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I have heard from my friends who are students of The Netherlands universities or are immigrants and live there with their families that this country is more welcoming to different people than the other countries in the Europe. I have searched and found a site which seems claim the same:

Top 5 least racist countries:

There is a lot of racism around us. There are countries who wouldn't want a Muslim, a Jew or an immigrant as a neighbor (e.g. Northern Ireland, Greece and Italy don't like any of the above), but then again, there are people who don't judge you based on your cast, creed, religion or skin color. Here we have a list of the top 5 least racist countries in the world:

  1. Netherlands
  2. Finland
  3. Norway
  4. Sweden
  5. Canada

Is there any research to prove this claim or is it just a joke and is not raised from real stories and statistics?

P.S: Racism in the context mean: Any distinction, exclusion, restriction, or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin that has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life

ChrisW
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Persian Cat
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  • I doubt Finland and Sweden are up there XD. Sweden have a racist party in the government(it's the smallest party, but still), and until like 1970 we have a race-institute here studying race-biology. We also had open border for the nazis, and did research on humans during WW2 era, and I think we even had a few nazi work-camps. – Wertilq May 11 '13 at 21:34
  • Emm.. It is talking about recent years not WW2 ages. And also I do not think race-biology is equal to racism. Anyway I will wait for a mod to decide if this question needs any edit or not. Maybe it is better to change it from Netherlands to the 5 top least racists. And then you can send your information as an answer to deny it or prove it. – Persian Cat May 11 '13 at 21:50
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    Culture doesn't change fast. And the racist party is RIGHT NOW, swedes are quite racist, but not openly. Racist ideologies are held, even if they are not always said out loud... while being sober. I also highly question how you measure racism. Sending out questionaries asking people how much they hate other races, on a scale from 1 to 10? – Wertilq May 11 '13 at 22:05
  • We can find racism in its hidden phase whole around the world even in Iran or eastern countries. But it will be different from one country to another in how law,people and government control it or even protect it. I want to know if by considering specific methods or items we can compare countries with each other. – Persian Cat May 11 '13 at 22:09
  • Downvoter: Could you please add a comment to find what is wrong with this question? It seems you do not like racism. Me too! So why do you give downvote to all topics about it? Do you think ignoring it can solve the problem which seems is growing in the world in 21 century?! :) – Persian Cat May 12 '13 at 13:18
  • I didn't downvote you, but it might be because it's not a very "notable" claim, or because the question is not well-defined (it's not clear how to measure nation-wide racism). In Canada, the biggest city is Toronto: 50% of the population of Toronto was born outside Canada; so it's very multi-cultural here in Toronto. In France and England I have sometimes heard normal middle-class adults say things about immigrants or preserving culture, which sound "politically incorrect" to my liberal Canadian ears. On the other hand racism is no doubt different elsewhere in Canada (e.g. Quebec). – ChrisW May 12 '13 at 14:27
  • I agree that it is difficult to find the answer but anyway it is a claim in the internet and can impress readers so it could be a good idea to find an answer to deny it if you can! – Persian Cat May 12 '13 at 15:58
  • And I appreciate of edit suggestions but see nothing! :) – Persian Cat May 12 '13 at 16:02
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    How do you measure racism? Racially-segregated jobs/neighborhoods/businesses? Racial income disparity? A poll of people, X% said "I am racist"? – Flimzy May 12 '13 at 21:29
  • I do not measure it! Racism has a significant definition which by an easy click you can find it. The claimer in the link claims that you can read it and I am skeptical about. It depends on the one who wants to provide an answer to deny the claim or prove it. – Persian Cat May 12 '13 at 21:43
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    Clearly this question in not constructive and I'm astonished to see it still opened. -1 and voting to close. – Carlo Alterego May 12 '13 at 21:52
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    @PersianCat racism has no definition. A lot of people scream racism when they don't get preferential treatment too, including when they demand such preferential treatment based not on race but for example religion. – jwenting May 13 '13 at 05:43
  • @jwenting I disagree with you as it has. If there are some groups in Europe who are protecting it and even are going to parliament to give a legal form to it, it doesn't mean that you need to behave conservative about this matter or ignore it. Do not forget that in WW2 it was racism that damaged whole the Europe and Hitler was one of most popular leaders on that time, Mussolini too! It can happen again if you ignore it but not in Germany. In somewhere else.:) – Persian Cat May 13 '13 at 11:32
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    @PersianCat in Europe we now have what is called euphemistically "reverse discrimination" in which white people are discriminated against in order to prevent non-whites from shouting "racism" for not getting preferential treatment. That's racism too, and it's institutionalised in many EU countries, yet it never shows up on the charts because of who is being victimised (by definition almost white people can't be the victims of racism, to the point that anti-discrimination laws are actively interpreted to read such, see several US DOJ decisions after discrimination against white voters in 2008). – jwenting May 13 '13 at 12:56
  • the term "racial discrimination" shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction, or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin that has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life. – Persian Cat May 13 '13 at 17:03
  • Your reference doesn't match your question. I think that the list you referenced claims that the Netherlands is #5, after the other 3 Nordic countries, leaving Canada at #1. On the subject of whether Canada is racist: my impression is that it is seen as being less "racist" towards immigrants than it is towards its own [First Nations](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Nations). – ChrisW Aug 14 '13 at 17:39

2 Answers2

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As I will explain, this isn't an ideal answer, but provides empirical evidence that The Netherlands is not necessarily the least racist country, and that the very question isn't precise enough to answer meaningfully.

