Tolerance is Ignorance

by Jo Simon from jo-zone.net / Germany

The Problem of the German nazi-past and our dealing with integration and immigration

Tolerance is ignorance.
At least in the way practiced for many years now in Germany.

Intro:
Germany is not very used to murder and shootings. It of course happens that people get killed, but it has never happened before, what had happened in Berlin last year.
A turkish brother shoots his own turkish sister - Because she wanted to live like millions of other German young girls. Have a boyfriend, go out etc…

Her brothers wanted to see her dead because - as they say – she was a shame for the family. They killed her to recover the so called ‘famliy honor’ back. And, this is not the end – the family is now asking to adopt the little girl of the killed sister.

How Germans deal with foreigners
For me it is quite hard to understand that this happens in the middle of our German society.
Wait – did I write in the middle?
Well I thought some years ago, that we in Germany are doing pretty good in integrating and tolerating foreign people.
I have always had Turkish friends and I have been as well to a Jewish synagogue as to a Muslim mosque to understand what is happening inside.
I have always felt pretty good being so open minded and able to say:
“I know what happened in Germany during the 3rd Reich under Adolf Hitler, but it will never happen again. We Germans tolerate other people no matter what race and religion!”
And most of the Germans do so.
We hold up the value of tolerance and exceptance. These values have become very important to us.

So - what´s the problem, now?
In fact immigrants are very often not part of our society, and they are by no means in the middle of it. Large parts are somewhere joined together in subcultures where nobody really knows what happens.

Nobody dares asking
And nobody of us Germans dares asking: “Hey guys what are you doing there, can we somehow get in touch with you, share experiences really get to know each other?”
Why not? - Because of misunderstood tolerance:
The kind of false tolerance you use to excuse you. It is what you do when you say: “Everybody should become happy however he likes, as long as they do not disturb me doing what I am doing.“

But, what that means in the end of the day is, that you are n o t tolerant – you are i g n o r a n t : Because you just don not care about other peoples opinions, dreams, proposals, problems.

Ignorance strikes back
And this Ignorance strikes back. What we have missed is now jumping into our face: Ignorance leads to disintegration. Disintegration leads to behaviour we can not accept in our central european society.

So – what should we do?
First I want to warn. There is a threat that now many people say: “Hey we have been so nice and tolerant to all of you Turks and so on and now you seem to be not capable of dealing with that. We have to change 180° and be strict and directive with you!”
That would be wrong.
It would be at the favor of the German right wing – parties and neo-nazi people. It would really damage everything we have achieved regarding the German open mindedness.

What our society needs to develop is a positive way of interfering. We need to learn to criticize a foreigner or people from other cultures in a honest way.
As well as we say to any other German guy: “I feel, this is not O.K. what you are doing”, it should be normal to do the same with everybody else. And it does not mean that you are a racist by doing so.

Germans are afraid of being concidered racist
Important: Germans have a strong fear, that criticism towards foreign peoples behaviour could be interpreted as racist.
I think that criticism in fact it only shows that you care for the one you criticize. You show him that you think he can deal with that and that he can change. No matter what race or religion.
Don´t keep people small, tell them what you think (and ask what their opinion is as well!). There are too few conversations like that.

Be courageous
So – as many writers in this blog say: To change things you need to be courageous. Same here.
My last word in my first article on 100 Bloggers:
Be courageous. Talk to the people you think are acting wrong. Make clear what you think. Provide orientation. And be strong enough to listen to their opnion as well.
Do not misunderstand tolerance as ignorance.