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November 16, 2015 Special Dispatch No. 6220

Kuwaiti Liberal On Occasion Of International Tolerance Day: Tolerance In The Arab World – Only After Implementing Democracy

November 16, 2015
Palestinians | Special Dispatch No. 6220

In an article he published on the occasion of the International Day for Tolerance (marked on November 16), Dr. Shamlan Yousef Al-'Issa, a political science lecturer at Kuwait University, wrote that tolerance will only prevail in Arab societies once they embrace democracy and separate religion from state.

The following are excerpts from the article, published November 15 in the UAE paper Al-Ittihad:

Dr. Shamlan Yousef Al-'Issa (image: aawsat.net)

"Tomorrow, on Monday, November 16, the word will mark the International Day for Tolerance. We Arabs must participate in [marking] this day and benefit from the lessons that motivated the Western states to mark it, especially considering the rift we are experiencing in some of our countries that are in the throes of civil wars fueled by sectarian or religious factors or by tribal and regional interests. The devastating results of these [wars] are apparent every day, especially in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Sudan and Lebanon. All this devastation results from the absence of national dialogue and from the rejection of tolerance and the failure to implement democracy.

"The concept of tolerance emerged in the Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries, and its principles were shaped by European philosophers of that period, including Voltaire, John Locke, [Jean-Jacques] Rousseau, John Stuart Mill and others. The need for tolerance arose mainly because Europe was devastated for 400 years by destructive religious wars between Catholics and Protestants. [This] caused a religious reform movement to emerge in the 16th century, whose activity led to the weakening of the Church after Christianity experienced many rifts that gave rise to several [different] sects and factions. The European kings also worked to diminish the influence of the Church because it had become riddled with corruption and materialism.

"Considering this Western experience, the question arises what is missing in our Arab Muslim societies that prevents the concept of tolerance from successfully [taking root] in the Arab and Muslim countries. Before [trying to] spread the ideas of tolerance in our Arab society, we need free ideological movements that believe blindly in freedom of religion and in absolute respect for the opinions of others - because the concept of tolerance has moral, religious, philosophical and legal aspects. These [aspects] do not exist in Arab societies because freedom of thought, freedom of expression, the acknowledgement of differing opinions and pluralism and of the need for coexistence and cooperation - all these can only exist in free, democratic countries, for tolerance is the opposite of fanaticism.

"Sadly, our societies suffer from religious and sectarian movements that reject religious and ideological pluralism, proclaim others to be infidels and fight anyone who disagrees with them. In the West, religion focuses on concepts like love, brotherhood and peace, whereas we have several movements of political Islam that [only] increase hatred and the exclusion of the other just because he differs in his beliefs or religion.

"Tolerance has political value in that it accepts difference, disagreement and dialogue instead of [advocating] political exclusion. It is also has legal value, in that it calls to avoid discrimination between citizens and to respect the law that sets out equal rights and duties to which everyone must be committed.

"Finally - is it possible for love, brotherhood, dialogue and tolerance to prevail in our societies? We say honestly and clearly: This can be achieved easily if the Arab homelands implement democracy and distance religion from politics. Or, in the spirit of the French philosopher Voltaire, [let us say that] religious tolerance in society requires confronting every kind of fanaticism by enshrining the value of [free] thought, eschewing extremism and respecting freedoms in every domain, especially the freedom of thought."

 

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