Mustafa Cerić - The Art of Tolerance

Mustafa Cerić - The Art of Tolerance

1. Why Tolerance?

I respect only those who resist me; 
but I cannot tolerate them.

From this Charles de Gaulle’s statement we may conclude that it is easier to recognize the other than to tolerate him. The Jews suffered Holocaust in Europe not because they were not recognized, but because the Nazis could not tolerate them; the Bosnian Muslims were exposed to genocide in Europe (Bosnia and Herzegovina) not because they were not recognized, but because the Serbian Army could not tolerate them.

Although tolerance – the capacity to endure pain or hardship – does not mean the most good of the human respect, it is still the least evil in human relations. 

The opposite to tolerance is intolerance which is the deliberate attempt to eliminate disapproved conduct by coercive means, usually vigorously, perhaps even ruthlessly (persecution). But tolerance has another negative side as well. It is indulgence as an excess of tolerance. Against the notion of the negative toleration or indulgence came the notion of zero-tolerance, meaning that in morality there are some limits of liberty and freedom which is the notion of the poet Milton’s statement that only the good man can be free. 

Indifference is also a form of tolerance by the way of which the human conduct is seen neither as moral nor immoral, but amoral. This is a passive approach to the conduct which is different from the tolerance whichimplies active restraint, as well as the active resistance against violence as the worst form of intolerance. It is in this context of the line of thought of the late Martin Luther King that we see the significance of his statement which reads: The choice today is not violence or non-violence, it is either non-violence or non-existence. 

But, perhaps, the best way to understand why we need to learn the art of tolerance is the following passage of the great Muslim scholar al-Ghazali of the 12th century who said: 

Every one who considers himself better than one of the creatures of God Almighty is arrogant… Your belief that you are better than others is sheer ignorance. Rather you ought not to look at anyone without considering that he is better than you… Thus, if you see a child, you say, This person has never sinned against God, but I have sinned, and so he is better than I;and if you see an older person, you say, This man was a servant of God before me, and is certainly better than I; if he is a scholar, you say, This man has been given what I have not been given and reached what I did not reach, and knows what I am ignorant of, then how shall I be like him? And if he is ignorant, you say, This man has sinned against God in ignorance, and I have sinned against Him knowingly, so God’s case against me is stronger, and I do not know what end He will give to me and what end to him; if he is an infidel, you say: I do not know, perhaps he will become a believer and his life will end in doing good... . 

2. Tolerance: A Sign of Strength or Weakness?

O God, teach us that tolerance is the highest degree of power 
And the desire for revenge the first sign of weakness!

If the right cannot control the might, then the might will overrule the right and as a result of it intolerance will prevail. Pascal used to say: Majority opinion is the best way because it can be seen and is strong enough to command obedience, but it is the opinion of those who are least clever. And I would like to add to this: it is the opinion of those who may be least tolerant because they believe that majority might of theirs should make the minority right in the way of their wish regardless of what the minority rights really are. 
Is the intolerant behavior of a majority the sign of its strength or the sing of its weakness? 

I believe that intolerance toward the rights of minority in any society is a sign of weakness of that society. The real strength is not to coerce others to accept your way of thought or belief. The real strength is in toleration of others in the sense of showing that you are so strong in your own identity that you have no need to be xenophobic about the other who is different from you. In the context of this attitude, I am surprised by the insistence of some European leaders to put the attribute Christian in the New European Constitution as the only source for the European history and culture. 

This tendency in Europe does not demonstrate neither historical nor cultural strength of Europe. On the contrary, it shows its weakness in the sense that Europe is not yet sure about its identity. It seems that Europe is not yet sure about the fact that it represents multiple experiences of history; that it cherishes diverse forms of culture, and, most of all, that it witnesses many manifestations of faith: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and of course, the legacy of atheism. The aggressive emphasis on one’s cultural, national or religious identity is not the sign of one’s cultural, national or religious inner security. By doing so one is rather showing his/her cultural, national and religious insecurity. 

