/ 28 August 2007

South Africans are a proud nation, survey reveals

Thirteen years after the country shed its pariah status by scrapping apartheid, 96% of South Africans are now proud of their country, a new opinion poll revealed on Monday.

Surveys in previous years had revealed differences among different races, but the latest South African edition of the World Values Survey shows the percentage of proudly patriotic white South Africans is now as big as that among their black countrymen.

While only 83% of white respondents described themselves as proud to be South African in the previous survey released five years ago, that figure has now risen to 95%, the survey’s authors said at a press conference in Pretoria.

Lead researcher Hennie Kotze said the survey reveals a positive attitude towards the state in general, although about 40% of respondents said the government was doing ”very badly” in handling crime.

”My feeling is the present economic situation has something to do with it. People have more money,” Kotze said. ”The worrying aspect there is crime — all the groups in South Africa feel the same about that.”

Also, even if South Africans are quite negative towards gay and lesbian people, they teach their children to be tolerant. On a scale of what was deemed acceptable, homosexuality fared better than prostitution or abortion, but worse than mercy killing and divorce. All of these practices scored less than four out of 10, indicating that South Africans find it difficult to accept any of them.

On a choice of neighbours, the vast majority of respondents did not want to live next door to drug addicts or chronic drinkers. Opinions varied on gay neighbours: they were not acceptable to 48% of black respondents, 26% of white respondents, 37% of coloured respondents and 39% of Indian respondents.

Religious and racial tolerance fared much better. Churches fared best among ordinary South Africans on the trustworthy index, with 85% of respondents trusting them. This was followed by the president and television (nearly 75% each), with political parties in the rear.

Altogether 21% of Indians, 13% of whites, 6% of blacks and 9% of coloureds did not want neighbours with Aids.

Worryingly, among other figures revealed in the survey, nearly 10% of respondents said that domestic violence could be justified.

A total of 3 000 people were questioned in six of the country’s official languages for the survey, which has a margin of error of about 2%. It was conducted last year by the Centre for International and Comparative Politics at the University of Stellenbosch, in conjunction with Markinor. — Sapa-AFP, Sapa