuba

13.5

2.6

0.109

20.3

2.4

0.179

Ukraine

33.8

10.0

0.238

24.9

13.5

0.114

Bulgaria

11.6

1.7

0.099

10.0

1.2

0.088

Japan

6.5

2.8

0.037

8.7

2.4

0.063

Kyrgyzstan

4.3

1.8

0.025

6.4

1.7

0.047

Moldova

11.8

2.9

0.089

9.2

4.5

0.047

Italy

12.0

1.6

0.104

11.4

6.8

0.046

North Korea

5.1

1.8

0.033

6.2

2.5

0.037

Iran

8.4

5.4

0.030

13.3

9.8

0.035

Armenia

5.7

2.5

0.032

5.3

1.9

0.034

Israel

8.2

3.1

0.051

6.2

3.4

0.028

Uzbekistan

6.6

1.0

0.056

4.6

2.1

0.025

Turkmenistan

2.7

1.8

0.009

3.5

1.2

0.023

Azerbaijan

4.4

2.9

0.015

4.4

2.2

0.022

Germany

20.4

7.3

0.131

16.8

15.2

0.016

Romania

2.5

1.9

0.006

2.7

2.3

0.004

Turkey

3.7

2.2

0.011

2.3

2.3

0

Slovakia

2.4

1.7

0.007

3.6

4.9

–0.013

Czech Republic

6.5

3.7

0.028

2.4

4.0

–0.016

Lebanon

3.0

4.7

–0.017

2.7

5.3

–0.023

Serbia

3.7

1.3

0.024

2.6

5.0

–0.024

Sweden

2.2

1.9

0.003

1.3

4.1

–0.028

Iraq

6.1

7.7

–0.016

7.9

10.9

–0.030

Poland

13.2

28.9

–0.157

19.9

23.3

–0.034

Syria

0.9

0.9

0

1.3

5.0

–0.037

France

–**

3.0

11.6

–0.086

Lithuania

8.7

22.6

–0.139

10.6

19.5

–0.089

Estonia

2.2

11.0

–0.088

0.7

11.9

–0.112

Latvia

6.6

23.8

–0.172

9.2

23.4

–0.142

UK

4.0

13.9

–0.099

2.6

21.6

–0.190

Georgia

5.6

11.7

–0.061

4.2

23.8

–0.196

USA

2.6

56.0

–0.534

4.1

74.3

–0.702

* Index is a difference of percentage between those who marked this country as a friendly or non-friendly, divided by 100
** France was not on the list during the opinion poll of September of 2005

Obviously, foreign political priorities of respondents have undergone substantial changes over the past six months. In the article “Foes All Around?” we underlined that the world pattern existing in the minds of Belarusians is very Soviet-like: There is a hostile West vs. a kind of a socialistic camp in which Belarus takes its place.

The situation has become even more Soviet-like over the past six months. Thus, Table 1 shows in bold the countries balance of attitude to which has changed by more than 10 points. The trend of change in general is evident. Assessment of US hostility and Russia’s friendliness has reached very high values. The number of those who voted for A. Lukashenko (54.2%) at the recent election is by 20 points less than the number of those who think America is hostile towards Belarus and by 30 points less than those who think Russia is friendly towards Belarus.

We should also like to point out to the downfall of positive estimates to Germany which happened due to a twofold growth of the group of those who think Germany is non-friendly towards Belarus. Most probably, this is the result of the Berlin’s policy towards Belarus, and in particular reaction to the meeting of Germany’s Chancellor A. Merkel with the opposition candidate A. Milinkevich.

Regarding Poland, the balance of estimates remained negative but the absolute value of negativism has gone down considerably due to both growth of positive and decrease of negative estimates. What’s more, the Warsaw was much more straightforward in expressing its stand than the official Berlin. This is exactly what made a favorable impression on some part of respondents. In our opinion, the reason why estimates of Polish policy have jumped up is the present non-topicality of the conflict around the Union of Poles which was being settled exactly during the previous opinion poll in September. Support and sympathies of a foreign country to this or that national political force are taken less painfully than solidarity of this foreign country with its ethnic minority since this involves the problems of identity and civic loyalty.

Decline of positive estimates of the Ukrainian policy has become as well dramatic. This is the third mechanism of change which worked here – the number of those who assess Kiev’s policy as hostile towards Belarus almost hasn’t changed, but the number of those who think this policy friendly has dropped down. However, even with such a change Ukraine still stays on the list of five most friendly countries.

Data in Table 1 also reveals that the Belarusian mentality is Soviet-like not only in what regards faith in bipolarity of the world but in purely geographical sense as well. Thus, former Soviet republics which don’t break the myth about happy life in “the infrangible union of free republics” are given positive estimates while those breaking this myth like Georgia and the Baltic States are estimated strongly in the negative.

There’s one more sensation in Table 1 – more than a twofold growth of those who pointed out to the friendly policy of China to Belarus. This is obviously the result of the propaganda and deeper isolation of Belarus in its region. The reasoning is as follows here: “We have little friends. America is a foe while China, a strong country, is at odds with America. Therefore, China is our friend.” A sharp growth of sympathies to China is certainly the result of such geopolitical reasoning which is proved in the lack of interest among Belarusians to the great Chinese culture and in fairly indisposed attitude to the citizens of this country.

In general, Belarusians seldom meet with foreigners. The majority has never met any (See Table 2).

 

Table 2. Distribution of answers to the question “Have you met with foreign citizens (except for CIS citizens) over the past three years?”

