Notes

I believe that tolerance is the key to a diverse and fair community. When people do not tolerate one another, they cannot get along; when people cannot get along, they refuse to be near one another. When people avoid each other, on a massive scale, there is no longer a community – because the very meaning of community is people working together.

If we aren't diverse, what are we really? Just one mass of the same face? A society of clones? No. We should strive to be more than that. hould strive to be a diverse community where every one respects each other's differences – of skin colour, of culture, of religion, of opinion. A society where difference is valued, not suspected. And the way to make this happen is through tolerance.



But what is tolerance? To tolerate is to accept. To tolerate is to find harmony. To tolerate is to be truly kind. And only then, once we have accepted each other, found harmony and have become kind can we open the doors to happiness and walk through them. The UAE that we all live in is one of the closest countries in the world to achieving perfect tolerance, but we are only one of a few. And that's not good. Take a look at America for example. In recent years, it has become progressively more and more INtolerant.

In America, some people are still judged by the colour of their skin, or the accent of their voices, not by who they are. You may be the next president, but if you were born a certain way, some groups of Americans will refuse to accept you. It is a divided society.

Consider how lucky we all are, to be in somewhere like the UAE, where everyone is seen as an equal. We should be thankful that we live in such a place. Look around you, at your classmates. How many different nationalities can you count? I'm sure you don't have enough fingers to count them. The fact that you see so many different people, and nationalities, is because the UAE is so close to becoming truly diverse, and this is because the people of this land have taken the example set by Sheikh Zayed when he founded the nation, and made that into their own reality – where everyone tolerates and accepts everyone they meet and treats them as brothers and sisters.

This really shows that, if we can tolerate people, we CAN be truly happy! So what's stopping us? I believe what's stopping us is meaningless racial stereotypes and social constructs that, despite what we think of them, may really be a bad thing for our community. The only way to get past these, is to do a trust fall of sorts. You have to let go of the racial stereotyping, and trust in others that they will catch you. So please, I encourage you, to trust, and help people out, whereever you can, no matter who they are, or how they look. Thank you.