Enough is enough

I want to tell you a story...

Imagine you want to start a new business - you have to build your team with the obvious goal of becoming successful and profitable. Naturally you will surround yourself with the best possible individuals - the most intelligent, the most competent. It is obvious…

Do you think it's more important to recruit people who think exactly like you, people with the exact same ideology, people with the same ideas - people who will always say YES to your ideas and criticisms? Some will say of course - that's normal - and, why bother with people different from me and risking more conflicts and misunderstandings? This brings me to a question: do you firmly believe that your truth, your way of thinking, is THE best? - is your way of thinking foolproof? If so, why hire other people? If not, doesn't it make more sense to recruit people with different ideas from yours, with a different approach, with a different background, different experiences than yours - in order to broaden your knowledge and your perspective…

Think about it? Who do you learn from? From those who have the same experiences and have the same path as us or: do we learn more from those outside of our common circle - those who have walked paths that we have never walked? Is it not true that we learn from those who have seen other landscapes? Those who ate dishes that we didn't know even existed? Isn't it true that we learn and improve with people who have experienced difficulties different from ours, people who speak another languages, people who pray to another God, because, let’s say it: Is YOUR God, the only God, the Greatest God? Does your God really exist? And if your neighbour has no God and does not believe, does that make this neighbor less noble, less worthy? Did you walk a few steps in this neighbour's shoes?

This brings me to the idea of judging your neighbour on hearsay, on grossly incorrect information - information shared on Facebook and in other medias ... for example, just because the violence on TV and in movies depicts black people as violent – doesn’t mean that it is true – just because someone wrote on the internet that Muslims are a threat to our culture, our society, and they demand everything – does not make it true – or if they wrote that all Hindus are dirty, because they saw one in a taxi last year and it smelled bad. People write that Sikhs and Muslims are all the same, and that they don't respect our culture …. I could go on and list dozens of other examples, each as despicable and as false as the others...

Before judging, before sharing discriminatory information and blaming others - shouldn't we look at ourselves first and foremost a little longer? And shouldn't we think and see the other side of the coin, walk a few kilometers in our neighbour's shoes, so that we don’t judge so easily, without missing a beat and without any concrete evidence.  Before judging others, when was the last time you took the time to actually talk to them? And when I say "talk", I actually mean LISTEN - give this human being the chance to tell you their story ... Do not speak - be quiet and listen. Because you don't learn by speaking or writing slanderous words, you learn by being quiet and listening.

To go back to my business project - and this recruitment strategy... Let’s extrapolate this experience and put it in a social experiment – a society project… An all-white Christian society will take you to a limit fairly quickly; an all-black or Muslim society will bring you the same result. It is only through diversity that will allow you to accomplish so much more. Diversity will expand your horizons. Diversity will strengthen your base. Diversity will make you understand that it is not just your ideas and your little world that exists... The world is not black and white.

And please, don't talk to me about respecting your culture - and your "My country" speech; this "country" is not yours; it is a country - a Democracy. If you want to have a homogeneous and closed society, see how Syria, Iran, North Korea, the Italy of Mussolini, or Germany during the Reich of Hitler turned out in the end. The conclusion is always - always the same no matter what you believe: the ideology of a homogeneous race, a superior religion ALWAYS leads to war and inevitably millions of deaths and hatred is perpetuated from generation to generation. No exception.

If your neighbour is different from you, you are lucky and privileged (no pun intended). You have the chance to learn what's going on at the other end of your own horizon. If you think that your neighbour - however different he may be - blames your country for his own problems... maybe you should listen. Maybe living in a democracy gives him that right. Because, after all, do you also blame your country for certain problems? It may be time to walk in those shoes before judging the look and quality of those shoes...

Instead of pointing fingers, instead of blaming, instead of judging - shut up and LISTEN. In a society project or in a business project, the diversity of ideas will give you a much better chance of winning ... Can a hockey team win with 5 defensemen? Can a business succeed only with accountants? Can a society project grow only with big muscular blond Christians ... ask the Germany of 1945 about this...

I no longer have any tolerance for intolerance, for ignorance… Ignorance in 2020 IS a choice. Racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia are all of the same origin: IGNORANCE. Take off your clean shoes and walk in your neighbour’s shoes to see what’s happening at the other end of the horizon - believe me, it’s beautiful - there is so much to learn from that neighbour.