Tolerance and xenophobia

It is now official: Maltese are intolerant, xenophobic, with a strong dislike of all those who happen to have a darker shade of skin colour, and particularly those who have a different religion or no religion. They are catholic only in their universal distrust and dislike of anyone foreign.

Indications of this have been popping up in such unlikely places as vox pop programmes on radio and television. A more scientific study carried out by Mario Vassallo (The Sunday Times, August 14), confirms the deep-seated nature of these xenophobic characteristics which make the Maltese one of the least tolerant nations in Europe, if not in the world.

For generations, Malta has had an insular mentality to match its geographic position, and its basic tenets and beliefs have not been challenged in any meaningful way in the past. With the influx of significant others, as well as a result of the gargantuan steps to become integrated into Europe, we have been exposed at close quarters to views and ways of life which are quite different from tenaciously held and previously unchallenged ones.

In recent years the tragic misery of illegal migrants has been laid bare right on our doorsteps, and the Maltese do not like it. While our generosity in terms of cash in cases of disasters overseas is unquestioned, the idea of allowing anyone, and particularly the homeless and desperate people to settle in our midst is looked on with horror and disdain.

Other countries have had to face the problem of living close to people of different background. Particularly in countries of the new world, like Canada, Australia and the US, where finding a next door neighbour who is different in race, colour and creed is the rule rather than the exception, multicultural issues relating to tolerance have had to be defined and tackled.

A recent study, Love thy Neigbours: Racial Tolerance among Young Australians by Trang Thomas and Rivka Witenberg (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) starts by defining what is "tolerance". At an ideal level, tolerance may be defined as the absence of prejudice towards those whose practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one's own, where prejudice is described as an unfavourable judgment towards a particular group. This is often a counsel of perfection because most of us harbour prejudices even when we do not readily admit to any. Alternatively, tolerance involves a conscious rejection of prejudiced attitudes, beliefs and responses. This is a consciously achieved position, reached at by reflection. It is thus possible that a person can simultaneously be prejudiced and tolerant.

One may harbour a prejudice without acting on it in any visible way. On the other hand, discrimination involves behaving differently, usually unfairly, towards members of a group. This could take several forms, from discrete unfair work-related procedures, to frank verbal attacks and more blatant physical confrontations.

Several workers have shown that with increasing maturity there is a corresponding progress to more tolerance, consistent with a Piagetan developmental model. The study referred to examined the degree and kind of tolerance exhibited by children (aged 11 to 12), young adolescents (aged 14 to 15) and young adults (16- 22). They were given stories which exhibited some element of intolerant behaviour to someone of a different background and were asked to comment on their beliefs, speech or actions. Curiously, the younger children were found to be more intolerant than adults.

These results mirror those obtained by the survey published in The Sunday Times: those with a better education are likely to be more tolerant, as are women compared to men.

There are obvious educational issues that result from such studies. It would appear that one needs to target particular sections of society where such prejudices are rampant. One needs to develop socio-cognitive skills to enable one to consciously assess and reject prejudiced beliefs, de-emphasizing racial characteristics, and particularly in the case of males who are particularly prone to this sort of prejudice, to help them to develop the ability to empathise with others.

There should be an active programme for education to reject intolerance and promote acceptance of others. Such a programme should start early on in primary school years and be continued throughout the school curriculum.

Results like these should not be ignored. They raise profound questions, which need to be answered. Governments would be failing in their job if they ignore such a blatant index of societal unease and sit back and do nothing.

E-mail: mnc25@optusnet.com.au