MULTICULTURALISM: TOLERANCE VERSUS ACCEPTANCE

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!

CELEBRATING FESTIVALS: BUY OR NOT TO BUY

CELEBRATING FESTIVALS: BUY OR NOT TO BUY

New Year started the day before yesterday. I have now recovered from the excesses of the celebrations of Christmas and New Year. A long ten-hour sleep last night was all that I needed.

 A good part of the last 15 days was spent in the shopping malls finding gifts and bargains. I actually did not buy much, only what I deemed essential.

Now that I am back to my normal self, I thought it would be a good time to bring back the contents of my cerebral rumen and chew on them. Two words in particular needed more softening, much & essential. How much is much and what is essential? Really, there was not a single thing in my shopping that could be even remotely classified as essential to my existence. Forget about existence, not essential even for my comfort. Moreover, what is another additional Eue de Perfum or aftershave, if not much? But at the time when I bought these, they did not seem so frivolous. I actually felt happy and clever spending the money on the bargains!

Truly speaking shopping malls, supermarkets and shops are the only places now, which feel full of happiness, joy, light and warmth during festival seasons. These places are keeping the festivities alive. 

But Capitalism has to extract its profit. With the help of sleek advertising and media placements, the businesses have made the celebrations of Christmas and New Year synonymous with overt consumption. We have turned consumption into a necessity, and sometimes that is how we specify ourselves. It is same with other festivals like Deepawali, Easter, Eid etc.

The shops do their best to entice you in and not always with honourable means. There are big bargain banners outside and inside the shops declaring 50 to 70% discounts. They are only partial truths if not outright lies. Deceit is at their heart: very big bold letters for “70% off” and tiny microscopic letters for “up to” or “selected lines”. 

But hey, they do blast free Christmas songs and make white bearded, red-coated Santas appear two weeks early!

Happy New Year, keep consuming!

THROWING WATER TO SAVE ELECTRICITY: A REFLEXION ON OUR VALUE SYSTEM

November 2012

This morning when I was filling the kettle with tap water my attention got momentarily diverted and I overfilled it right up to the top. Obviously, I was not going to waste electricity to boil all that water, I only needed two cups of tea.   I just poured the excess water in the sink.

 I saved electricity but I wasted water and the reason I chose one over the other was based purely on the economy. We have meters for both but the cost of electricity is more than water.  If usefulness is any arbiter, the water should be more precious. Knowing and appreciating this does not make any difference because ultimately everything is being determined now on the basis of economy. If it brings money or saves money it must be good and worthy of preferential treatment.

Look at the City in London. The workers here are the most highly paid. They are bankers, financiers, investment brokers, fund managers and likes. They move and manage money that other people earn. They do not grow anything, they do not manufacture anything and are not part of the service industry either. One can live whole of one’s life without ever needing there help when push comes to shove. The worth of a business now a days does not depend on its real material worth but on the whims of the City. The value of shares will not fluctuate that much causing insecurity and havoc if it was not for the compulsive gambling habits of the city. But hey, they make money for their shareholders and the government.  Therefore, they are paid on average more than any other group and the government treats them with kid gloves.

Well, a good teacher is paid much less than even a third class footballer and a government that talks about moral obligations actively supports purest form of gambling by endorsing National Lottery. Why? Because they make more money.

As Thomas Paine said  “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.”  The question is who decides the price?

Well I have no right to blame others as I am doing the same, judging everything in just pure economic terms: throwing water and saving electricity!

AUTUMN, GARDEN AND FRIENDS

Autumn is now here in its full glory. Our garden is about to go for a long winter sleep but before that it is having a last ball. It is like having a big laughter at the end of a party.

Walking this morning in the garden, I noticed these two trees in one corner of the garden. The amazing contrast of colours: deep dark green of the Leylandii on left and the bright flaming vermilion of the Philadelphus on right. The leaves from the Philadelphus were falling slowly gliding down on the grass below like confetti. When the sun finally came, the falling red-yellow leaves looked like floating candles.

Just in another few weeks, all the leaves will be gone and the Philadelphus will be standing there naked looking desolate. The Leylandii on the other hand will stay the same as it is now with all its majesty refuting the mighty winter.

Of course, in midsummer the Philadelphus will look very glamorous with shiny green leaves and fragrant delicate white flowers, like a girl in a bridal dress. The conifer though will not be phased by this display and will remain stithpragya (according to Geeta, being StithPragya is the ideal state for a person to be when one is neither affected by happiness nor sorrows) *

The Philadelphus has to pay the price for its vanity. It exhausts all its energy on flowering and fruiting, nothing left to maintain itself in the bleak winter months.

I am anthropomorphising, but you easily see the reflection of the  two types of friends, we all have. One like the conifer tree; dependable, always available, neither to indulge in nor affected by gossip mongering. Other like the Philadelphus, moody and variable; sometimes looking beautiful, gay, fun to be with, at other times sad, jealous and frankly a pain in the proverbial ***, not dependable at all. 

However, I would not like to part with either of them. How monotonous and sad the garden will be with just one kind of plants!

* Bhagavad-geeta,  Chapter 2, verse 55.