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Poll: Ethnic Tensions Seen as Most Serious Social Conflict in Slovakia
Tuesday 26 January 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, January 26 (TASR) - Slovaks view ethnic tensions to be more powerful than other kinds of social conflict in Slovakia, according to the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) 2009-2010 carried out by the sociology department of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV) and presented at a press conference on Tuesday.
According to the 1,159 respondents, conflicts between the majority population and the Roma minority are the most bitter, followed by tensions between Slovaks and ethnic-Hungarians and those between the well-off and people of a low social class. At the same time, Slovaks consider the first two kinds of conflict to be the most publicised social and political problems in Slovakia.
According to Jan Buncak from the sociology department of the Philosophic Faculty of Bratislava's Comenius University, who presented the results of the survey, the tension between Slovaks and ethnic-Hungarians has been "significantly politicised". In support of this, he pointed to the fact that this kind of tension was reported most by people from Zilina, who can hardly be directly affected by this phenomenon. [Very few ethnic Hungarians live in Zilina region. - ed. note]. "Ethnic tensions are to a larger extent perceived by people who declare themselves to be Slovaks and less by people of Hungarian and Roma nationality," added Buncak.
According to the survey, only negligible conflicts exist between young and old people, the employed and pensioners, and between men and women. "Tensions almost don't exist in these spheres," added Buncak.
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