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What can we do, as citizens to promote tolerance in our daily lives ?
You're in a meeting. Someone tells a joke ... it's about a jew, a black guy, that pushy feminist, that gay guy... What do you do ?
You're waiting in line and you see someone ethnic/different being badly treated by a bank teller/government worker/cashier.
You're at a party where Dave, your friend's husband is gay-bashing again.
At school, you hear a kid use a racial epithet when yelling at another kid.
What kind of attitude do you adopt ?
If you do say something... what do you say ?
How can and does your behavior affect others ?
If you have stood up for the underdog and for tolerance, how did it affect your relationship with friends, clients, business partners or significant others ?
Tolerance ... definition :
"The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others."
Closing Statement from Caroline Phillips
Thank you all for your wonderful contributions to this conversation about Tolerance with a capital "T".
I've learned quite a bit from you and I think it's a wonderful testimony to the magic of TED that so many nationalities participated in this conversation. I feel a lot like Mary Saville : I too tend to get too emotional and engaged about intolerant things I'm hearing so I can produce the opposite effect and be too agressive and intolerant. I'll aspire to be more like Robert Jaffe when adressing intolerant people, to react swiftly but not humiliate.
Susan B. writes "Standing up for the underdog, does not make life happy for you. You are looked at as not being a team player, going against the norm and going against the grain."
My concluding thoughts : Unfortunately I don't live in a "TED world", so standing up for the underdog will often be a perilous endavour, but I'm willing to take the chance.
Hugs to all.
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Mario El Khoury
I am going to use the French Revolution to reply on your interesting question in order to answer by defining the individual and collective rights.
" IV. Political liberty consists in the power of doing whatever does not injure another. The
exercise of the natural rights of every man, has no other limits than those which are
necessary to secure to every other man the free exercise of the same rights; and these
limits are determinable only by the law. " ~ The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 1789, National Assembly of France
Or give it a try and say: "My freedom ends where someone else's begins." (I tried to translate it from this: "Ma liberté s'arrête là où commence celle des autres.".
Debra Smith 200+
Mario El Khoury
Debra Smith 200+
Let's take the example of music. Some people love hard rock and would love to hear someone else's music while others find it almost painful to hear. Others love classical and their opposites hate it in the extreme. We are fortunate enough to live in an age of ear buds but if someone wants to play it loudly in their own home they often feel entitled to do so without regard to anyone else. This a mild example. Recently at a university frosh week people here were having sex in public! Yikes! Having been raised in an era of modesty (even if I do not believe myself to be a prude) makes that a bit bizzare for me.
Where do my rights end and another's begin? I think I should care if sharia law comes into my own country. I have fought tough battles for women to have rights and I do not want to bow my knee to ideas or faiths that will undermine my human rights.
While I would stand up for the same rights for any person of religion- I struggle to define the line between defending their rights and keeping the full measure of my own.
Caroline Phillips 500+
I'd like to "jump in" here for a minute :
Mario, I don't know where you live in France but I can promise you that in the 25 years that I have lived here (in Paris and in the provinces), I regularly run into people who are openly racist : the most prevalent is anti-semitism, but it also extends to Africans, people from the former French colonies ... and the social circles where I have most encountered this kind of intolerant behaviour is in the business sector :(.
Debra, to add to your comment : I think that it's difficult for a man to understand how a woman feels about the sharia. I've travelled quite a bit and in some countries I've had to wear a headscarf, simply because I am, well, swarthy and I tend to blend in so without the headscarf I was absolutely taunted, a couple of times men tried to grab my arm, by posterior, my well, chest ... Women fought hard for their rights which came LATE in France :
A passport for a woman (without her husband) : 1937
Women' right to have her own bank account : 1943
Women's vote : 1944
and ... in France, the husband's name is on his wife's passport while on the husband's passport, the wife's name doesn't appear !
Debra Smith 200+
I agree and have often tried to remind people that women have had rights through most of the world for just about 100 years. That is a very short time when we consider all of history. We saw how quickly they could lose all of their human rights in Afganistan.
A female Canadian diplomat of my acquaintance was stationed in a prominent position in the embassy in Saudi Arabia. She was there with her husband and even though she had the red passport of a fully independent Canadian diplomat she could not drive, could not leave her home without a note from her husband - (a year younger and a year less senior in their profession) - she could not go out unaccompanied, had to wear the burka. So- I am, as a human being. fully commited to seeing all people treated with dignity and respect. I routinely stand up for people and taught my children to do the same. The real crux of the dilemma for me is when I am faced with two 'rights' that are in direct opposition to one another- someone's right to their religious beliefs and mine or another's human rights. I have to believe that human rights trump the right to what we think but I would be open to hearing any other views.
Salim Solaiman 50+
One can see / experience multiple faces of racism there. Though I am not heirarchial or status oriented showing power of position just as an example I was holding a position there which any Saudi can be envious of (regardless of their competency), any other nationality would love to have that position. I was treated extremely shitty in a intersting way in different time mostly due to my country of origin despite I have muslim name (Saudi percieved to be heaven on earth for Muslim & though I never wanted to be treated specially due to my name) some other time how come I having that position coming with that shitty country origin. I just wanted to be treated as a human being. So it's not only woman specific to be treated badly in that country.
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Debra Smith 200+
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Debra Smith 200+
Lindsay Newland Bowker 50+