To this end, we are told that the concept is abundantly present in Arab culture or cultures, as anecdotes from history or heritage are mobilized for discussion. However, these examples are subjected to forced interpretations in order to prove they are sound – so that they suit a notion of «tolerance» that is actually haphazard and exaggerated, whether through written texts or oral discourse. It assumes the position of «culture» that only requires highlighting in order to become effective. This is an irresponsible mixing of concepts such as forgiveness, reconciliation, mercy, peace and «the Other,» as well as other concepts that regulate social and individual action.
Thus, describing this tolerance as «culture» contains an inaccurate metaphor, especially since it is part of a legislative, ethical and heritage-based system of values, which warn against violating or abandoning this culture. The objective here is to prevent this tolerance from becoming excessive, or even worse - such as imitating the west, for example. The notion of tolerance becomes stuck in its embryonic state; it has no effective presence and becomes a presumed «culture» but with no significant loyalty to it.
Discussing tolerance is a crisis and predicament of development, especially in a culture that considers itself to be completely self-sufficient in terms of its knowledge and labels «the other» as being harmful, or intending to cause harm, and unworthy of being believed. This debate becomes a crisis of the self that leads to extinction; it then returns to collide with the conditions and criteria that eliminate it once again. There is a stubborn clinging to the term «tolerance» and attempting to prove that it exists as culture and can be used to solve some problems of human society – albeit if tolerance doesn’t become too excessive - just because it exists as a word in the language.
However, the open-ended nature of all these possibilities, explanations and judgments show that the debate on tolerance and its violent implementation result from denying the value of modern values and concepts, compared to inherited values, as the decisive judgment relies on what is «sacrosanct» – thus ending every debate.
It’s difficult to deny the existence of tolerance as a concept and lofty human value, but it is strictly a social one. It tries to serve the interest about which society is in agreement, in the sense that it’s necessarily a modern, enlightened concept. Therefore, tolerance doesn’t appear as a concept, value or necessity in a pre-modern society. Its place is thus taken by the cultural aspects of dictatorship, strife and sectarianism, and the other cancers that eliminate interests upon which a modern society can be organized.
It seems deceptive to claim that this kind of tolerance exists in human society. Social tolerance can’t exist without equality, personal freedom, free initiative, and human dignity. It isn’t a gift from an individual, group or ideological current; it’s an attempt to preserve interests that bind us together and that affect everyone, so that it appears as a solution in cases where laws are unable to provide a solution in an appropriate period of time, and might lead to an explosion of violence.
There is no empirically-based definition of tolerance in Arab society except for those suggestions that are based on mere language or on emotional and existential approaches that are designed to glorify heritage, and exaggeratedly praise tolerance as a charitable act that involves voluntarily forgiveness instead of vengeance or aggression. Here, tolerance resembles a legalistic, freakish term that is based on the decision by a victorious party to be magnanimous toward the vanquished.
We should question the concept of tolerance toward others in the current era, in a clear and non-deceptive fashion. We are now witnessing this non-interest based mobilization toward the dichotomy of tolerance versus revenge. We can ask: What has a modern Sunni done to a modern Shiite, and vice versa. Or, what has a Muslim done to a Christian, and vice versa, to make us resort to tolerance and/or forgiveness? Or, what have the Spaniards done so that we forgive them (or not) for reclaiming their country after the period of «Arab conquest»? How can we forgive others for things that they haven’t done and make them feel indebted to us for our forgiveness, only to discover that this tolerance that we claim exists is complete form in «our culture» is only a vile delusion that lacks any meaning?
It is a lie that reflects a deficiency in knowledge or understanding. Based on the evidence, we do not forgive and are not forgiven because, in fact, there are no logical or rational topics where we can apply the act of forgiveness. Culturally, as one example, we haven’t forgiven the Spaniards for taking back their country. We haven’t forgiven the Crusaders even though we defeated them and expelled them from our land. The people of a single sect haven’t forgiven each other for a given dispute, not to speak of the situation between different sects and religions. So how can we talk about and brag about a «culture» of forgiveness? The mere existence of difference is sufficient for holding others accountable whether we forgive them, punish them and take revenge or exterminate them.
Forgiveness takes place only when there is total legal equality between two parties, and this is radically lacking in our non-worldly, inherited culture. Equality is impossible; this is due either to our legislation or the subversion of existing constitutions and laws, and at the least this is evident in practice.
If there is no equality, there can be no forgiveness. Equality is impossible as proven by reality and the experiences of sects, tribes and religions, and also dictatorship. Thus, the only solution lies in adopting the Human Rights Charter in constitutions and laws (without accommodation, contradiction or equivocation). If this takes place, we’ll be able to view tolerance as a social value based on legal achievements in an attempt to transition to a modern society, instead of entering the vicious circle of empty theoretical wrangling as we advocate the «virtue» of forgiveness.
This virtue can’t be highlighted as a legal concept that regulates a society guaranteeing equality. The huge amount of interpretation and accommodation that is used to prove the existence of the virtue of tolerance in our heritage lies outside the modern value of tolerance. These attempts have helped bring about the killing that we are experiencing today, as we labor under the delusion of «authentic,» inherited values, and the true meaning of tolerance in our history.
Based on the evidence, there is no tolerance in our culture, whether as a virtue or as a human value derived from the worth of the individual. Moreover, we also lack the clear and openly expressed legal system that others have arrived at; this accompanies the establishment of a society, which in turn should produce a state.
What we are seeing and experiencing is stubbornness and an insistence on entering a bloody dark age, based on the notion that others are different from us, and should not be imitated; their human experience shouldn’t be imitated. Perhaps this is the type of tolerance that we understand.
Forgiveness takes place only when there is total legal equality between two parties, and this is radically lacking in our non-worldly, inherited culture. Equality is impossible; this is due either to our legislation or the subversion of existing constitutions and laws, and at the least this is evident in practice