Magnified Thoughts

2 | Inclusion & Tolerance

"Inclusion is a right, not a priviledge for select few."

- Judge Geary 

There are many questions in the world left unanswered. For example, "Are we the only species in the universe?". One such question that many pondered about is whether it is possible to have a utopian idea to have a society that is tolerant and inclusive. The meaning of an inclusive and tolerant society is having a community that is welcoming to everyone and receptive to different behaviors, opinions, and new ideas. Although there is a minority of people being accepting towards others, I believe that it is possible to create an inclusive and tolerant society.

Firstly, more people around the world are more receptive towards others. Stereotypes, as defined by the Oxford dictionary, is a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or an idea of a particular type of person or thing. One such example can be seen through the stereotype of men being the breadwinners of their own family while the women stay at home to do housework and take care of the family when the men are out. This is usually due to the fact that women are housemakers as they do not require a high education. However, this is no longer like the past whereby the older generation has a fixed mindset on man being the breadwinner. There are more women around the world becoming breadwinners of their families because more young girls around the world are given an opportunity to study. In Singapore's context, we have the STEM programme. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The STEM programme encourages young girls to study and work in the field of the STEM as the majority of the people in STEM fields are males. Thus, more people around the world are accepting the fact about females working and receiving education and the society are more receptive towards others now. With the society being more receptive towards women becoming a strong and independent gender with capabilities of her own, it shows that our society is inclusive.

Secondly, more organizations or movements and actions are taken towards educating the general public about being receptive to others. Although there are some people who are ­unsupportive of the idea of having an inclusive and tolerant society, there are many movements and organizations out there supporting the idea of having an inclusive and tolerant society. In Singapore, there is the Yellow Ribbon movement which generates greater awareness for the need of accepting ex-convicts into our society by giving them a second chance. In addition, during the Sydney hostage crisis in 2014, the trending hashtag, "I will ride with you" where Australians offered to travel with the Muslims so that they would be safe and would not be discriminated during the aftermath of the horrible event. The society was inclusive and tolerant towards the event and helped each other during the crisis.

Some people claim that our society is too realistic to be receptive towards others. However, not everyone in our society is intolerant towards others. Of course, the society we are currently living is realistic and advanced but this does not mean that we are extremely realistic that no one is tolerant and inclusive of others, There are people around the world making an effort to accept and include others into society. Recently, the ISIS refugees were taking refuge at Europeans countries to escape from the chaos and terror in Syria. Although not every European country welcomed them yet restricted them from entering, there were at least a few countries who opened up their arms to help the ISIS refugees. From the above example, we are able to see that our world is actually inclusive.

In conclusion, it is possible for everyone to have a society where we are receptive and tolerant to one another by having more people around the world to accept others, join organizations and movements to support them and realize that it is actually possible to create that utopia that many say is impossible. An inclusive and tolerant is like one walking into someone's warmth with open arms and walking into the library where each of every fringe and part of society is being accepted.