Variant of answer

%

No, I haven’t

59.4

Yes, many times

8.9

Yes, several times

20.3

Yes, once

11.4

Nevertheless, respondents actively answered the question measuring social distance to representatives of different ethnic groups – the number of those who didn’t answer this question doesn’t exceed 2% in each group (See Table 3). Partially the reason is in that these questions are ‘safe’, pertaining to everyday life and not related directly to political loyalty. On the other hand, such a high percentage of answers indicates that there is if not a conception then at least a belief within the society that citizens should have an opinion on this issue like they have opinions about upbringing of children, a marriage or a job.

 

Table 3. Distribution of answers to the question “To which extent are you ready to accept representatives of the following nationalities?”*, %

Variant of answer

Ready to make a family

Ready to work together

Ready to live in the neighborhood

Ready to live in one city/town

Ready to live in Belarus

Index** 04’06

Index** 09’05

Russians

50.9

14.9

19.8

5.2

8.6

2.051

1.918

Ukrainians

32.8

19.2

28.5

8.3

10.4

2.439

2.417

Poles

31.1

21.7

25.9

9.0

11.0

2.464

2.474

Western Europeans (English, French, Germans, etc.)

21.6

26.1

24.2

10.1

16.9

2.743

2.949

Natives from Central Europe (Czech, Slovaks, Hungarians, Serbs, etc.)

14.2

26.1

27.5

12.8

18.5

2.953

3.096

Jews

10.7

23.4

24.5

12.4

23.9

2.984

3.164

Lithuanians

12.6

24.4

31.3

11.5

19.2

3.000

3.135

Letts

11.5

23.1

32.2

11.5

20.2

3.059

3.186

Americans

16.2

23.4

23.1

7.9

27.5

3.076

3.322

Natives from Central Asia (Uzbeks, Kazakhs and others)

4.0

18.9

28.9

15.3

31.6

3.523

3.676

Natives from the Caucasus (Azerbaijani, Armenians, Georgians, Chechens, etc.)

2.4

14.6

26.7

10.3

44.1

3.806

3.967

Arabs

2.3

14.5

26.9

10.3

44.0

3.809

3.953

Natives from South Eastern Asia (Vietnamese, Chinese, etc.)

1.5

16.3

24.1

11.5

44.6

3.831

4.009

Africans

1.9

13.1

28.4

10.8

44.6

3.834

3.990

* Table is read in lines: the figure in the top left cell means that 50.9% of respondents are ready to make family with a Russian
** Index of social distance is the average of indexes of distance calculated in the following way: if the percentage of respondents appeared distributed on the scale as A, B, C, D, E, the index is calculated as (A + 2B + 3C + 4D + 5E) : (A + B + C + D + E). The index can have the value from 1, when all respondents expressed readiness to make family with a representative of the nationality given, to 5, when all respondents are ready to tolerate this national as a citizen of Belarus only

Indices of social distance haven’t changed much over the past six years; they changed less than estimates of friendliness/non-friendliness of foreign countries. This is not surprising as attitude to the people with whom they don’t even need to communicate often is formed not only from the attitude to the country they represent, but it is less ideologized and to a less extent subject to propaganda manipulation.

The hierarchy of social distances remained almost unchanged comparing to September of 2005: Russians are the closest people, Ukrainians and Poles go the next, then – Western and Eastern Europeans, then – Jews as well as neighboring Lithuanians and Letts, and finally – Americans. Natives from Asia, Caucasus and Africa follow after all these, yet with a great gap.

The changes in indices are not significant but quite illustrative – there’s certain distancing from the closest nationalities, Russians and Ukrainians – and rapprochement with all other nationalities.

Reduction of social distance took place even in relation to those nationalities attitude to the policy of which has aggravated (See Table 1) – Western Europeans and Americans. It is possible that this is the work of some mechanism of psychological compensation: the respondents who placed Western countries among foes still think this is wrong from the cultural standpoint and this is why they declare their more favorable attitude to the citizens of these countries at least in accordance with the formula “Their authorities are against us while common people there are very good.” Thus, cultural codes and experience come into conflict with ideological attitudes.

Data in Table 4 is another illustration of this conflict.

Table 4. Distribution of answers to the question “In your opinion, what foreign country provided the greatest aid to Belarus in post-Chernobyl-disaster cleanup?” (open question)

Variant of answer 

%

Germany

21.3

Russia

9.2

Italy

7.2

USA

5.5

Poland

5.3

Japan

3.0

Bulgaria

2.6

UK

2.3

Ukraine

2.2

Belgium

1.7

China

1.7

Spain

1.3

France

1.0

Other

5.3

None

1.1

DA/NA

29.3

Remarkable is comparison of data in Tables 1 and 4. The countries which are considered non-friendly towards Belarus from the political viewpoint appear the main donors on Chernobyl aid programs. In this case, this is not an unbiased assessment which respondents give but their personal feeling of the countries which help the most to Belarus. Also, the majority of respondents doesn’t share the policy of the authorities on cutting down of health-improving trips of children abroad on the grounds that children come back after those trips with a changed outlook (See Table 5).

 

Table 5. Distribution of answers to the question “Last year A. Lukashenko ordered to take under strict state control health-improving trips of children from contaminated areas on the grounds that children come back after those trips with a changed outlook. What is attitude to this?”

Variant of answer

%

I don’t support this proposition

53.3

I support this proposition

23.8

This doesn’t matter to me

17.1

DA/NA

5.8

In conclusion, we should like to say that even though Belarusians remain Soviet-like people at the level of political assessment, they show quite a different attitude at the level of personal communication. Their sympathies to the countries of the West are fairly wide, although weaker than to Russia, and their attitude to these nationalities is much better than to those among which the Belarusian authorities are now looking for allies.