Daubed on the Berlin Wall - Four Picasso-esque heads
Two are happy smiling faces, looking at each other
Two faces grumpily look the other way.
The title of this Mary Mackey artistry -
(First painted in nineteen-ninety - and then again in oh-nine (2009))
On an historic relic of division
Carl Popper wrote that unless we’re intolerant of intolerance, tolerance will lose.
But what exactly is Tolerance?
My understanding is that it's the willingness to accept things that we do not like or agree with.
Tolerance is a tool in the hands of the people with power.
It’s they who decide where and when to apply it.
And when they do they expect gratitude and adulation in return.
In other words, it’s a master-servant thing.
The ‘tolerated’ must always “know their place”
And that that tolerance is not irrevocable.
There can be no respect in toleration for when respect enters the room,
Toleration must change and become acceptance.
Many marginal minorities have sought tolerance,
Never dreaming that the overlords might be capable of more.
Racism, bigotry and prejudice are not halted by tolerance,
They merely go into hiding - but they’re never really out of sight
Even though they think they are.
Tolerance is but a first faltering step in the right direction - towards true unity.
It cannot remain as merely toleration but must grow and develop in acceptance, even love.
In the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
Jewish people were compelled to pay to be tolerated -
With the infamous Tolerance Tax
And even though that specific tax didn’t last forever,
There’s always been a price to pay for the oppressed.
Tolerance in Britain, was the 1967 Sexual Offences Act
That removed anti-sodomy laws
But that acquiescence came with many caveats,
Such that in 1988, Margaret Thatcher
Brought in Section 28
Racism, Homophobia, Transphobia, Islamophobia, Xenophobia -
Let’s just call it hate - now demands to be accepted.
A luta continua - The Struggle Continues
We must be extremely intolerant of hate
And combat it with LOVE.
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