Intolerance: Individuals or institutions?

You know something in a society isn’t quite right when professors at an institution ask the government for individual guards and around-the-clock protection. While this demand, recently made by many instructors at Karachi University, is impractical and unlikely to be acted upon, it is not hard to understand why they feel vulnerable. The death of one of the university’s deans is a stark reminder of the difficult and insecure times that we all live in. The institutions of higher education, that are supposedly the bastions of freedom of expression and thought, have somehow become the centres of intolerance. While the death of Prof Auj is extremely tragic and needs to be condemned in the strongest possible way, neither Karachi University, nor this particular incident is unique. The growing levels of harassment and threats, especially against women students and scholars at our institutions is very alarming.

All over the world, institutions of higher education are known to foster culture, harmony and tolerance. That said, some difference of opinion is bound to happen and from time to time, clashes between students, while unfortunate, do occur. However, the extent of intolerance and vile behaviour, against professors and sometimes instigated by professors is abhorrent. Why are our institutions, particularly public institutions that are there to serve the masses, reaching this level of intolerance? There are two possibilities, both of which are worth exploring.

First, it is possible that somehow the institutions of higher education are cultivating intolerance. Through our curriculum and our teachers, instead of opening up our horizons, we are shutting down any dissenting opinions and ideas. This means that students who otherwise are not intolerant, become intolerant after they reach colleges and universities and are negatively influenced by the university environment. While extremely unfortunate, this is not a problem that cannot be solved. Administrators of institutions need to get tough on such behaviour and reach a balance between freedom of expression and cultivation of intolerance based on gender, ethnicity, personal views and sect.

The second possibility is that there is nothing fundamentally problematic in our higher education institutions or the curriculum there, but the problem lies within us. By the time the students reach universities and colleges, they have been brainwashed to accept nothing but their own myopic world view and have no patience or willingness to accept any alternative view point. Worse, they are not even willing to accept that others may have that view, or the fact that people with a different view have a right to live and go about their lives. This points to a systematic problem in both the society and our curriculum from an early stage, something that many people are quite concerned about. While more challenging, even this is not a problem that cannot be addressed. It may be too much to ask our governments and politicians, but that is exactly what they ought to be doing. They need to foster national discourse on tolerance and have a national commission to look into the matters. University administration, civic society, religious leaders, members of the ministries and law enforcement officers, all need to be involved. We may or may not trust one or many of these groups, but the reality is that they do play a role and do have a major role to play in the future. If we are not tolerant of their view point, how do we expect to create a more tolerant society?

In reality, I think it is not just intolerant institutions or intolerant people, it is actually both. I think we are systematically hard-wired to not accept alternative views and our institutions further strengthen that. This means that we have a lot of work to do and the road ahead is quite challenging: but what options do we have? Giving up is simply not an option. How long can we accept to live in a place where the intellectuals, thought leaders and brains of the society are worried that they would lose their lives should they speak?

The only thing we need to be intolerant towards is intolerance itself.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 25^th, 2014.

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