SLOVAKS regard ethnic tensions as more powerful than any other kind of social conflict in the country, according to the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) 2009-2010 conducted by the sociology department of the Slovak Academy of Sciences.
According to the 1,159 respondents surveyed, conflicts between the majority population and the Roma minority are the most bitter, followed by tensions between Slovaks and ethnic Hungarians and those between well-off people and those with lower incomes.
Slovaks considered the first two areas of conflict to be the most publicised social and political problems in Slovakia, the TASR newswire wrote about the survey results.
According to Ján Bunčák from the sociology department of the Philosophy Faculty of Bratislava’s Comenius University, who presented the results of the survey, the tension between Slovaks and ethnic Hungarians has been “significantly politicised”.
To support his assertion, he pointed to the fact that this kind of tension was reported most often by people from Žilina, who he noted are unlikely be directly affected by interacting with ethnic Hungarians because very few live in Žilina Region.
Almost two-thirds of Slovakia’s inhabitants are happy with their lives; Slovaks more so than Roma or ethnic Hungarians, the Sme daily reported.
