From: jawad@ecst.csuchico.edu (Jawad Ali)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan,soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.bangladesh
Subject: Re: Protest Letter (Was Ayodhya: symptom, not malady)
Date: 19 Dec 92 11:46:50 GMT
Organization: California State University, Chico
NNTP-Posting-Host: cscihp.ecst.csuchico.edu

This is in continuation of Ali Minai and Saad Shafqat's valuable 
discussion on the lessons of Ayodhya.

Ali says:
>Some things we must do are: 1) To create within our countries a
>society that not only tolerates but encourages the circulation of different
>ideas, however inimical they might be to entrenched orthodoxies;

This will help a lot in steering us away from more such tragedies.  Let
me, however, change the course of this discussion a little bit.
Last month I tried
to keep a slow-brewing, yet on going conversation with a number of 
people on scp on the subject of tolerance.  The principle of Ali's 
statement above is accepted by most, the problem arises in how we
see ourselves implimenting it.

With only limited success, I tried to point out the inconsistencies
of all these posts that attempted to make Ali's point above, only
to come back and suppress someone else's ideas.  "The tolerance
paradox", as I tried to label it, springs up in simplistic sentences
that, in effect, say "everyone should be allowed to speak, so shut up!".
Often we try to enforce some sort of vague notion of tolerance and 
free speech on others, usualy in the name of moderinity, yet give
our selves relatively free reign in condemning and sensoring others

There continue to be so many instances that after a while I ran
out of energy to keep pointing them out.  I will give just one 
example and then hope that Yasmeen will forgive me.  She spoke
up in defence of Mansoor's "jokes" on the grounds of free speech
and humor.  It did not matter to her that she herself had recently
denounced someone else's off-color "humor".  She later explained that
she uses humor, smilies, and not hurting other's feelings, as criterion
for distinguishing between the two.  I understand that, although I 
doubt that any number of smilies on the Ghulam Ahmed post would have
spared the feelings of all Ahmadies.

Here is my point: (to protect myself from the "so what's your point?" flame :)
Let us recongnize that free speech and tolerance are never absolute
(or only when they apply to others).  It would, then, be far more 
meaningful for us to have a candid discussion on what criterion we are
willing to use when we draw these lines, rather than to deny their existence.
The only other option is to put arbitrary constraints on other people's
expression.

So, back to Ali's post.  He said:
>Some things we must do are: 1) To create within our countries a
>society that not only tolerates but encourages the circulation of different
>ideas, however inimical they might be to entrenched orthodoxies;

but cotinued...

>5) To set integration rather than
>segragation and separation as the goal, undoing the evil wrought by separate
>electorates, separate laws and other divisive factors. 

Do you see the problem here?  At some stage we will inevitably stop being
tolerant and start being intolerant.  If all ideas are to be welcome, then
why not the idea of seperate laws.  If the idea is to promote tolerance
then why not tolerance of each other's laws?  At what stage do we cross
the line between pluralism and some sort of forced homogenization?  What
else are we willing to see as divisive?  Seperate laws and seperate electorates
are no more inherently divisive than are seperate languages, seperate
looks, or seperate places of worship.  What sort of pluralism are we
talking about if we cannot accept these differences?

BTW, I see no problem with pursuing such apparently contradictory
goals.  It is just far more interesting and useful for me to learn
when and why someone will make exceptions to free speech and tolerance
etc., than it is for to know that that person belives in free speech
and tolerance.

Just some thoughts.

With peace,

j n a
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan