Poll finds people in the Czech Republic say they prefer persons of German, Slovak or Vietnamese origin to those of Arab, Romani or Russian origin
Over the past decade, members of Czech society have significantly improved their relationship toward persons of Vietnamese origin. A poll conducted by the STEM agency in November has revealed that respondents here have long had a positive relationship toward people of Slovak origin and foreign nationals from developed countries, but take a dim view of foreign nationals who are culturally or geographically more distant from Czech culture, as well as a negative view of Romani people.
After Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine in 2022, respondents now say they would find it more acceptable to have a neighbor of Ukrainian origin than one of Russian origin, while before the conflict those preferences were reversed. Back in the 1990s, less than 10 % of respondents said they would accept a person of Vietnamese origin as a neighbor, while by 2014 that response had improved to 40 %.
The most recent poll found that 71 % of respondents would tolerate a Vietnamese neighbor. “It turns out that the Vietnamese community has been accepted by most of Czech society,” said Kateřina Duspivová, an analyst with STEM.
Having neighbors of Slovak origin would not bother 91 % of respondents, and the vast majority said they also would have no difficulty with English, American, French or German neighbors. Respondents also said they were relatively well-inclined toward Croatians, with 71 % of respondents saying they would have no problems accepting them as neighbors.
The acceptability of members of other nationalities, especially persons from eastern countries such as Afghanis, Arabs or Syrians, has long remained at a low level, according to the authors of the survey. “At the bottom of the scale are mostly nationalities which are distant both geographically and culturally. Most Czechs perceive living next door to foreign nationals from those countries to be a phenomenon that is problematic or even unacceptable. Fewer than one-fourth of Czechs could imagine living next door to Arabs, Afghanis, Syrians or Sudanese people,” report the STEM analysts.
The Czech public has long taking a negative position toward Romani people, and just 24 % of respondents said they would consider them acceptable neighbors, a value similar to that for foreign nationals from the Arabic world. In the context of Russia’s war on Ukraine, the Czech public’s relationship toward people of Russian origin worsened, stopping the growing trend of their greater acceptability over the previous decade.
In November, according to the STEM survey, 36 % of respondents said they could imagine having a Russian neighbor, down from 50 % in 2016. “The acceptability of Russians is starting to decline to the level of the 1990s, when approximately one-fifth of Czechs said they would accept a Russian person as a neighbor without any problem,” STEM reports.
