“What we need, is not passive but rather strong and active tolerance – living interest, empathy, and the recognition of difference”, the evangelical bishop Michael Bünker said on Friday at the European Tolerance Talks 2015 in Fresach. With his statement Bünker lead the guests into a panel discussion entitled “modernity, human rights and Islam”, http://fresach.org. Tolerance as privilege of the powerful “What we are currently experiencing is a true inflation of the definition of culture”, Sama Maani explains at the beginning of the discussion. The Austrian author with Iranian roots criticises that culture and nature are being increasingly put on a level with each other. Sigmund Freud on the other hand had made a clear distinction between those two terms, inasmuch that he spoke of culture as something that “suppresses” the nature of man. The philosopher Pravu Mazumdar followed up on Maani’s elaborations and spoke of culture as something that is “being fabricated by us”. “To invent culture is important, but we must not forget, that we have invented it”, says Mazumdar. The concept of culture is on everyone’s lips – “dominant culture”, “foreign culture”, “the battle of cultures” – but this is exactly why it has to be analysed in detail and scrutinised just like tolerance, says Muzumdar. Social scientist Claudia Brunner painted a very sceptical and critical picture of the concept of tolerance. She spoke of balances of power that hide behind tolerance and asked who speaks when and how and to whom about tolerance. “Tolerance only surfaces, if conflicts emerge. And those in turn are asymmetric” criticises Brunner. Politics would be increasingly culturalised instead of questioning the socioeconomic inequalities. Responsibility in dealing with religion While Brunner criticised the culturalisation of politics, Bünker watches the increasing “religionising” of societal conflicts with concern. “We don’t need an increase in religion, but more responsibility in dealing with it”, the bishop explained. Above all the latest events in Syria and Iraq pose serious questions in view of tolerance and religiously motivated violence. Political solutions for political problem Middle East expert Karin Kneissl outlined in her statement the historical development of the political Islam and sees the reason for the increasing islamisation in Arabia in the local failure of all political ideas of the last 50 years. She warns not to pigeonhole the world into believers and unbelievers and recommends not to get entangled into inter-religious dialogues, but to look for political solutions for political problems. Danica Pur, professor at the Bled School of Management, explained how that could be achieved. By means of concrete examples for creative educational methods in former areas of civil war on the Balkans, she illustrates what politics and society might learn of modern management methods. Photos from the event can be downloaded from: https://fotodienst.pressetext.com/album/3463
