Codes of Tolerance for All of Us

  1. Be relaxed and cosmopolitan, say “Yes” to tolerance and diversity. Make your personal contribution to a better world every day with small gestures to foreign people and with a “thinking heart and loving mind.” Put your little piece of the jigsaw puzzle into the global mosaic of tolerance and thus make your own community more humane and peaceful. Your good deeds are like little drops of water, from which – together with many good works of others – a trickle can first emerge, followed by a stream and then a river flowing with goodness, kindness and tolerance for all.
    Do not wait for your government or leaders to act on your behalf. Become active yourself and always treat your fellow human beings of other faith, minorities and races politely, respectfully and humanely. Step out of the passive masses and silent majority, so you can actively promote more tolerance and respect. Do not leave the field to the few radicals and the preachers of hatred. Help in establishing a new world ethos, the Codes of Tolerance, and more love of humanity.
  2. Be self-confident, because only a self-confident person can be tolerant. Therefore, get to know and value yourself first so you will be able to overcome your fears and insecurities. Stand up straight and become a self-confident person who helps others; a lighthouse of tolerance. Love yourself and others too.
  3. Follow the golden basic rule of tolerance. Treat everyone as you want to be treated, with dignity for the weaknesses and convictions of others. It is essential to remember that sometime and somewhere you might be considered a minority, and chances are you will also be in need of tolerance and respect. You cannot demand tolerance if you are not tolerant to others. Tolerance is a coin with two sides.
  4. Approach children and young people with respect and love. Talk with them also about the need of tolerance, as the younger generations are the salt of the earth and our future.
  5. Treat people always and everywhere in a humane way, so you will become more humane every day through your small, kind deeds. Forgive small mistakes and be merciful.
  6. Accept that people are very different and appreciate the diversity of human beings as an enrichment of your own life. Diversity is God’s DNA and the Code of life on earth; so many different plants, animals and human beings with many ideas and customs. Imagine how boring our earth would be if it existed of billions of clones that look, think and feel exactly like you.
  7. Stand up for your convictions, but always be considerate and polite, so that you do not hurt the feelings of others.
  8. Be humble, because the sun does not revolve around you, but the earth with all human beings revolves around the sun.
  9. Be tolerant out of egoism. Whoever does good will in turn also become a better and happier person, which frees you from the burden of hatred and opens your heart. If you live with tolerance and respect, others will also present you with friendliness and happiness.
  10. Tolerate the strangers in your home country not only in a passive way, but go beyond this. Welcome them and learn from them. Follow the motto, “Live and let live.” Thereby, you also become a better and happier person.
  11. Get to know other religions, cultures and the numerous ways of thinking in the world. Thereby, you also enrich yourself and become more international, creative and successful.
  12. Tear down the walls of mistrust and do not be afraid to approach strangers. Give all human beings a second chance, and displace your negative feelings of hatred and revenge. Make your enemies opponents and your opponents new friends. Do not stay stubborn, bitter and isolated. Liberate yourself and shake hands with your former enemy, offering reconciliation. Reconciliation is the balm with which you can heal your own bad memories and thus liberate yourself.
  13. Be generous, because you will be able to open the hearts of your fellow human beings. You will not only make them happier, but you will also become happier.
  14. Believe in your religion and worship your God, but never force others to do so. There is no compulsion in faith.
  15. All religions demand love of humanity and mercy. Whoever commits inhuman acts in the name of their religion, perverts their faith and insults their God. God is love and mercy.
  16. Accept the God-willed differences between Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists or Hindus. Search for the common good. Never consider those of other religious traditions as inferior or even as enemies. Look at followers of different religions as co-believers who also believe in God, but in a different way.
  17. Search for your God in your fellow human beings.
  18. Read and receive the golden nuggets of tolerance in your religion. Digest the great teachings of love of humanity and mercy written down in your holy books. Think and live in good faith, instead of bad faith – as tolerance is love.
  19. Never violate the dignity of your fellow human beings for political or religious reasons. This is your red line, your stop sign.
  20. Learn new languages and respect the customs when you live in a country as a minority. Be proud of your origin, your roots and your new home country.
  21. Fight with commitment against the dark forces of hatred and violence that want to destroy our global village. You should have no tolerance for intolerance. Be brave and do not just look away. Become a small beacon of tolerance in your community.
  22. Stand up with moral courage against totalitarian systems and ideologies and for the principles of the UN Charter. Totalitarian systems are not compatible with tolerance towards diversity. Only states in which the principles of the UN Charter are implemented can generate tolerance.
  23. Patriotism is good, but arrogant nationalism, chauvinism, and racism are poison for your country because they push your country into confrontation and war.
  24. Terrorism that hurts and kills civilians with violence is the product of ideologies of hatred; it is not justified by anything. The end does not justify the means, but the means of terror desecrate even the most well-intentioned end.

Best practices:

  1. How can I begin? First, analyze yourself. Only then your relationship with other people follows. Tolerance and respect require, as their foundation, an inner balance, the opposite of frustration and hatred and healthy self-confidence. Acting in good faith also helps. Whoever does not tolerate himself, cannot be tolerant. Everyone must first find peace within himself.
  2. Not the big words and intentions count, but your small deeds in everyday life. It is the micro jigsaw pieces of a harmonious coexistence that change the world; a smile, a little help, an invitation to a stranger or a friendly conversation. Micro-tolerance counts; billions of small good deeds make the world more loving. If everyone is friendly toward a stranger every day, then this is 365 days x 7.5 billion people, consequently 2,737 billion micro jigsaw pieces of tolerance per year. This has a far greater effect than just another UN resolution or a nice speech from a president. In this way, we can all work together to create a more tolerant world for ourselves.
  3. Through the small things we have in common, we grow closer as human beings. In 2013, for example, many Muslim families in Great Britain invited those of other faith traditions in their cities and into their homes for the breaking of the fast (Iftar) during the fasting month of Ramadan. This getting to know each other was organized by Dine@Mine.

From the book “Love is Tolerance” by Hubertus Hoffmann