Between tolerance and hatred lies this frantic race
Dr. Michel E. Abs
The Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches
The United Nations has designated November 16th as the International Day for Tolerance, commemorating it through various activities. Furthermore, the year 1995 was designated as the United Nations Year for Tolerance. Member States have adopted the Declaration of Principles on Tolerance and the Plan of Action for the follow-up to the United Nations Year for Tolerance.
Undoubtedly, this Declaration of Principles is a valuable and important document that should be examined and reflected upon due to its values and aspirations, which secure a better future for humanity. However, we also witness an escalation of intolerance, rejection of others, and the resulting hate speech, which threatens to overthrow all the progress humanity has made in terms of openness, love, and yearning to mature and interact with others who differ from us in several ways. This difference does not necessarily lead to conflicts and wars if countries, societies, and peoples manage this diversity well.
In this regard, we must address some of the social ills that require society to be aware of the disasters they carry.
The first concept is stereotyping, which is an idea or image we form of a person or group based on an excessive and sometimes harmful simplification of existing or supposed characteristics of that group. This stereotype may be negative or positive and is based on prejudices that nullify the privacy of individuals.
The problem with stereotypes is that they can be managed and reinforced through the media, and they can be very harmful, even if they are positive, as they may hide characteristics and focus on others in an unscientific or unrealistic way. Stereotypes are spread by education and repetition and may be part of social integration. Thus, stereotypes overcome the personal experiences of individuals, making the individual its prisoner and altering and falsifying his experience in order to meet the teachings of stereotypes or not to contradict them. Stereotypes include races, sects, religions, ethnicities, nationalities, cultural and political groups, and even professions and classes. The worst thing about them is that they are resistant to change by virtue of the fact that man has imbibed them during his upbringing and socialization.
The second concept is prejudices, which are opinions formed superficially and without analysis or examination of the individual or group because of their surroundings and impressions. Their formation is due to mental laziness, non-critical thinking, negative thinking patterns, or ossified thought in man or in groups. Prejudices are closely interactive with stereotypes and are mutually nurtured, but usually have negative content that is harmful to others. Like stereotypes, prejudices are difficult to change or quit, and this requires the ability to self-criticize the individual and a general sense of criticism.
The third concept, nervousness, is a natural collective feeling that unites people and groups, aligning them in their feelings as well as in their endeavors. Nervousness is a natural feeling in human groups that represents the transition from a time of primitive and lost individualism to an organized society. It provides social and peasant solidarity for human groups, primarily produced and expressing the group’s identity and its sense of belonging to one identity. It is considered to have a positive content if it is not directed against others.
The fourth concept, intolerance, is an excessive feeling of non-acceptance of others who are ethnically, religiously, sectarianly, ideologically, or culturally different from us. Intolerance results in accepting everything that is done or said by those who are “like us”, and it also results in rejecting or criticizing everything that “those who are not like us” say or do. This inevitably leads to an unscientific distinction between “us” and “carefree”, and thus results in a complete disruption of rational scientific thinking or critical sense.
The fifth concept, resulting from the previous one, is religious fanaticism, which is a characteristic of religious groups. Its main problem is that it deals with something that cannot be controlled, which is metaphysics. Religious fanaticism is based on the nervousness of the relationship between individuals and may exceed the requirements of religious belief, replacing the identity of the social group with religious identity. It does not require true religiosity, but its practice and effects may be contrary to religion. In advanced cases of political sectarianism, religious fanaticism may replace political affiliation with ideological affiliation, and the group has politicized or begged religion in politics.
The sixth concept, sectarian fanaticism or sectarianism, is an applied concept to the concepts that preceded it. In sectarianism, the sect and its interests become above the interests of the homeland and the individuals who are sacrificed for the sake of the sect or who controls its decision. Sectarianism makes and precedes sub-sectarian identities stronger than national identity. In addition, sectarianism constitutes a state of introversion to groups that are supposed to form one society in terms of participation in life, and the sect divides society into closed groups that live alienated as if the members of these sects do not live on one land or in the shadow of one state. This means that sectarianism leads to hostility between the components of the nation that may lead to rivalry and conflicts of a totalitarian dimension.
The seventh concept, takfiri religious fundamentalism, is the most dangerous of all these concepts. Takfiri religious fundamentalism is an intellectual trend that subjects individuals and groups to the entire system – belief and rituals – of a religion, and fundamentalists deal with religion with a fossilized logic that does not accept modernization. The fundamentalists also consider that their cause is of a cosmic and eternal dimension and consider themselves responsible for the fate of humanity through their faith. Dealing with them is very difficult as it hardens the letter against the soul and reason, as the fundamentalists view the open-minded people of their religion as the first enemies of this religion. On the other hand, researchers in this field believe that fundamentalists of different religions, and even non-religious fundamentalists, have the same mental characteristics and the same values. The more modernity advances in society, the more fundamentalists become rooted in their fanaticism, so they form a defensive position from everything that is happening around them, as they consider it a threat to it.
Fundamentalists see themselves as a select elite whose mission is to save humanity, and they produce highly charismatic leaders to lead their affiliated groups. There are other concepts subordinate to those that lead to tolerance between people and groups, divergence, and the escalation of hate speech. Researchers must work on these concepts in order to explore their depths and guide them on ways to deal with them.
At the end of this article, without dealing with all these dangerous concepts that affect human society in its destiny and progress, I refer the reader to the Sermon on the Mount by the Lord Incarnation. I emphasize that the meaning and values of this sermon are what protect humanity from the sin of the wicked.