Unfortunately, today some groups are making disservice to the Muslims by their excessive use of the attributeIslamic for almost everything they do or not do on the global stage. They are forgetting, however, that the strength of Islam has always been in its tolerance, in its Qur’anic proclamation that there shall be no coercion in religion; in its Prophetic declaration that there shall be no superiority of an Arab over a Non-Arab, nor of a Non-Arab over an Arab, and there shall be no superiority of a white over a black man, nor a black over a white man, except by their good character; and in its human experience which is best reflected in the line of this thought: It is the law and custom since the world began that to treat others with humanity is the sign of being human. One good deed deserves another; indeed, the return for one kindness should be ten like it… . The true man treats other men/ Humanely and kind/ This kind of man gave humanity/ The name of mankind. 

3. The Art of War?

Once lead this people to war 
and they will forget ever was such a thing as tolerance.

If peace means an absence of war; if good is a non-existence of evil; and if love is a void of hate, then tolerance means freedom from violence. 

Isn’t peace, good, love and tolerance the natural state of humans? But where did war, evil, hate and violence come from? Everyone would agree that man was not born for war, evil, hate and violence. Man was born for peace, good, love and tolerance. But is that really so? Sun Tzŭ, the Chinese author of the famous book “The Art of War” thought two and a half thousand years ago that in order to survive man must know that: The art of war is of vital importance to the state. It is a matter of life and death. Hence it is a subject of enquiry which can on no account be neglected. 

I do not recall any book by the title of “The Art of Peace”. I thought, like many of my Bosnian fellowmen and women, that Peace is something that is inherited, the value that is undeniable until the war erupted in my country which not only changed my life, but also my way of thinking. I realized that Peace is not something that you should take for granted. Also, I began to ask why people like to talk more about the Holy War, the Just War and the Justified War than about the Holy Peace, the Just Peace and the Justified Peace?! Why those who kill human beings are regarded as national heroes? What is heroic in raping a helpless little girl? What is human in committing genocide against your neighbors? The answer to these questions is: We humans ought to appreciate the art of peace rather than the art of war; we ought to speak about the holy peace rather than about the holy war; we ought to learn the art of tolerance; indeed, we ought to come back to the art of wisdom. 

4. The Art of Wisdom

Learn wisdom and earn the seat of honor.

The human senses are designated for physical pleasure or pain, the human mind is meant for intellectual success or failure, and the human soul is made for spiritual joy or sorrow. Furthermore, we receive knowledge through our sensory system, by our brain we gather and keep information and in our heart we hold the wisdom of our personality. 

Thus, knowledge, information and wisdom are properties which make us knowledgeable, informed and wise. All of these three properties are important for our physical as well as mental health. However, there is a difference between the fact of knowledge, the amount of information and the eye of wisdom. 

Also, there is a difference in the value of having knowledge without information, possessing information without knowledge, and keeping both knowledge and information without wisdom. And that is the key message of my presentation: today’s world has a great amount of knowledge, it possesses a surplus of information, but lacks the insightful eye of wisdom. 

There is a big gap of understanding between the human senses and the human mind of what is right and wrong; and there is a deep discrepancy between the sense-mind perception and the human soul’s insight. Today, the human soul is very much confused by the perception of human senses and the mind about certain moral judgments. The soul cannot accept that all human sensual desires are morally justified and the soul cannot comprehend that all human intellectual adventures are legitimate. 

Consequently, the soul is almost choked by the knowledge of the human senses and the heart is almost lost by the surplus of information of the human mind, An excess of learning, says Seneca, makes us suffer as much as excess of anything else. 

Every morning, says Jeffrey Sachs, our newspapers could report, More than 20,000 people perished yesterday of extreme poverty. The stories would put the stark numbers in context-up to 8,000 children dead of malaria, 5,000 mothers and fathers dead of tuberculosis, 7,500 young adults dead of AIDS, and thousands more dead of diarrhea, respiratory infection, and other killer diseases that pray on bodies weakened by chronic hunger. The poor die in hospital wards that lack drugs, in villages that lack antimalarial bed nets, in houses that lack safe drinking water. They die namelessly, withour public comment. Sadly, such stories rarely get written. Most people are unaware of the daily struggles for survival, and of the vast numbers of improverished people around the world who lose that struggle. 
Since September 11, 2001, the United States has launched a war on teror, but it has neglected the deeper causes of global instability. The $450 bilion that the United States will spend this year on the military will never buy peace if it continues to spend around one thirtieth of that, just $15 billion, to address the plight of the world's poorest of the poor, whose societes are destabilized by extreme poverty and thereby become havens of unrest, violence, and even global terrorism. 

