Tolerance is respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world's cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human...
The word appreciation i find a liitle difficult: too mutch Dutch polder model. Accept that we have different standards and that these standards shift also: when I was young (1959?) we lived in a workmen area of the city of EIndhoven (NL): A decent Catholic housewife would never leave her house without covering her head, and visiting a church with uncovered shoulders was almost a sin, like it still is in Rome as you as tourist will discover. How short of memory are we in Western Europe, like the new discussion in England on this topic.
So tolerance and respect yes, but it must not become boring: I respect Nicole, I accept her and I appreciate her: she also colors the Moodle community in her way, thank god we are not all grey mice.. (by the way, I am missing the colorful remarks of JP)
.. but that means also that in our trusted Moodle community, it is allowed to tease her and show her the mirror of paradox in her believes and truth... and she is clever and proud enough to play that game, play the devil's advocate and turn that mirror back to me or Joseph or..
..on some point in such discussion we step respectful back, sometimes with wise words, like Joseph just did, or we even help the other with (sorry, Belgium) counter arguments to sharpen our own thoughts and believes in this "of topic social forum discussion" and help eachother to... grow?
I prefer that kind of "teasing respect" and I realise that in a multiculture community like Moodle, it is not always that clear what we are saying in jokes , light sarcasm , and oneliners . (EMOTICONS can help)
..and after a funny fight like this in Moodle in the social forum, again started by naughty Art, we return to our real schools and other jobs and behave again as good citizins of this colorful world, with a smile, I hope.
The world is not just a clean UNESCO declaration of tolerance, it is slightly more complicated, to stay close to family life:
A friend of my daughters has an Iranian background, so he can make the joke that his bikes is stolen, but that it is not a problem for him, the bike stays in the family. I don't like it when my daughters join him in these black jokes, all three of them declared me childish.
And when we visit Italy and walk on a court in Rome, he is the only one who has to open his backpack.
And when we are back in Holland and he tries to find a student job, several shops do not accept him (but several days later his classmates have the job)
At the end he found a job in an ..Italian restaurant, because he looks so nicely meditarian. Welcome in the real world of Christian Enschede Holland.
My eldest daughter is now in England to study at King's College at the War studies department. She was in Damascus last summer to study arab launguage, and told us proud how she regained the repect of the men in that country when she could shout in clear Arab these words: ******** when they used their hands.
So Frances, nice to have such high standards in a forum, a kind of 'cordon sanitaire?' but also welcome in the not so nice real world..
By the way Joseph: our real enemy was the king of Spain: if he didn't fight with so little respect (according the Dutch history books) against our parents, calling them GEUZEN, they never would be united against their common enemy and they never would have founded the United States of The Netherlands (The seven Provences). Do you see the parallel with king Bush?