Tolerance and Human Rights

According to the Oxford Learner's Dictionary, tolerance (of/for somebody/something) [is] the quality of being willing to accept or tolerate somebody/something, especially opinions or behaviour that you may not agree with, or people who are not like you.

For its part, the Merriam-Webster dictionary, defines tolerance as [2a] : sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one's own.

Finally, in the Macmillan Dictionary we find the following definition of tolerance: the attitude of someone who is willing to accept someone else’s beliefs, way of life etc without criticizing them even if they disagree with them.

As you can see, what all these definitions have in common is the notion of accepting the differences in others and respecting their right to think differently. There will always be someone with different ideas, beliefs, and lifestyles, and nobody has the right to try to force their opinions on the rest. Our ideas are just our ideas, and people have a right to differ. Tolerance is the base for the document known as UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS (UDHR). The UDHR sought to stablish a minimum set of rules for pacific coexistence between peoples and countries, and to set out the limits to the power of governments, organizations and groups defined by political or religious ideas.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. The world had just seen the end of the Second World War (WW2), the worst global conflict in history, and the atrocities committed by the nazi and fascist regimes in the years prior to the war. The world vowed not to allow such things to happen again.

Today, after more than 70 after the UDHR was adopted, all of us who believe in Freedom, Respect, Tolerance, and Justice have an obligation to learn and defend Human Rights.

Amnesty International UK has published a summary of the UDHR so that anyone can understand it:

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

1. We are all born free and equal. We all have our own thoughts and ideas. We should all be treated in the same way.

2. These rights belong to everybody, whatever our differences.

3. We all have the right to life, and to live in freedom and safety.

4. Nobody has any right to make us a slave. We cannot make anyone else our slave.

5. Nobody has any right to hurt or torture us or treat us cruelly.

6. Everyone has the right to be protected by the law.

7. The law is the same for everyone. It must treat us all fairly.

8. We can all ask for the law to help us when we are not treated fairly.

9. Nobody has the right to put us in prison without a good reason, to keep us there or to send us away from our country.

10. If we are put on trial, this should be in public. The people who try us should not let anyone tell them what to do.

11. Nobody should be blamed for doing something until it has been proved. When people say we did a bad thing we have the right to show it is not true.

12. Nobody should try to harm our good name. Nobody has the right to come into our home, open our letters, or bother us, or our family, without a good reason.

13. We all have the right to go where we want to in our own country and to travel abroad as we wish.

14. If we are frightened of being badly treated in our own country, we all have the right to run away to another country to be safe.

15. We all have the right to belong to a country.

16. Every grown up has the right to marry and have a family if they want to. Men and women have the same rights when they are married, and when they are separated.

17. Everyone has the right to own things or share them. Nobody should take our things from us without a good reason.

18. We all have the right to believe in what we want to believe, to have a religion, or to change it if we wish.

19. We all have the right to make up our own minds, to think what we like, to say what we think, and to share our ideas with other people.

20. We all have the right to meet our friends and to work together in peace to defend our rights. Nobody can make us join a group if we don’t want to.

21. We all have the right to take part in the government of our country. Every grown up should be allowed to vote to choose their own leaders.

22. We all have the right to a home, enough money to live on and medical help if we are ill. Music, art, craft and sport are for everyone to enjoy.

23. Every grown up has the right to a job, to a fair wage 

for their work, and to join a trade union.

24. We all have the right to rest from work and to relax.

25. We all have the right to enough food, clothing, housing and health care. Mothers and children and people who are old, unemployed or disabled have the right to be cared for.

26. We all have the right to education, and to finish primary school, which should be free. We should be able to learn a career, or to make use of all our skills.

27. We all have the right to our own way of life, and to enjoy the good things that science and learning bring.

28. There must be proper order so we can all enjoy rights and freedoms in our own country and all over the world.

29. We have a duty to other people, and we should protect their rights and freedoms.

30. Nobody can take away these rights and freedoms from us.

Eleanor Roosevelt  reading the poster with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English.

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