NATIVES AND FOREIGNERS

In the opinion poll of March, 2010 the IISEPS once again asked the question answers to which let us estimate the degree of the respondents’ ethnic tolerance, i.e. how close or how far representatives of various nationalities are for the inhabitants of Belarus (Table 1).

As it can be seen, the hierarchy of social distances remains basically the same from one opinion poll to another: Russians are the closest ones; they are followed by Ukrainians and Poles. The autochthonic Jews and Lithuanians yield to Europeans as far as closeness is concerned; Europeans in general and Americans are as before much closer to the Belarusians than representatives of other regions of the world.

At the same time some changes have occurred during the years of observing. Regardless of the fact that ethnic communities – close and distant European neighbors – remain the closest ones, the distance as regards almost all of them has grown.

At the same time, the distance in relation to the natives of remote countries has shortened. At that the hierarchy has also changed: if before representatives of South-East Asia and Caucasians found themselves at the very bottom of the social sympathy pyramid, then today Africans do.

Perhaps, it is connected with the fact that acuteness of conflicts at the Russian Caucasus has somewhat eased, and the fear together with the influence of Russian mass media is being shifted to Caucasians to a lesser extent. For all that, such tough interethnic conflicts which take place not only in the south of Russia, but also in its central part, as it was, for instance, in Kondopoga, do not occur in Belarus.

However, it remains unclear, why the social distance against all the outsiders has diminished in Belarus. It can partly be explained by rather strict immigration legislation. There are in general not so many migrants of other ethnic groups in Belarus; hence there is no tough reaction to them.

It is instructive to compare the data concerning Belarus with the data cited in the work of the Ukrainian sociologists E. Golovakha and N. Panina "National tolerance and identity in Ukraine: the experience of applying the social distance scale in a monitoring sociological research" (http://www.socjournal.ru/article/648).

A modification of Bogardus’ classical 7-point scale of social distance was used in the research to measure the social distance: 1 point – "would tolerate as a member of the family"; 2 points – "would accept as a bosom friend"; 3 points – "would tolerate in my street as a neighbor"; 4 points – "would tolerate as an employee at the same enterprise where I work"; 5 points – "would tolerate as a citizen of my country"; 6 points – "would tolerate only as a visitor to my country" and 7 points – "would not allow entry to the country". This scale differs from the one used in the IISEPS questionnaire in the number of positions, as well as in the wordings of the closeness degrees.

Peculiarities of the hierarchy of the "natives" and the "foreigners" by the two peoples, as well as assessments dynamics, should be noted in Tables 44 and 45. The hierarchy is rather similar: the closest are neighbors the Slavs – Russians, Belarusians, Poles and Slovaks. Jews, autochthonic for Ukraine, are quite close, too. Representatives of other regions of the world are very distant. At that, a growth of social distance during the years of independence is observed in relation to virtually all the nationalities. By the way, as far as Belarusians are concerned, the growth is one of the most appreciable – by more than 60%.

The data of Tables 3 and 4 describe connection of social distances by Belarusians with the geopolitical choice and attitude to the president.

Respondents, rejecting a choice between the East and the West, turn out to be the most tolerant group – literally all the groups proved to be closer to them than to "Belo-Russians" and "Euro-Belarusians". At the same time, adherents of integration with Russia demonstrate the maximum distance to all the ethnic groups, except Russians and Ukrainians.

At that, if in their assessments of the European neighbors "Euro-Belarusians" are closer to those who have abstained from the geopolitical choice, and "Belo-Russians" demonstrate a considerably lesser tolerance, then when assessing representatives of other regions of the world "Belo-Russians", as well as "Euro-Belarusians", demonstrate an approximately equal, rather moderate tolerance.

Difference in the attitude to the president gives similar results. Those who have refused to define their attitude to the head of state turn out to be the most tolerant group. Followers of A. Lukashenko are closer to Russians and Ukrainians more than other respondents. They are separated from the outsiders of the list – Arabs, Africans and representatives of South-East Asia by a shorter distance than those who do not trust the president. And, finally, those who trust the president demonstrate the least tolerance towards residents of Central and Eastern Europe, Americans and Jews.

However, it should be noted that the difference in assessments against the geopolitical choice, as well as against the attitude to the president, is not too large. The difference does not change the hierarchy of distances: Russians are the closest ethnos for both adherents of Euro-integration, and opponents of the president. Poles rank third for supporters of integration with Russia; Americans are closer than, say, Arabs and the Chinese, to supporters of the president.

In conclusion let us quote the data describing the respondents’ assessments of the policy of various countries of the world (Table 5).

Russia shifted to the second place according to the share of those who consider it a friendly country, and as for the friendliness index, it rolled back to the fourth place, having yielded to Venezuela, China and Kazakhstan. Apparently, trade wars and "Godfathers" had their effect – approximately every fifth respondent described Russia as an unfriendly country.

What good oil contracts with H. Chavez did to Belarusian economy is a complicated question. In the opinion of some experts, the effect occurred solely in the field of PR; however, as it follows from Table 48, in this field, too, the effect proved to be rather impressive.

A considerable worsening in the assessments of the policy of Poland draws attention to itself. Although assessments of the USA policy have somewhat improved, it still remains the main ill-wisher of Belarus.

Attention should also be paid to the Soviet nature of the Belarusian mass consciousness which is being preserved in the foreign-policy sphere. In comparison with Russia, it takes even a partly comical shape. Small Georgia turns out to be the most hostile state, and the USA remains the main strategic enemy of Belarus from one opinion poll to another.

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