Tolerance, minus acceptance

I was reminded of tolerance when I received to a video clip of Queen Beatrix of Holland’s recent attendance at an orchestral concert.  The conductor, who just happened to be Muslim, proceeded to give the Queen a lecture on the "beauty" of Islam, making use of the captive audience to justify his prior inability to gain contact with her to put his personal viewpoint.

After one minute of his mild haranguing, all of the members of the orchestra just picked up their instruments and staged a walkout before even one note had been played.

Some may see this as anti-Muslim sentiment on the orchestra’s part, but it was wholesale rejection of enforced proselytising of any kind of belief, religious or otherwise. It showed how initial tolerance on the part of the orchestra and audience for an alternative point of view could be undermined by compelled listening to the conductor’s speech.  

That failed attempt illustrated the futility of trying to manoeuvre tolerance to lever acceptance in a non-discretionary setting.The circumstances under which such propositions are presented must be enjoined voluntarily by opponents, not undertaken in an enforced opportunistic fashion.

Tolerance means having a permissive attitude to being presented with opinions and practices that differ from your own; you can tolerate an idea or belief with which you do not agree without feeling compelled to accept any one, or all, of its tenets.  Your own points of view about many situations can show attitudes which can span from slight interest or antipathy at one end of the scale, to obsessive zeal or else furious condemnation at the other.

Difference in faith, religion, or personal belief, has existed as long as mankind has used the innate power of reasoning or logical argument to support and present a stance or opinion. It is precisely the need for this kind of expression that leads us to read, and contribute to, On Line Opinion.

By presenting well-argued ideas in a constructive way, or offering credible advocacy, it is possible to cause those being addressed to change their minds or attitude towards a specific situation.

The promotion of service or product benefits is one of the factors behind advertising, and lucid opinion is the charm and value of debate.

There is the old saying about being able to take a horse to water but not being able to make it drink.

That adage applies often to attempts to try get people to change deeply-held beliefs about religion, a sensitive trigger point for violence among many adherents who cannot, or will not, see another point of view.  At present we are seeing this happen in a religious context with a widespread decrying of the Islamic belief by those who hold completely alien views.

Muslim-bashing is the current fashionable practice.

Yet it is not all that long ago that Australia was in the grip of other bitter, very bitter, conflict between the Protestant and Catholic branches of Christianity.

Currently, we are seeing something similar in deadly Middle Eastern clashes between the Sunni and Shiite Muslim branches of Islam. Earlier, Europe went through its own horrendous condemnation of Judaism, culminating in Hitler’s ‘final solution’. Many did not understand that it was entirely possible and morally desirable to tolerate another person’s faith without having to accept its tenets.

Stated simply, it shows a need to practice the principle of ‘live and let live’ - tolerance.

Resentment of nationalistic difference is present between ethnic groups, and always has been. This often expresses itself in violent political activities, frequently leading to warfare over the behaviours, ideas, attitudes, morality, and religion of those who deviate from a society’s established procedures or standards; the denial of the inevitability of change, the strong desire to maintain the existing status quo.

I suggest that we in Australia are lucky to live a land mass surrounded entirely by sea, a much easier border to accept than the sometimes artificially mandated lines on a map between adjoining countries. At least we don’t look over the boundary and decry “them” over there because they are different.

Yet our geographic isolation runs the risk of making us insular and intolerant of the customs, backgrounds, and cultures of those who make up an increasingly larger part of our modern population. We are changing; expanding rather than abandoning our beginnings.

A factor which has disrupted harmony in the world for hundreds of years is antagonism towards differences. Let’s hope that we can be mature enough to see a more widespread understanding about the negative effects of greed, anger, hatred, and envy in our dealings with others. Maybe we can become more accepting of tolerance, and give a ‘fairer’ go to all.

Let’s bash a bogan, not a Muslim!