Pluralistic society: Equal access to resources, tolerance stressed

Austrian envoy says tolerance imperative for peaceful co-existence

Speakers at a workshop called for equal access to resources and an end to all forms of discrimination.

Tolerance and diversity indicate being willing to accept beliefs different than ours, and recognising that each individual is unique and possesses specific characteristics, said the Austrian Ambassador to Pakistan Brigitta Blaha.

She was speaking at the Pakistan Centre of Excellence (Pace)’s sixth round of collaborative workshops, as part of a four-day residential training programme on Monday.

Blaha said that equality demanded equal access to resources and the absolute absence of discrimination.

She said that those were the fundamental values enshrined in the Austrian constitution that every citizen was equal before the law.

The envoy said that tolerance demanded acceptance of a behaviour, belief, idea or opinion different from your own.

“Pluralism is a concept where people of different social classes, religion, and race are together in society but continue to have different traditions and interests, and still live peacefully,” she said.

Blaha added that acceptance of diversity would mean recognition that each individual was unique and possessed specific characteristics.

“Equality has many aspects; social equality indicates that all people in the society have the same status in certain respects such as civil rights, freedom of speech, property rights, and equal access to goods and services,” she added.

“It implies the absence of discrimination based on inalienable parts of an individual’s identity and qualities that one cannot change such as gender, race, age, origin, cast or class, income, language, religion, conviction, health or disabilities,” said the ambassador.

The Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) Executive-Director, Imtiaz Gul, said that the idea of the Pace’s counter-radicalisation initiative was to reach out to potential opinion multipliers and prompt them to think critically through a discourse anchored in fundamental global values such as acceptance of diversity, the rule of law and equal citizenry.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 9^th, 2016.