To: a journal for women
From: Agnieszka Szolc
Subject: Is Poland a tolerant country?
Date: January 2004
PURPOSE
This survey report is written for Polish people, who want to find out the true about Poland, tolerance and people's opinion about it.
This survey report contains information provided by a group of 30 people, 17 men and 13 women, aged 18-53, who responded to a questionnaire survey in Polish, in January 2004.
The aim of this report is to present the results of a survey in which people were asked some questions connected with tolerance : what is tolerance?, what kind of people in Poland are discriminated against?, which things Polish people do not tolerate? And how far we are tolerant?
TOLERANCE
The question was : `What is tolerance?' According to dictionary, tolerance is `the ability or willingness to allow or accept something that is unpleasant or that you do not like or agree with', but I wanted to find out how ordinary people would describe this difficult definition. As I expected most of the 30 questioned people has problems with the answer. After filling the questionnaire they said that they know what tolerance is but they do not know how to write it. The word connected with tolerance which appears mostly is `acceptance'. The acceptance of everything what is different, new, what we do not understand. To tolerate somebody is to accept somebody regardless of the nationality, religion, appearance, background and political ideas. In brief it is taking person with all his or her qualities and flaws.
NATIONALITY
The intention of the question was to find out what nationality we do not tolerate. The majority of questioned people, 60 per sent, were of the opinion that the nationality is not important for them, because the worth of man does not depend on his or her colour of the skin or nationality.
Of the remaining 40 per sent respondents surveyed, 20 per sent said that they would not like to meet an Arab, and the explanation was that Arabs are people who are religious fanatics. I think that it is caused by the last events like the terrorist attacks and the war. And the last 20 per sent marked more than one answer. Besides marking `an Arab' they also marked such nationalities like: Gypsy, Turk, Jew and Russian. They are of the opinion that characteristics of these nationalities are religious fanaticism, impertinence and laziness. Nobody marked African, (which is rather strange because I was sure that this answer would be chosen at least once), Chinese, Japanese, American, German, Englishman, French and Australian.
RELIGION
29 questioned people belong to Catholicism, and it shows that our country is rather Catholic country. Only one person is an Atheist.
There were two instructions: to mark religions that are not known and to mark the religions that are not tolerated because of their rules. And as it was anticipated,decided majority, 43 per sent, pointed Islam as a religion they do not tolerate, and here also the explanation is the fanaticism. The rest, so 57 per sent, marked that they do not know such religions like: Buddhism, Orthodox church, Baptism, Anglicanism, Evangelical church, Hinduism, Judaism, Calvinism, Lutheranism and Protestantism and also Islam. This outcome indicates that Polish people are not interested in other religions, we are Catholics and that is all, nothing more is important.
SMOKING
Smoking is sometimes a controversial thing. According to only one person smoking should be permissible everywhere, and he is a former smoker. By two of thirty people, smoking should be banned and none of them is a smoker. The rest 90 per sent are smokers, non-smokers and former smokers, among them 33 per sent want smoking to be banned in public places. The reasonably big number of those, who responded to the survey, 57 per sent people pointed that there should be set places for smoking in public places, show that we are tolerant towards smokers.
DISCRIMINATION
I asked what kind of people are discriminated against the most in Poland. It was difficult question because the answers are really varied and it is hard to say clearly that these people are and these people are not discriminated because everybody has different opinion. To sum all these opinions up, people with AIDS, drug addicts and homosexuals are these people who are discriminated against the most. Eccentrics, foreigners and people with different political ideas are these people who are discriminated the less or are not discriminated at all. As far as the disabled, people with different religion, people overweight and lunatics are concerned, the opinion is varied. Some of questioned people said that people with different religion are people who are discriminated in Poland and some of them that these people are not discriminated at all. Likewise is with lunatics, the disabled and people overweight.
MEETING NEW PEOPLE
I wanted to find out what are the most important information about people newly meet. Among just answers like: political ideas, religion, colour of the skin, appearance, behaviour, possessions, status and background, one half of those who responded stated that the most important information for them is the behaviour. 13 per sent of questioned people, except the behaviour, chose the answer `other answers' and their wrote that it is also important if a person is tolerant, honest, cultural, trustworthy and how he or she treats other people.
And the remaining 30 per sent marked more than one answer. The most popular is behaviour and appearance but they also marked political ideas, colour of the skin, possessions, background, status and religion. In conclusion, we judge people mostly by their behaviour but, sadly, for many people are also important such small details like political ideas.
PROBLEMATIC EVENT
Survey respondents were supposed to choose events that they would have problems with. As it was predicted nobody of 30 people would have problems with child's friendship with disabled child. 37 per sent would have problems if their child comes home with green hair and with an earring in his or her navel, nearly 57 per sent would not agree with the fact that their child wants to marry a Black or a Muslim and 17 per sent is against changing religion by his or her child. 33 per sent do not want to have a house near their home for drug addicts or people with AIDS. There was also a person who stated that none of these events is a problem for him and a person who do not want to have a partner with different political ideas. Writing survey questionnaire I guessed that nearly all of these events are difficult to accept and my presumptions are confirmed.
CONCLUSION
I believe that the combination of questions enabled me to draw some deductions based on the answers.
On the bases of the findings above, it would seem that Poland is a tolerant country up to apoint and there is no division between young people and older people, as I presumed. I decided to surveyed people in the 18-53 age group to inquired if is it true that older people are less tolerant. And according to all answers there is no difference between younger and older people, all their opinions are comparable.
According to questioned people, besides all those things mentioned above, we also do not tolerate such things like: commune, untruth, deception, stupidity and impudence. Moreover, we do not accept people harmed by fate, people who have more, who look better, who have better job. In brief, we do not tolerate anything what is better.
And why we do not tolerate? For want of knowledge, because everything what is new for us, everything what we do not understand, everything what is different and everything what we are afraid of is not accepted by us.
One of questioned woman wrote that Polish people are people who are always complaining, it is hard to please us and our dissatisfaction reveals as a lack of acceptance and understanding. There was also an opinion that Poland is very conservative and `numb' country and do not tolerate any exceptions of fixed standards. The other person mentioned that there is a great deal of bad things that we always see in other people and never in ourselves. There was also belief that neither family nor school form in children and young people an idea of tolerance. We are used to some stereotypes and, I think, many of us do not want to break them .
Finally I asked interviewed how far are they tolerant, and a large proportion of viewers was of the opinion that they are tolerant up to apoint, 27 per sent said that they are tolerant ant 10 per sent was not able to say whether they are tolerant or not. At least we are rather honest and we know how to admit that tolerance is not our strong point, and most of us realize that fact.
I can assume that there is still a lot to do to improve the image of Poland all over the world, because the fame of being intolerant country is not something we can take a pride in.