There was a
discussion yesterday on the radio about multiculturalism in Britain. It was
quite a lively affair. Two words kept on popping up, tolerance and acceptance.
One of the
guests representing the mainstream culture said “in Britain, multiculturalism is
thriving well. The majority community shows a great deal of tolerance towards
other minority cultures”.
The lady who was representing an ethnic
minority reacted to this quite forcefully and said “there lies the problem! You
tolerate us but do not accept us. That will never bring harmony and equality.
That will only come when the majority community learns to accept us.”
I did not
hear the whole broadcast as I had already reached my destination and had to get
out of the car.
However,
those two words, tolerance and acceptance, kept of bugging me. Tolerance to me
means that even if you do not agree with some principle, you still respect the
right of other people to believe in it. Whereas acceptance means you accept
that the particular principle is true and hence you should also believe in it.
“I do not
agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say
it.” This quote assigned to Voltaire does, for me, define what tolerance
is. This should be the foundation of multiculturalism, not acceptance.
Acceptance,
if you come to think of it, is antithesis of multiculturalism. Everybody
believes that their way of life or their way of practicing their religion is
right for them. Otherwise, why will they subscribe to it? But if one group of
people insist that their views, their religion or their way of life should be accepted
by all others as right for them as well, then there will be no multiculturalism.
It will be monoculturalism, or in other words, a dictatorship.
In a
thriving liberal democratic society, different political parties do not have
same ideologies and priorities but they have tolerance for each other. If you
insist on acceptance, then there would be just on party rule at best or one man
rule at worst.
In a
multicultural society if communities tolerate each other, most of the people
will live in peace and harmony. At the extremes of each society, there would
always be a collision. Extremists always insist on total acceptance of their
views by all others.
Practicing tolerance is far better than
insisting on acceptance. This is my view but I will gladly tolerate your views!
