Tolerance, minus acceptance

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!