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“Every other European agrees with the statements ‘there are too many immigrants in Europe’ and ‘Islam is a religion of intolerance’. 43% consider homosexuality immoral. Nearly a third assume ‘there is a natural hierarchy between whites and blacks’, and one fourth feel ‘the Jews have too much sway’.” This is the Tageszeitung’s summing-up of the findings of the Heitmeyer Study, a survey of “Group-focused Enmity in Europe” conducted by the University of Bielefeld. 8,000 people were polled in the UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Poland and Hungary. Thesis: prejudices tend to come in a pack, those amenable to one are likely to succumb to others too. While the most pervasive preconceptions vary from country to country, one minority group faces common antagonism in the Community: the Muslims, “the enemy of centuries past”, comments the Berlin-based daily, adding: “Europe ought to combat this prejudice as much as it does anti-Semitism.”
