Dutch rank average in European tolerance grade

NIJMEGEN – A study by three Radboud University sociologists has found that the tolerance level among the Dutch for ethnic minorities is not as high as intellectuals would have the world believe. The researchers who also compared Dutch attitudes with those in other European countries, rate the tolerance level as average, part of the middle ground. The study also compared attitudes of the post-Pim Fortuyn era with those of the seventies and the eighties. Ethnic discrimination then was an undetected factor, particularly in employment and housing, and existed well before the Fortuyn murder, on May 6 2002. Intolerance shows up in different ways, the common man has a negative view of ethnic minorities but intellectuals refrain from enrolling their children in ‘black’ schools.