Tolerance

“No Tolerance” by Icky Pic,
Creative Commons “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike” licence at Flickr..

“Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one’s own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.”
– John F. Kennedy

“It is the duty of every cultured man or woman to read sympathetically the scriptures of the world. If we are to respect others’ religions as we would have them respect our own, a friendly study of the world’s religions is a sacred duty.”
– Mohandas K. Ghandi

“A Poem for Space: Human Beings”

(for the company of the truthful and beautiful Red Red Shoes by Charles Way, staged by the Unicorn Theatre for Children)

look at your hands
your beautiful useful hands
you’re not an ape
you’re not a parrot
you’re not a slow loris
or a smart missile
you’re human

not british
not american
not israeli
not palestinian
you’re human

not catholic
not protestant
not muslim
not hindu
you’re human

we all start human
we end up human
human first
human last
we’re human
or we’re nothing

nothing but bombs
and poison gas
nothing but guns
and torturers
nothing but slaves
of Greed and War
if we’re not human

look at your body
with its amazing systems
of nerve-wires and blood canals
think about your mind
which can think about itself
and the whole universe

look at your face
which can freeze into horror
or melt into love
look at all that life
all that beauty
you’re human
they are human
we are human
let’s try to be human

dance!

***

“Human Beings” by
Adrian Mitchell, from “The Shadow Knows: Poems 2000-2004” (Tarset: Bloodaxe, 2004).

(Click me! I am a song!)

“Tolerance”
by Dalia Faitelson