DAY FOR TOLERANCE
Today is the International Day for Tolerance. Please spend some time today thinking about what tolerance means for you and for everyone. Then send me your thoughts. I would like to do a follow up post of your messages (if there are any!)
From UNESCO Declaration of Principles on Tolerance signed by the member states in 1995.
Article 1 - Meaning of tolerance
1.1 Tolerance is respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world’s cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human. It is fostered by knowledge, openness, communication, and freedom of thought, conscience and belief. Tolerance is harmony in difference. It is not only a moral duty, it is also a political and legal requirement. Tolerance, the virtue that makes peace possible, contributes to the replacement of the culture of war by a culture of peace.
1.2 Tolerance is not concession, condescension or indulgence. Tolerance is, above all, an active attitude prompted by recognition of the universal human rights and fundamental freedoms of others. In no circumstance can it be used to justify infringements of these fundamental values. Tolerance is to be exercised by individuals, groups and States.
1.3 Tolerance is the responsibility that upholds human rights, pluralism (including cultural pluralism), democracy and the rule of law. It involves the rejection of dogmatism and absolutism and affirms the standards set out in international human rights instruments.
1.4 Consistent with respect for human rights, the practice of tolerance does not mean toleration of social injustice or the abandonment or weakening of one’s convictions. It means that one is free to adhere to one’s own convictions and accepts that others adhere to theirs. It means accepting the fact that human beings, naturally diverse in their appearance, situation, speech, behaviour and values, have the right to live in peace and to be as they are. It also means that one’s views are not to be imposed on others.
For more go here
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Reader Comments
From Scruffy American:
In Los Angeles, we even have a museum of tolerance which was real sobering to see. In case anyone wants to see it on line. It’s http://www.museumoftolerance.com
Cheers,
Scruffy American
This post has been removed by the author.
uh, that post didn’t read right… interesting find there, anonymous, never come across that before. This link might make it easier for people to see it Museum of Tolerance
Thanks for reminding me Mike, I wanted to post this a while ago. This is the html for putting a link in a message. Hope it’s useful to others too.
html for links
Well, it worked for me dd (thanks), just hope you never regret showing me that!
Article 4 - Education
4.1 Education is the most effective means of preventing intolerance. The first step in tolerance education is to teach people what their shared rights and freedoms are, so that they may be respected, and to promote the will to protect those of others.
Yup, go along with that.
I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to.
Alice Walker
Oppression involves a failure of the imagination: the failure to imagine the full humanity of other human beings.
Margaret Atwood
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.”
Bertrand Russell
Though all society is founded on intolerance, all improvement is founded on tolerance”
George Bernard Shaw
I cannot agree with the UN definitions of tolerance as I would argue that tolerance does not require any ‘acceptance’ of other people or their views whatsoever. A hard core christian might deplore and abominate homosexuality, i.e. he does not accept it in any way, and yet still tolerate a person’s right to live what he might describe as a sinful life. Likewise I might (and do) find a great many of the teachings of Islam vile and abominable (and not just because I am a Godless agnostic), yet I am quite willing to tolerate people holding and even espousing those views, regardless of my distaste.
Similarly I fail to see what democracy has to do with tolerance. Democracy is a political system, a way of deciding who gets to control the collective means of coercion, it simply has nothing to do with tolerance, because tolerance is an objective right, not a political system. A law can be repressive and profoundly intolerant and yet quite democratic. In fact attempts to impose restrictions on my freedom of expression by using democratic political processed (such as certain elements of Muslim opinion are calling for) are just the use of proxy violence to enforce intolerant views. Yet if such laws were impose they would be imposed by democratically elected governments.
And sorry to be so contrary, but even statements like ‘education is the most effective means of preventing intolerance’ are rather hollow. Does that mean a person educated at a Sharia school is less likely to be intolerant towards an agnostic westerner who likes to shoot his mouth off like me? In my experience a great many educators in the west trip over the non-trivial semantic differences between words like ‘tolerance’, ‘acceptance’ and ‘respect’, all of which have very different meanings indeed.
I tolerate a great many things that I regard as being deplorable, wrong, mistaken, absurd and laughable… and *demand* the same tolerance from others who might see my views in much the same light. I neither expect nor need their respect or acceptance however, that is someone a person must earn from another, it is not a right.
Thanks for dropping by Perry de Havilland. About a week after I posted the UN declaration we had a discussion about exactly the same thing and I agree with you when you write “tolerance does not require any ‘acceptance’ of other people or their views whatsoever”.