Intolerance Leads To Conflicts
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
CONFLICT: Fight, battle, and war.
WAR: Declared armed fighting between states or nations.
VALUE: To consider as important, worthy.
Intolerance is not a new concept. For thousands of years, intolerance, racism, and stereotyping have caused hatred, violence and wars. An unwillingness to accept diversity has resulted in the loss of countless lives of men, women and children. Read you history books, newspapers, and watch the world news. You will clearly see the conflicts that were brought about because of intolerance. Here are some examples of the effects of intolerance throughout our history.
The Holocaust
The Holocaust of World War II represents a time period of intense hatred, prejudice and discrimination that resulted in the deaths of approximately nine (9) million men, women, and children. Six (6) million of the people exterminated were Jews. The other three (3) million consisted of gypsies, blacks, handicapped, or mentally retarded. Nine (9) million people died because of intolerance. They died because their ethnicity, physical characteristics, religious preferences and mental capabilities collided with Hitler’s racist ideologies.
The Civil Rights Movement
One hundred years after the Civil War, blacks were still struggling to be accepted as equals in American society. Their world consisted of discrimination, segregation and racial inequality. The Civil Rights Movement was a time in history when black Americans counteracted laws of segregation and discrimination with nonviolent demonstrations, boycotts, and marches. In a short period of time, over the 1950′s and 60′s, the Civil Rights Movement put an end to racial discrimination by the law.
September 11th, 2001
This has been called the most tragic day in American history. It was the day that terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger planes and flew them into the World Trade Center Twin Towers and the Pentagon. The fourth plane crashed eighty miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Thousands of lives were destroyed that day. Those who died in the attack left behind loved ones who had to deal with the loss of parents, husbands, wives and children. Racially singling out those who are Arab or Muslim and blaming them for this tragedy is yet one more example of the danger of stereotyping and intolerance. Blaming an entire nation or religion for the actions of a few will not bring back those who died on September 11th.
Again, these represent only a small portion of the countless lives that have been wasted through hatred and ignorance.
Source: The Peaceful Solution Character Education Program