The definition of "least racist" isn't clearly defined here, and there are a number of measures that could be used.

One suitable measure might be "the highest proportion of people who strongly agree or somewhat agree with the statement 'the presence of foreigners is good for the country'"

Unfortunately, I do not have statistics for that question. I do have a close proxy, which is a city-wide rather than a country-wide survey asking for level of agreement with the question 'the presence of foreigners is good for the city.

It isn't available for every country in the world, but instead for 75 cities around Europe, 500 respondents per city.

Figure from report

From this chart we can draw some conclusions:

The city of Luxembourg (which is probably a reasonable proxy for the entire country) tops the list.

The first Dutch city comes ninth. Other Dutch cities appear in the 12th and 53rd positions. (The absolute positions of these numbers a largely meaningless - other, unpolled, cities may rank higher.)

So the Netherlands does not have any clear standing higher than many other countries.

We can draw some other conclusions that throw the original question into doubt.

For example, consider the ranking of Swedish versus Dutch cities:

  • Stockholm
  • Amsterdam
  • Groningen
  • Malmö
  • Rotterdam

Does it make much sense to declare one country less racist than another when they mingle in rankings like this?

For that matter, if you declared the least racist city to be the one with the smallest proportion of respondents who strongly disagree with the statement, we can see from the red bars in the histogram that this would give quite different results, with Gdansk and Luxembourg vying for the lead.

In conclusion, not only can't you say that the Netherlands is the least racist country, the question is too ill-defined to give that position to any country - we can't even give Luxembourg the European crown.

Oddthinking
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  • It's a dodgy question as you said, but there could be a better proxy measure than city-wide opinion surveys. One example, measure how well children of immigrants do in society as adults, compared with their non-immigrant peers. – ChrisW May 12 '13 at 14:10
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    @ChrisW: Yep, that could work. But, I reckon with 15 minutes effort, we could brainstorm at least 15 different measures of racism... With a few hours effort, we could probably construct metrics that placed any country of our choosing at the top. At some point, we need to step back and ask what we are trying to achieve. – Oddthinking May 12 '13 at 14:44
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    If you read the text associated with http://www.top20lists.com/2010/11/top-5-least-racist-counties.html IMO it lists the top five countries in "reverse" order, from #5 to #1 as you read downwards: Canada is number one, and Netherlands is number five. So the OP is wrong (backwards), and your data analysis may support the conclusion of the to-be-revised OP. – ChrisW Aug 14 '13 at 17:37
  • @ChrisW: LOL. You are right about the article. It is terribly unclear. – Oddthinking Aug 15 '13 at 00:32
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Things to consider:

  • The Netherlands officially segregates it's citizens into two categories: autochtoon and allochtoon (ethnic Dutch and others);
  • there is also officially defined group called "non-Western allochtoon", which is basically very elaborate way of saying "non-White" ("non-Western allochtoon is someone whose 'country of origin' is or lies in Turkey, Africa, Latin America and Asia")
  • schools are semi-officially segregated into "white-schools" and "black-schools".
  • current government is in de facto coalition with PVV (Party for Freedom), which is build around xenophobia. Their party program includes stuff like "forbid Poles, Bulgarians, Romanians from entering the Netherlands" or "Constitutional protection of the dominance of the Judeo-Christian and humanistic culture of the Netherlands" or "Closing of Islamic schools" etc. PVV's leader was for example considered persona non grata by Home Office and denied entry into UK.
vartec
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  • There is neither official nor semi-official segregation in schools. Read [the follow-up correction](http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/691) to the article you linked to. What _does_ happen, is "naturally occurring" segregation, where some schools end up with either a predominantly white or non-white body of students, for a number of reasons. This isn't a good thing either, and there are initiatives to counteract it. In the article you linked to, two such schools (temporarily) shared the same building, each with their own entrance. Although I agree with your general implied conclusion. – SQB Oct 16 '15 at 08:01
  • @SQB: the follow-up only explains that there is no official racial segregation. That doesn't change the fact that schools which have predominantly immigrant children are referred by education officials as *black schools*. – vartec Oct 16 '15 at 21:13
  • Oh, and thankfully, the PVV is back to the opposition again. Although they're doing much too well in the polls. – SQB Oct 16 '15 at 21:51
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    Populist wanna-be fascist parties like the PVV *always* do well in the polls when they're the opposition. It's the perfect place for them - safely removed from ever having to take responsibility for any problem while at the same time having the maximum platform for blaming any and all problems on 'the incompetent establishment' and 'those dirty foreigners threatening our way of life'. – Shadur May 19 '17 at 06:52