Given the increase in social tension and the political confrontation that the country is experiencing, it is urgent to put tolerance in the center of coexistence and conversations as a social, educational and political mandate given the risk that these differences become more acute and are manifested in the different ways of violence, classism, xenophobia and all possible ways of discriminationwarned Mónica Adriana Mendoza González, from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters (FFyL).
The specialist in peace education stressed that we are experiencing a clash between increasingly heterogeneous societies with diverse ways of thinking and with an excessive circulation of information on social networks always linked to immediacy and urgency, which makes it increasingly necessary to strengthen tolerance, non-discrimination and the fight against all forms of violence.
He added that, together with the diversity that is being debated and expressed in practically all public spaces, in the schools, homes, streets and political agendaopposing ideological positions are also coming together, because while on the one hand a whole range of freedoms, rights and prerogatives in terms of human rights is opening up, resistance movements are also emerging that refuse to move towards an increasingly egalitarian society.
“While we are opening a gap towards the conquest of more rights so that they become progressive and violation practices that undermine human rights are not replicated, to the same extent, resistance arises and there are increasingly aggressive and bloody responses. For example, in the struggle of women for a life free of violence, there is strong social resistance to not wanting to transform and not wanting to lose those privileges that patriarchal societies have built throughout history.”
He indicated that unfortunately it has not been possible to combat discrimination efficiently and it has not been possible to work on the equality as a fundamental element for the recognition of the other, of the other or of the other as people worthy of equal value, who converge in the ideological and social diversity; on the contrary, what continues to prevail is the construction of a single truth or thought, above many other thoughts.
Likewise, the university commented that the intolerance has caused many other forms of violence that were not as visible before, such as digital that has emerged in a vehement way, like the one that exists in social networks, especially in Twitterwhich has become a public arena where moral conscience has no place because things can be said and harm people in any way without answering to anyone for those acts.
He emphasized that verbal violence, the fury to insult and the facility to make fun of people from anonymity in networks, through fake profiles or characters, ends up showing us a reality that we do not want to accept and the need to work on tolerance and acceptance of diversity.
“We are not talking or living together, but now we are facing a confrontation between characters with profiles built to attack from anonymity. We are not facing people with conscience and freedom who issue a judgment and who take responsibility for their actions; anonymity has displaced the person as a being with moral responsibility.”
In this sense, the specialist considered that education for peace should be one of the possible routes to advance in the field of tolerance and respectas a platform and an ethical educational tool that works in the search for social justice, the fight against inequalities of all kinds.
He pointed out that as long as we do not recognize the ideological obstacles that prevent us from dialoguing with others as equals, from the horizontality, with the same value that all people have, we are hardly going to advance. We cannot talk about tolerance without talking about justice, equality, dialogue or recognition of the and the others.
Mendoza González stressed that in the construction of public policies, educational institutions are obliged to act more quickly in the analysis of social phenomena such as intolerance, classism and violence, which are advancing rapidly, exceeding all diagnoses. Books provide us with a lot of information, analysis, but we have to move to the communities where the problems are brewing and work with and for the people; this is essential in academia and education for peace, he concluded.
Reference-aristeguinoticias.com
