THE SIGNIFICANCE OF TOLERANCE
The ability to be tolerant of the actions, beliefs, and opinions of others is a major factor in promoting peace in society. Intolerance is one of the greatest challenges we face in the 21st century. Intolerance is a rejection of individual differences between religions and cultures. When intolerance becomes organized or institutionalized, it destroys democratic principles and threatens world peace.
The world’s prime need today is tolerance and acceptance of others.
One of the stark realities of life is that divergence of views exists between human beings, which impinges at all levels. Differences are bound to exist everywhere, whether at the level of a family or a society, a community or a country. Now, the question is how unity can be promoted, or harmony brought about in the face of human differences.
Some people hold that removing all differences is indispensable for bringing about unity among people. However, this view is untenable, as it is not practicable. You may not like the thorns accompanying the roses, but you cannot pluck out all the thorns and destroy them completely, for if you pluck one thorn out, another will grow in its place. Even if you run a bulldozer over all the rosebushes, new plants will grow in their place, bearing roses bound to be accompanied by thorns. Given this, roses can only be had by tolerating thorns’ existence.
Similarly, a peaceful society can be created only by accepting differences and diversities. In this world, unity is achievable only by learning to unite despite disagreements rather than insisting on unity without differences because the total eradication of differences is an impossibility. Therefore, a major secret to attaining peace in life is tolerance and acceptance of differences.
There is nothing wrong with diversity in opinions, beliefs, and ways of life. On the contrary, it is a positive quality that offers many advantages, much like the beauty of a garden is enhanced when it contains flowers of different varieties and colours.
An advantage of appreciating diversity and differences is that it helps build character. For example, if you are well-mannered towards those whose views are similar to yours, you may be said to exhibit a fairly good character. However, if you behave kindly toward those who hold divergent views from you or who criticise you, you deserve to be credited with having an excellent character.
A society whose members hold similar views and never have any critical discussions will soon find itself in the doldrums. The intellectual development of the members of this society will freeze because personal evolution takes place only where there is the interaction of divergent ideas and ways of thinking. Where there is no such interaction, how can intellectual development occur?
Nobody in this world is perfect. If a person is endowed with some good qualities, he may be lacking in others. This is one reason why differences crop up among people. However, for life as a whole, these differences can be a great blessing: the good points of one person may compensate for the shortcomings of another person, just as a set of talents in one person may complement a different set of skills in someone else. If people could only learn to tolerate and even accept and celebrate others’ differences, their forbearance would become a great enabling factor in collective human development.
The habit of tolerance prevents a person from wasting their time and talents on unnecessary matters. If you are negatively affected by another person’s disrespectful behaviour, your mental equilibrium will be upset. However, if you are emotionally untouched by such behaviour, your mind will fully retain its equilibrium, and without wasting a single moment, you will continue to perform your work in the normal way and thus be able to move ahead. A policy of tolerance or forbearance enhances your efficacy, while intolerant behaviour reduces it.
Tolerance is not an act of compulsion. On the contrary, it is a positive principle of life, expressing the noble side of a person’s character. The existence of tolerant human beings in a society is like the blooming of flowers in a garden. This is relevant for harmonious relations between members of different communities and adherents of varying belief systems.
