Interethnic Relations and Ethnic Tolerance in Ukraine.
In this context (the shaping of national isolation psychology), representatives of most nationalities are accepted in people’s minds only as visitors to Ukraine.
Of certain interest for an analysis of ethnic/national intolerance is the position of Jews on the scale of social distance. By virtue of historical circumstances) the problem of antiSemitism has a special if not leading place in the range of the world’s problems in the field of international/interethnic relations. Historically, this issue was one of the most important interethnic problems in Ukraine. It is rather topical even nowadays, since it is closely linked with the problems of human rights protection, migration and international cooperation.
The results of international/interethnic tolerance measurements made it possible to see that problem in a somewhat different light. If previously this had been a matter of antiSemitism as such, with an emphasis on the negative attitude towards Jews alone, a comparison of attitudes to Jews with attitudes to other nationalities leads one to conclude that antiSemitism is just one particular manifestation of a more general xenophobia — rejection of practically all nationalities or ethnic groups different from one’s own: Jews far from occupy a leading place. Moreover, on the scale of social distance they are placed much closer in the mass consciousness of Ukraine’s population than most other nationalities/ethnic groups. When considering the data on Ukraine as a whole, Jews are placed in the group of nationalities, which are ‘driven out’ by the mass consciousness beyond the range of close contacts (four points). This, however, mainly occurs because of the attitudes of rural and small town dwellers, for whom Jews as well as most other nationalities are rather ‘alien’. In Kiev, however, the index of intolerance to Jews is less than four points (3.44 points), in other big cities (with more than 250,000 thousand inhabitants each) it is 3.67 points, while in small towns – 4.25 points and in villages – 4.56 points (all differences are significant at least at the level of 0.05, and between the extreme groups — at the level of 0.001).
This concrete example is a vivid illustration of the conclusion that people consider as ‘friendly’ those nationalities or ethnic groups with whom they have lived together for a long time on this territory. This frame of mind, lecting an a priori mistrust of practically all nations/ethnic groups that have not lived for a long time on this territory, is typical of the value system of a closed traditionalistarchaic society. Widespread traditionalistcommunitarian values are an essential obstacle in the course of the democratic transformation of society.
A low level of ethnic/national tolerance, manifested with regard to certain ethnic groups/nationalities, is but one manifestation of a low level of general ethnic/national tolerance. It is primarily a matter of xenophobia which became a real fact of life in Ukrainian society during the collapse of the totalitarian system, when the ‘genie’ of intolerance and distrust with regard to ‘aliens’ and other special groups or strata as well as to other ethnic groups and nationalities broke loose from the shackles of Communist ideology and allround suppression of dissidence.This conclusion is confirmed by the results of a factor analysis of the data. Factorization made it possible to single out three major factors which, combined, determined 82% of the variance in assessments. The first factor (its explanatory force was 66%) may be interpreted as the factor of ‘East Slavic withdrawal’, for only on the scales of assessments of Ukrainians, Russians and Belarussians were no high factor loads registered with respect to national intolerance. In other words, if someone shows intolerance towards a certain ethnic group/nationality, it is very probable that he/she will show intolerance towards most other nationalities or ethnic groups not considered by him or her as ‘friendly people’. There is also another definition of the factor dominant in the minds of people, namely xenophobia.
The second and third factors are far weaker in their explanatory power (12.3% and 4.4% respectively) and characterize, in our (optimistic) opinion, a potentially positive element in the people’s minds. The second factor may be termed the factor of ‘general ethnic/national tolerance’, since it includes high negative values for factor loads of those ethnic groups or nationalities which are rejected most of all by the mass consciousness. The structure of the third factor ‘orientation towards the West’ — includes only those scales with high negative loads which characterize attitudes to representatives of developed Western countries. It is precisely these two factors, as yet rather weak but still present in the minds of people, that give us some hope for better prospects of the development of the system attitudes of Ukraine’s population towards representatives of other ethnic groups/nationalities.
On the one hand, the population’s general cautiousness and guardedness, rather vividly manifested in the rejection of nationalities and ethnic groups whose image is in some way associated in the mass consciousness with interethnic and international conflicts, work towards the preservation of a more or less durable peace in Ukraine at a time when other regions of the former Soviet Union are plagued with murderous interethnic feuds. On the other hand, such overcautiousness is also leading to the creation and consolidation of a prospectless (from the point of view of building up an economically developed civilized nation) phenomenon of general national and ethnic intolerance, originating from a psychological isolation from practically all nationalities and ethnic groups which do not have a long historical record of living on the territory of Ukraine.
3. General Ethnic/National Intolerance
The phenomenon of xenophobia (established as a result of the correlation and factor analysis), the essence of which lies in the fact that manifestations of intolerance towards certain specific nationality or ethnic group are merely a special case of manifestation of more general ethnic/national intolerance, substantiate the expediency of using such an indicator as the general ethnic/national intolerance index. This index is a simple average of values of ethnic/national intolerance indicators. In calculating a simple average value of the index of general ethnic/national intolerance, attitudes towards ethnic Russians and Ukrainians as the major nationalities living on the territory of Ukraine, as well as attitudes towards Ukrainian expatriates, are not taken into account since they are representatives of the same nationalities as the indigenous population.
According to the data obtained, the general ethnic/national intolerance index of Ukraine’s adult population in 1992 was 4.63 points on a seven points scale, where the value of 4 points is a mark dividing positive (tolerant) and negative (intolerant) attitudes to other nationalities/ethnic groups. One can see that the general national/ethnic tolerance of Ukraine’s population has shifted to the negative end of the scale, for which reason it would be more exact to speak about a general national intolerance. Analyzing the factors affecting the phenomenon in question, one can maintain that a factor’s influence is positive, even if it only reduces the average level of general intolerance, rather than increasing tolerance.
4. SocioDemographic Factors of General Ethnic Intolerance
Our analysis of sociodemographic factors of ethnic intolerance makes it possible to empirically verify the hypothesis that educational level, age and type of settlement substantially affect the level of ethnic tolerance: the higher the individual’s educational level and the younger he/she is, the lower the level of general intolerance. Place of residence affects not only attitudes towards Jews, as was mentioned above, but also a general ethnic intolerance index (Table 2):