INTERNATIONAL DAY OF HUMAN FRATERNITY
Tolerance and love is an important concept that helps people to live together peacefully. To be tolerant means that you accept other people’s opinions and preferences, even when they live in a way that you don’t agree with. Tolerance also means that you don’t put your opinions above those of others, even when you are sure that you are right. Tolerant people show strength in that they can deal with different opinions and perspectives. The world is like a ship travelling through a storm, and we are all in the same boat. We need helmsmen with stable and supportive energy to lead global citizens to work together with one heart and move in the right direction while awakening people’s conscience to make decisions and take actions with love and conscience, overcome the daunting challenges, move towards peace, and usher in a brighter future for future generations. Humans became the dominant species of the world because of their social organization, built out of tolerance. If our early ancestors were intolerant, they would have killed each other rather than building civilizations. It is only by being tolerant that we can live harmoniously with others, can achieve our dreams, and fulfill our aspirations. Everyone should thus make being tolerant their way of life.
The General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed the day on 21st December 2020 through the resolution 75/200 to promote unity and tolerance of different beliefs and races and cultures among people. People celebrated the day for the very first time on 4 February 2021 as “International Day of Human Fraternity”. The day enhances global citizens’ well-being and inspires their common aspirations to create a culture of peace and mobilize the international community to promote peace, tolerance, acceptance, understanding, and solidarity. The International Day of Human Fraternity reaffirms the objectives and principles enshrined in the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in particular the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, and urges global citizens to build a fraternal world. Since ancient times, the promotion and practice of love and kindness has been the manifestation of the spirit of fraternity. This spirit aids in the realization of sustainable development, serves as the guiding principle of fundamental education, and represents the worldview of a sustainable and peaceful future.
Tolerance and love can be simply stated as the ability to accept diversity and to live and let others live. A person having a high tolerance and love quotient would be able to practice a fair and objective behavior towards those whose opinions differ from his opinions. By being tolerant, we are respecting and learning from others, valuing differences, bridging cultural gaps, rejecting unfair stereotypes, discovering common ground, and creating new bonds. The relationship between love and tolerance in all societies is an important matter, and perhaps it is a basis for building society, and these relations have firm pillars that strike their roots in the depths in order to maintain the strength of social relations, and perhaps the most prominent and most important pillars in strengthening the bonds of brotherhood and friendship between individuals in societies. The love that emanates from the heart must be interpreted by the eyes, expressed by words, and expressed by actions and dealing with the other party. It must be clarified that love is not only for lovers, but is for all people. And every individual in this life must love in order to see life as purer, purer and higher, and this love will certainly lead to other moral values in social relations. The lover overlooks the mistakes of the beloved, ignores many of the pitfalls, tries to lay down justifications and excuses, and seeks an excuse for the mistakes he may have committed, and this is called tolerance.
Love and tolerance are related to each other just like the connection of the fetus with its mother, the connection of clouds with the sky, and the connection of fish with water. The seeds of tolerance cannot be planted, and its fruits sprout in the heart of a hateful person who hates the other party. Rather, tolerance must be linked to love, respect, friendliness, and noble feelings far from interests, far from provoking sedition, harm and harm to the other party, and here comes the role Ignoring in dealing, that is, not checking every mistake, as long as it can be forgotten and does not affect the essence of the relationship between human beings. Tolerance rises to higher ranks the more love increases, and love shines and increases in class the more it is adorned with tolerance.
Teaching children about love and tolerance is the best gift that we can give them. Children shouldn’t grow up with feelings of hate and suspicion. Children who grow up with hate and jealously of others turn into unhappy people. And children who are forced to believe certain opinions will develop into people who aren’t free or independent thinkers. If children experience love and tolerance, they will be able to grow up and lead a happy and peaceful life. In addition to humane care, human fraternity prioritizes defending freedom of thought and religion and opposing any form of discrimination or persecution against religion or belief. People’s right to freely choose their religion should be fully respected. Different religions and beliefs should appreciate and learn from one another, and religious leaders are encouraged to foster world peace through religious dialogue and the integration of diverse religions. This is an indispensable element of love and tolerance in a democratic society.
Tolerance and love is essential to live a healthy life. We live in a world which is rich blend of cultural traditions and this leads to the major differences among the people. Being an entity of this world, we are supposed to interact with people of differing cultures, ethnicities, nationalities, races and religions. Our circle of friends, schoolmates, college-mates, office colleagues and all people around us reflects the diversity around us. In short, success in today’s world depends on being able to appreciate others work and being tolerant to the differences that co-exist. Tolerance and love means the ability to respect other’s feelings and their opinions on a specific issue, despite having conflicting views of our own. A tolerant person listens to the opinions of others patiently and tries to understand their perspective. While at the same time, they put across their opinions or ideas with love and without any conflict. Tolerance thus means accepting everyone’s opinions without conflicting.
We need to awaken the innate conscience in world citizens to promote more effective communication between people and nations and thereby attain unity. When our actions are guided by conscience and wisdom, we will be able to solve the long-accumulated and emerging global problems. Because conscience is the highest code of conduct all human beings share, it transcends the differences in skin color, gender, language, or faith. Tolerance and love allows us to focus on a greater purpose and work for our collective well-being as a human race while striving for a peaceful and happy world for all. Barring occasional incidents of violence and hatred, Indian civilization has always celebrated plurality and promoted love & tolerance. This spirit has countered the destructive forces within India and created opportunities for Indians both within and outside our country. Thus, despite the diversity within Indian society in terms of religion, region, caste and language – our spirit love & tolerance has helped all of us to survive, sustain and flourish.
Come, let us sow seeds of Tolerance and love in the soil of tired hearts and water it with the love, and the light of kindness, forgiveness and sincerity, so that the sweetest fruits of kindness, purity, purity and sincerity sprout in it. No value is more important to the success than Tolerance. No emotion is so vital in its struggle for success, than is Love. Without either, we would have perished as a society long ago.
(M Ahmad is a regular writer for this newspaper and can be reached at [email protected])
