Maravi

Let’s respect, tolerate each other

Let’s respect, tolerate each other
By Editor
Wednesday March 14, 2007 [02:00]

IT is a truism, but nevertheless true, that good listeners in most cases turn out to be good students or effective learners. So those who want to learn something and understand how to live in harmony with each other in today’s turbulent world should pay particular attention to Queen Elizabeth’s words of wisdom.

Today, nobody can deny that the world is deeply divided along clearly drawn-out fault lines, essentially because of a lack of respect, tolerance and understanding for and among each other. We agree with Queen Elizabeth on her message that it is more important than even to keep respecting and understanding each other better in today’s difficult and sometimes divided world. If we did an objective self-reproach either as individuals, groups or nations, we would come to a realisation that many of the divisions among ourselves have been our own creation primarily as a result of a lack of respect and understanding among ourselves.

But we should realise, as Queen Elizabeth puts it, that each one of us is an individual with ties of emotion and bonds of obligation to culture, religion, community and beyond. Each one of us is special! And the Queen advises that the more we see each other in this way, the more we can understand each other’s points of view. She encourages us to have open minds and hearts so that we can find our diversity as a cause for celebration and source of strength and unity.

If we looked at things this way, the world would not be going through some of the worst situations that it has had to encounter. Some of the conflicts, be they military, political, economic or otherwise, have been due to a lack of respect and understanding of one another. What is even more sad is the fact that some of the misunderstanding is deliberate.

For instance, we know very well that it is generally agreed that the world needs to move towards a more free trading system if other disadvantaged nations have to benefit and perhaps lift their peoples out of poverty. There have been talks after talks about the need to agree and make each other understand that fair trade rules should be applied if poor nations are to get a fair share from the world market.

However, what we see from the developed world is wanton protectionism on one hand as they on the other keep humming the hypocritical song of fair trade. Sometimes it is not that there is a lack of understanding of the issues. In most cases, the misunderstanding is deliberate.

The failure of trade talks also shows that there is little or no respect for each other even when the issues have been clearly understood by those concerned. If there was respect for each other and among the nations involved in these trade negotiations, a solution should have been long found and an agreement should have been in place by this time.

When we talk about the need for peace and security in the world, we have some powerful nations which want to police the rest of the world without regard for agreed upon mechanisms.

We have countries, such as the United States of America, which are swift to implement far-reaching unilateral actions in the name of peace and security without following systems that have been put in place in order to avoid unilateral excesses. Even when other nations are opposed to such actions, the United States will not respect the opposing views, but instead label such nations opposed to their excesses as ‘the unwilling’ or ‘Old Europe’. This is the kind of lack of respect for other views that is not bringing about order in the world.

This is the kind of lack of respect that is prolonging some of the conflicts which may be difficult to resolve now and in the near future. We have already seen the crisis in Iraq where the United States did not want to respect the views of the ‘unwilling’ or the views from ‘old Europe’ on the fact that the military route that was being pushed would not help the situation. With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps, the United States should by now have realised that it should have respected the views of others before it went ahead to unleash unilateral force on the Iraqis.

In short, in a world of diversity, it is important to understand and respect each other. In fact, we are also being warned by eminent scholars such as Samuel Huntington that today’s world politics is entering a new phase, in which the great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of international conflict will be cultural.

These divisions along culture fault lines may appear less significant now, but we have seen that they are becoming increasingly important. And this is the more reason why we must begin to learn to respect and understand each other more and more. In a world that is surrounded by countless conflicts, we must begin to respect and tolerate each other.

Labels: EDITORIAL, TOLERANCE

posted by MrK @ 4:02 AM