Tolerance of Diversity
How unfortunate that people cling to their country’s cultural heritage in spite of its failure to provide an environment for human dignity, except for a privileged few. And how clever of the privileged few to promise reforms with great displays of compassion and concern while using their power over the people’s faith and freedom to undermine, and if necessary quell, attempts to break free of the cultural heritage.
Brimming with sensitivity and good intentions, those who argue for tolerance of diversity in support of a country’s cultural heritage help sustain it and sentence generations more to the human indignity that its characteristics of illiteracy, poverty, political corruption, and tyranny ensure.
Those who bridle sensitivity and good intentions with reason and historical evidence stand their ground, and no matter how maligned, say to all the world, “There is nothing sensitive or good about tolerance of diversity when it comes at the expense of human dignity, and there is nothing insensitive or bad about intolerance of diversity in the defense of human dignity.”
Copyright ©2000 Frank Zahn. Published in The Criterion, Volume 6 Issue IV August 2015 - http://www.thecriterion.com/V6/n4/Frank.pdf;
Perceptions: Prose and Other Poetry, Grove 49 eBooks (Kindle Edition) 2016.