ISLAMABAD:Educational institutions can play a vital role in sensitizing youth regarding the importance of social and religious tolerance to achieve the purpose of building sustainable and resilient communities.
This was stated by the prominent clinical Psychologist, Shamsher Hayat while talking to APP in connection with the International tolerance Day falling on Wednesday.
He observed that the smartphone addiction, unmonitored excess to the social media content, violent games and isolation are the factors which cause intolerance among the youth which needs to be addressed on priority basis.
Shamsher Hayat said that in recent years many social media apps and games played an important role in promoting intolerance among youth.
The violent scenes of the content badly impact the minds which ultimately results in aggressive behaviors towards others.
He said that the shared responsibilities and support system of the joint family system was so helpful to address many psychological issues and also enable to tolerate the difference of opinion.
He said that on average a human brain has the capacity of producing billions of thoughts processes per second of which only around 2000 are brought into awareness.
“This means that humans have the capacity to act and behave without conscious deliberation in all areas of their lives, which can result in conflicting feelings with those who think and behave otherwise”.
Discussing brain activity allows us to gain an insight on how common it can be for other people to focus differently on sensitive lifestyle, he added.
Meanwhile, noted religious scholar and educationist Farooq Hussain Shah while sharing his views said that the changed social fabric, drying moral values and ignorance from the message of Islam rapidly depleting the ozone layer of tolerance resulting in extreme aggression and intolerance in the society.
Tolerance helps promote individualism, accept expression of one’s personal interests and beliefs and allow co-existence of others ideas of life, which is needed to made this world a peaceful place for all.
He said that Islam is a religion of peace and co-existence and through promoting the real massage of Islam we can promote tolerance in the society.
He urged the media, religious scholars and educational institutes to join hand and come up with some comprehensive idea to sensitize youth about the value of acceptance and co-existence to promote tolerance in the society.
He said that tolerance can be defined as a fair and objective attitude towards those whose lifestyle differs from yours. We must learn to accept religious, cultural, ideological differences and disagreements to encourage the construction of more inclusive and thus more resilient societies.
The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming November 16 as International Day for Tolerance in 1996 with the goal of getting educational institutions and the general public to see tolerance as a staple of society.
This action followed the adoption of a declaration of principles on tolerance by UNESCO’s Member States on 16 November 1995 which was adopted as a way to define and provide awareness of tolerance for any and all governing and participating bodies.
This year the day is being celebrated with the theme “Tolerance is respect, acceptance, and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world’s cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human.