Seeking Tolerance Resources LO27301

From: Magic Circ Op Rep Ens (mcore@nyc.rr.com)
Date: 09/27/01


Replying to LO27298 --

> >I have been asked by more than one person if I have resources to
> >help with issues of Tolerance. It goes beyond the traditional
> >diversity discussion and is focused on religious tolerance.
> >
> >OD professionals and managers are directly faced with this NOW.

Rick, these are hard questions and they cut to the quick. Perhaps we
should do as Mohammad said and make a Jihad against our own
presuppositions and explore coldly and logically the issues.

 1. "No man is an Island" there is a run on gas masks and information
about germ and chemical warfare. While there is little that the
individual can do without community help we still propagate the myth that
we are an Island unto our selves and refuse to fund public health and
education decently, not to mention transportation and family connections.
All needed in the times of great National trauma.

 2. Most traditional peoples have a law of blood that says that a family
or clan is responsible for their individuals. If an individual causes a
death then the family, clan or nation owes a life to the offended party.
It doesn't matter whose life it is. That makes the possible offender care
more and the family, clan or nation deal with policing itself. They could
lose any member even a child or baby if the offending party is not dealt
with expeditiously. American law makes individuality possible with
individual guilt but that is not an alternative unless you have the police
to enforce it. That is why the International situation is so dangerous.
That is also why people look at members of the same faith as the
terrorists and ask them why their house dealt such a death blow to the
American house filled with the overflow of their own societies. Their own
societies would have blamed these poor immigrants for their failures if
they had stayed at home with their relatives. Instead they chose instead
to come here and succeed making their countries and their systems failures
in the process. That is the reverse of immigration, a cultural failure.
What was the largest group to die in the WTC? What do you think?
Programmers from India. If India had given them the jobs they would still
be alive. America cannot claim to have a serious art establishment when
American singers immigrate to Germany and call Germany heaven and America
hell. America is an artistic failure as far as their artistic work force
is concerned.

In your question about the student, it is not that the student was
involved but rather the opposite. He was probably not involved but should
he have been? Involved in creating an atmosphere where it couldn't happen
or in protecting his own by working visibly in the police or fire
departments or the military. Most religions have rules that allow them to
be Imperialistic in their conversion "conquests" of other groups. Is that
maturity? No matter what you call it, whether Evangelism or compassionate
love, to make the other person wrong for following their family and
culture -- to make the other person, not a person but an image in your own
mind rather than seeking out their own wisdom and learning from them is
the root of paternalism. Why is it alright for Mecca to be religiously
pure but not Jerusalem? There is already a put down, a paternalism, a
chauvinistic excuse for excess and aggression. If these people had music
then they would know when their leaders are acting.

 3. Tolerance is a balance that grows from respect and respect grows from
knowledge. I don't respect the people who came here and used their
religion to suppress my family, my people and my religion. To me they are
venal and devious, however when I know their rules then it changes me and
I am more able to accept them. But the art of negotiation and education
is slow and that is why healing is so slow. It will take many generations
before that will heal. We say the seventh generation. But it will never
heal if the children and descendants continue to use the same processes
that their ancestors did against my family and other families and Nations.
Comprehension is only the beginning. True knowledge is the end.
Knowledge changes both not just one. And Knowledge is information raised
to habit and intuition. Skillful or Masterful living is based in the
awareness of the great gifts that we have to share and will lose if we
make or persuade the other to give up his life and walk in our path as a
second rate version of ourselves rather than the genius of their own life
and traditions.

The beginning problem for Islam is the assumption that people who name
different manifestations of the One are committing Idolatry and worshiping
multiple Gods.
Christians make the same mistake. This is a case of ignorance, laziness
or both on their part. Their presupposition doesn't exist. The Gods
are not human but manifestations of the One made personal for the individual
to have as an ally and teacher. God speaks in the language of the person.
Jesus is the Ally of some or should I say many. Mohammad is another, Moses
is another, Mary is another. None of these are mine. Mine came to me in
my language and satisfied my needs. I am not of the Desert or the City.
I am not of a land of need that built its book around that environment. I
am from a land of plenty and to use one in the place of the other is a
Trusel.

To At, I only have one thing to say about Trusels. It is what it says. A
Trusel is a false truth that sounds like it is an obvious truth and that
most people believe is common sense but that doesn't work and never will.
It has an SIV or Structural Incompetency Virus eating away at their brain
and their belief keeps them from seeing their failure or their PIP Poor
Intellectual Productivity.

Remember if you treat yourself poorly or abuse your gifts then treating the
other person as you would wish to be treated doesn't work.

Ray Evans Harrell
NYCity
mcore@nyc.rr.com

-- 

"Magic Circ Op Rep Ens" <mcore@nyc.rr.com>

Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>


"Learning-org" and the format of our message identifiers (LO1234, etc.) are trademarks of Richard Karash.