Shtikl

Maybe you have already seen Prague. It is one of the cities most tourists to Europe pay a visit. Prague is truly pretty.I was born it was then the “Czechoslovak Socialist Republic”. Back then it was a communist country. Communism wasn’t pretty. It was a suppresive, inhuman regime.

My family happened to be believers, people who tried to follow God. And communists didn’t like that. In the middle ages the catholics didn’t very much like any worldview opposing their one-and-only worldview. In the first half of Europe’s twentieth century the Nazis didn’t quite approve any worldview different from theirs. And if you for some reason got in their worldview’s way, you were heading for trouble.

Communism wasn’t much different. For us it was basically: Accept your life being made hell - or flee. We fled.

Years later I realize that the same religion suffering from prosecution and intolerance in many parts of the world, once it has the chance to do so, adopts the attitude that led to its own suffering: We are right, the others are wrong. And “wrong” more resolves to “others have less value than we do”.

Not all of them, but quite some religions and their followers are this way. Some do it only in talking. Some try to turn their restrictive worldview into laws on obligatory “Intelligent-Design”-lessons. Others strap on an explosive belt and kill themselves just to kill others.

What is it with some believers that they try to force you to their believe by any means? To me the explanation appears to be simple. Deep inside they feel insecure and unhappy. They, most likely correctly, assume that their insecurity and feeling of shallowness is connected with their specific worldview. (It is interesting to mention here that the most aggresive believers often have the most simple belief-systems.)

So this unhappy believers basically have two options. They can update their belief-system. Or they can do the mental equivalent of a kid who covers its ears and screams “La, la, la, I don’t want to hear!!!” at the top of its lungs.

Now the first may seem the more favorable thing to do. But as my Grandma once jokingly said: “It hurts to think.” In fact it hurts so much that quite a lot of people will rather work their ass off, or kill you and your kin and leave their own kids orphaned, just so that they don’t have to start reflecting life.

I have heard quite some conservative christians talk about “tolerance” as if it were a four letter word. The list goes: “child molestation, homosexuality, tolerance”. Lucky for them there is neither “hate” nor “wasting live watching TV” nor “polluting our planet” in their list.

Tolerance to me is not only about letting someone else do stuff and not bother. Tolerance is about setting limits to intrusion. And tolerance is about supporting someone else in being different.

To tolerate means to set a line which I will not cross. Accept it as a law of human coexistence that there are parts of human lives which ought to be protected against intrusion. Even if I should come to believe that something that someone else does is wrong - if it is happening within a protected area, like e.g. sexuality, I am not allowed to intrude. Even more: If anyhow possible, I ought to support the differing standpoint.

Now what about intolerant people? How can one be tolerant towards the various kinds of religion’s crusaders?

Can we actually “fight intolerance”?

There is this saying : “Fighting a war for peace is like f***ing for virginity.”

Sounds good.

It’s wrong.

Once again, tolerance is not about turning away. Tolerance is about setting limits to intrusion. Just as it is mandatory to meet others with tolerance it is okay to demand tolerance. There is nothing wrong with setting limits to other people’s intrusion into my own life.

And it is a good thing to fight for tolerance among people, wrestling down the intolerant and hateful.

I believe a tolerant society is the society most desirable. And I will fight anyone believing otherwise.

Postscriptum: Yep, I get the irony.