Simon Mann
Washington Correspondent
The Age

RE:
Religious intolerance spreads, Sydney Morning
Herald, 11/9/10

Your article identified many adverse consequences of real or perceived
religious intolerance directed against Islam in the US.

However I should like to submit for your consideration that unquestioning
religious tolerance can potentially be even worse than intolerance – because
a community’s culture (including elements embodied in religions) can have
major implication for their welfare..

In particular, it seems very likely that Muslim communities suffer huge
disadvantages as a result of cultural factors that are associated with, but
perhaps not actually part of, the religion of Islam. This point was
developed further in

Discouraging Pointless Extremism (September 2002). The latter suggested that
‘oppressive’ features of the broader world views that scholars have
elaborated around Islam (features that Islamist extremists seemed to want to
further emphasise) were the probable primary cause of the economic and
political dysfunctions that have plagued Muslim dominated communities in
recent centuries.

While tolerance of individuals is to be applauded, unquestioning tolerance
of dysfunctional cultural assumptions may be very damaging to affected
individuals. Other contexts in which blinkered ‘tolerance’ seems likely to
contribute to social, political and economic problems, that a less
uncritical approach might reduce, are suggested in
Moving
Australia Beyond Traditional Multiculturalism (August 2010).

Regards

John Craig

Centre for Policy and Development Systems
CPDS supports leaders developing enterprise, economic, community and
governance systems
Visit CPDS website – which addresses
local and global issues from the perspective of Queensland, an Australian
state