Intolerance essay
Intolerance in any form is dangerous and unacceptable on the background of the growing power of modern means of destruction. The danger of intolerance has increased not due to the reason that it has become much more common, but because its representatives have received more destructive tools to implement their aggressive plans.
Taking advantage of the spread of “political correctness”, intolerant society groups have moved into an aggressive attack. This is expressed, for example, in the strengthening of fundamentalism in the Arab riots in France, in an aggressive and arrogant behavior of intolerant minorities in many countries, in the moral asymmetry, when the Chechens are allowed to destroy the Russian population in Chechnya, and the Arabs may require the destruction of Israel, the Albanians may kill the Serbs, but a very limited power respond to this is subjected to sharp criticism. Further, we will summarize and analyze the articles of Jennifer Coleman and Iolo Madoc-Jones, devoted to religious and racial intolerance correspondently, and will demonstrate the examples of intolerance existing in the society of India and the UK.
Religious Intolerance in India
In her article “Authoring (in)Authenticity, Regulating Religious Tolerance: The Implications of Anti-Conversion Legislation for Indian Secularism”, Jennifer Coleman studies the politicization of conversion discourses in modern India, concentrating on the growing support of anti-conversion law at the level of separate states.
Already in 1977, the Indian Supreme Court stated that the Constitution includes no right to turn another person into one’s faith. The statistics runs that in 2000, 626 inter-religious clashes occurred in India, in which 207 people were killed and 2,065 were wounded. In India, religious strife is not a new phenomenon, but previously, the relationship of Muslims and Hindus had been the most acute. During the last ten years, in Jammu and Kashmir regions, which are equally claimed by both India and Pakistan, more than 60 000 people were killed (Coleman 245-77).
Starting from 1998, radical Hindu groups have constantly been carrying out acts of violence. On their account, in particular, is the destruction of West India churches on Christmas of 2000, as well as the murder of Australian missionary in January 2001. In August – September 2008, the representatives of Hinduism once again showed their true demonic appearance and burned, hanged, and raped the Christians, burned Christian churches, monasteries and homes of the faithful, and all this happened in full inaction by the authorities and the police, even worse – the police themselves were engaged in violence (Coleman 245-77).
While the bills for Freedom of Religion claim to present the force of the Hindu nationalism, these laws indicate Hindutva’s political mobility as a symbolic discourse and the practical borders of its implementation in Indian legislation. However, this revival emphasizes the durability of issues concerning the feature of conversion as a person’s and society’s right, just as resuming the continuous debate over the line between propagation and conversion (Coleman 245-77).
Generally, the author states that, while conversion policy remains an influential point of reference in discussions of the religious freedom essence and quality as a distinct right of Indian nationality and democracy, the common harmful consequences of the implementation of this bill are still evident. Apart from that, the gender policy plays a decisive role in these disputes; this issue should in no way be ignored taking into account the way the anti-conversion discussion unfolds (Coleman 245-77).
Thus, the article examines the way how the bill for Freedom of Religion impacts the essence and substance of the project of Indian secularism. The author pays particular attention to how the legislations influence the perception of freedom of religion as freedom of consciousness, as well the meaning of gender issue in this dispute. Ultimately, the gap between the “religious” nature of the law in theory and its disputed effect in practice shows that the Indian secular project is trying to compromise with religious intolerance rather than completely submitting to the Hindutva politics.
The abovementioned facts show that till present moment, not peacefulness and tolerance, but extreme religious intolerance in India is a characteristic feature of modern Hinduism.
Racial Intolerance among the UK Youth
In the conditions of growing criminal justice movement intended to stop racist intolerance, the article of Iolo Madoc-Jones “Challenging and changing racist attitudes and behaviour in young people” explores the efficiency of projects designed to oppose and correct the attitudes of youth aged 11–21 to ethnic and racial groups. The article is actually an analytical report on the 2005 study of Joseph Lemos, presenting the opinions of more than 600 young people from the all over UK regarding their dislikes in people, collected by individual interviews, focus groups, and questionnaires (Lemos). The majority of the interviewed young people during the survey did not express any negative attitude towards various groups. However, a substantial minority reported their hostility to other racial and ethnic communities (Madoc-Jones 80-81).
Asians and Muslims, along with Iraqis and Afghanis, are frequently perceived by young people as potential terrorists after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. in 2001, as well as Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The continuous speculations and political disputes might have influenced the opinion of young people just as strongly as the conflicts themselves. Some young people also treat as potential terrorists or hijackers asylum seekers and refugees. These groups are sometimes believed to get preferential treatment (Madoc-Jones 80-81; Lemos).
There is strong conviction among certain groups of young people that minor ethnic groups have no right to live in Britain and therefore should be deported to their own countries. This position is explained by the fear that the UK might become overpowered by minor ethnic communities. Some also accuse them of breaching the commonly accepted social and legal rules and norms. Some also argue that it is minority ethnic groups who are aggressive and hostile, not vice versa. Concerning the Asian people in particular, some young people believe them to disdain white people (Madoc-Jones 80-81; Lemos).
The study also shows that some young people dislike other people simply because they are different. Stereotypically, black Caribbean groups are still believed to have criminal inclinations by some young people. Perhaps for these reasons, many young representatives of black and minority ethnic communities consider many white people to be are vicious, egotistical and racist (Madoc-Jones 80-81).
A conducted poll also showed that 39% of the surveyed British prefer to live in an area with the same or similar ethnic group to which they belong themselves. 41% of white and 26% of the representative of minority reported that representatives of different races should live separately. At the same time, it turned out that the UK youth is more democratic than their parents’ generation. Only 40% of adults expressed a desire to live separately from other ethnic groups, while among young people the readiness to live in areas with mixed contingent was up to 64% (Lemos).
Researchers are very concerned about the trend of growth of racist moods in the society and the fact that respondents are not shy expressing their opinions, which was not marked previously. For example, ten years ago, only 10% of Britons considered the problem of immigrants to be one of the most important and disturbing. Now, 29% of the population is concerned about this issue and find it the biggest problem. In general, the British feel that the severity of this issue put it in third place, forwarded by educational issues (33%) and healthcare (41%) (Lemos).
Conclusion
In the relationships between tolerant and intolerant societies (or tolerant and intolerant cultures), there is always a possibility of violent destruction of the tolerant society by the intolerant one. The reverse process almost never takes place, because the tolerant society, by definition, does not violently destroy other people’s culture.
Tolerance gives only one advantage: it allows creating more complex and more developed society, and developing steadily. Such a society has more power, and in the classic military conflict defeats intolerant societies. Therefore, intolerant societies now do not use the tactics of open military aggression, but apply demographic penetration, which we’ve tried to see in the presented articles.
The question is how to combine humanism and the necessity of protecting modern society from the aggressive manifestations of fundamentalism, traditionalism, etc. To do this, the today’s society needs to save the only kind of intolerance: intolerance towards intolerance, which is manifested, for example, in a ban on incitement to destroy or discriminate people basing on their race, nationality, social status, beliefs, etc. Intolerance towards intolerance means that the right to freedom is placed above the right to follow traditions.