So, our problem is not in the lack of knowledge or information. Our problem lies in the lack of wisdom which is, as our Yusuf says to his prince Bugra Khan: 

A mighty fortress. The heart and tongue are fitting for nothing without wisdom; with wisdom they fit everything, like water. However much wisdom you possess, still seek to gain more; for the wise man attains his desire by inquiry. If you say, I know, then you are far from knowledge, and among the wise you will be counted as foolish. Wisdom is a sea without bottom or shore: how much water can the swallow remove by sipping? Your head may swim with so much knowledge; but if you know not yourself, then you are far from yourself. Learn wisdom, and become a man by raising your soul aloft; otherwise be called beast and remove yourself from mankind. The wise man’s brow is ever knit in thought, the fool is ever merry and smiling. How can the sage for his worry be merry? But the fool can go roll in the dust like a stag. The man who has wisdom is hobbled and cannot fool, then twist his hobbles tight! 

It is said that the mind will never understand the heart. However, the mind cannot ignore the feeling of the heart, and the senses cannot escape the judgment of the soul, i.e. of the art of faith of the individuals who are moving more and more from the importance of physical property to the development of intellectual, spiritual, and creative wealth. 

Let me quote once again Yusuf who is describing the state of the world of the 11th century to his master Bugra Khan, but it is as if he is describing it now: 

Behold now the times, O sage, said Yusuf: how everything has changed! The wise are held in disrespect, the intelligent are dumb. The wicked have multiplied in the land while the peace-loving are downtrodden. 
Those who disregard the daily prayers, and bath their heads in wine, now wield authority and are considered strong and manly. Now the fornicator is called a real man while he who refrains from drink is dubbed a miser and he who prays and fasts a hypocrite. 
Behold how the world's habit is changed! Men's hearts are at variance with their tongues. Good faith is departed, and treachery is rampant. A trustworthy man cannot be found. Brothers are strangers to their kinfolk, and friends have abandoned their friends. The young lack manners, the old wisdom; the shameless have become legion, the modest lost from view. Now relationship are formed for the sake of money alone, and there is no one who performs his duty for the sake of right and trust. The name of trust still exists but no one left to honor it. Words of counsel still exist, but no one left to adopt them. Where is the man who commands the good and forbids the evil? Merchants do away with their trusts and craftsmen squander their skills. The wise no longer dare to utter the truth. Women have lost their modesty and no longer cover their faces. All straight dealing is gone, and crookedness has taken its place. There is none left who is honest-to-God. All have become slaves to Mammon; they bow their heads to anyone who has silver. Formerly congregations were large and the mosques too few; now there are more than enough mosques and too few people inside. Hear these words of the pious bard and take them to heart, O chief of the virtuous: Where is the man who walks upright?/Where is the friend for the sake of God?/The world is rotten through and through:/Where is one who thinks this odd? 

I would like to finish by a peace of advice of a wise man, hoping that you have already learnt something of our art of tolerance in the city of Sarajevo: 
Be not angry with me if I have spoken harshly, brother. True words come harsh to the ear and bitter to the heart; but once they take root, they bear sweet fruit. Likewise the poet said: Truth is bitter food/And difficult to eat;/Swallow the bitter pill,/For it shall make you sweet. 

A Bosnian Prayer 

Our Lord 
Do not let success deceive us 
Nor failure takes us to despair! 
Always remind us that failure is a temptation 
That precedes success! 

Our Lord 
Teach us that tolerance is the highest degree of power 
And the desire for revenge 
The first sign of weakness! 

Our Lord 
If you deprive us of our property, 
Give us hope! 
If you grant us with success, 
Give us also the will power to overcome defeat! 
If you take from us the blessing of health, 
Provide us with the blessing of faith! 

Our Lord 
If we sin against people, 
Give us the strength of apology! 
And if people sin against us, 
Give us the strength of forgiveness! 

Our Lord 
If we forget You, 
Do not forget us!