Learning to be open

The word “tolerance” is heard with increasing frequency in our society. According to the dictionary definition, it means respect for, acceptance, and understanding of a rich variety of world cultures, forms of self-expression, and self-manifestations of human personality. As the world changes, representatives of the most diverse cultures are increasingly migrating to “alien” countries, and tolerance can well be a major problem. The prospect that Ukrainians will live in a tolerant state in the future depends to a large extent on young people and their attitude to other cultures and faiths.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ukraine recently decided to conduct a survey on the attitudes of young people to tolerance. Part of this project is a competition of schoolchildren’s compositions under the general title “Tolerance Is...” Oksana HARNETS, manager of the UNDP- sponsored project “Establishing a Safe Environment for Ukrainian Youth,” provides details in the following interview.

Ms. Harnets, why did you and your colleagues decide to study the subject of tolerance among young people?

“Ukrainian society is sufficiently tolerant, although there have been instances of hooligans attacking representatives of other nationalities. These facts convinced the UN office in Ukraine that it would be a good idea to spotlight this problem because, in spite of a generally positive background, this may create a negative impression and image of Ukraine. On the one hand, we want to draw attention to this problem and, on the other, to provide the younger generation with more knowledge. Our high-profile project includes actions, like putting up billboards and providing basic information. For example, we are planning to hold a lesson on tolerance in as many Ukrainian schools as possible on Nov. 16. Our experts are working out the methods and informational content of this lesson. We hope that the Ministry of Education and the Ministry for Families will support us. We are aware of the need to work with all age groups, but young people are the most dynamic group: they will be building our country in the future and shaping its image in the world. Therefore, if we adopt measures today to form an understanding of tolerance in young people and teach them practical ways of behavior, we will be able to hope that when they grow up, they will be capable of perceiving and understanding other cultures and religious faiths and will not react negatively to skin color.”

How many young people do you intend to involve in this work?

“Our project is active in all the regions of Ukraine. Among our partners are 6,000 Ukrainian schools out of a total of 22,000. We are still negotiating with the Ministry of Education the possibility to hold the lesson on tolerance in a much larger number of schools because we can send materials to all the regions.”

Why did you suggest that children write thematic compositions and not, say, submit drawings?

“It is interesting for us to hear the true voices of young people. We are also planning to hold a mini-survey of young people’s attitudes to tolerance and their vision of society and their own behavior. This is scheduled for October, and we are going to invite bids shortly. But a survey cannot provide such illustrative examples and feedback as a child’s composition can. It will be important for us to analyze the young people’s comments and their attitude to tolerance. This will only improve the quality of the project.”

What are you planning to do with the poll results and the compositions?

“We will disseminate this information to the public so that people can see young people’s attitudes to this question. In general, we want to know whether young people view tolerance as a problem. It is possible that these people practice tolerance in real life and therefore see no problem here. But if we find that young people are interpreting tolerance as a problem, we will try to learn their vision of overcoming these negative trends. We are also preparing an interactive training session for teenagers on various aspects of tolerance: this will include psychological knowledge as well as knowledge of other cultures and religions. We will give them an opportunity to understand all things, try it out for themselves, and express their attitudes in this interactive format by means of role playing and independent analysis. We will publish a book of the best compositions.”

Who is going to judge these compositions?

“A jury composed of the representatives of the UN office in Ukraine, participants of our project, young people (we are working with youth civic organizations), representatives of the two ministries, and some experts from our project — psychologists, sociologists, and other specialists.”

COMMENTARY

The phenomenon of Ukrainian isolationism

Yevhen HOLOVAKHA, deputy director of the Institute of Sociology (National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine):

“If we’re talking about the tolerance of Ukrainian society, it could be less tolerant, considering the crises that it has gone through and still is experiencing. But Ukrainian society is distinguished by greater tolerance in comparison with other post-Soviet countries. This is manifested in the absence of essential political, ethnic, or racial conflicts that could lead to aggressive outbursts. This can be attributed to isolationism, a phenomenon typical of the majority of Ukrainians. Longtime observations show that isolationism is a suspicious and rather distanced attitude to representatives of different ethnic, social, and other important social groups. In terms of sociological distance, Ukrainians position themselves very far from those who are not their own. And they consider very few people as foreigners. However, isolationism is not an aggressive stand: it is very good for society. But, on the other hand, this does not allow us to make the much-coveted breakthrough to modern-day European values because in many ways we are traditionalists. All this hinders our movement along the declared path.

“Movement along this path is a very subtle thing. After all, at one time we faced the threat of serious conflicts during the period of the split in Ukraine. But Ukrainian isolationism overcame this obstacle, too. This is why I assess the current situation as a contradictory one. On the one hand, so far a positive tolerant attitude (not tolerance in the modern interpretation because this is not yet the political correctness typical of Western society) is resulting in an unprejudiced approach to others. So it is a kind of brake that is not giving us an opportunity to move forward. This problem should be addressed through a joint effort of the whole society.

“In comparison to Western society, Ukrainian tolerance is very far from that of Northern Europe. But we are quite close to such new European Union members as Hungary or Estonia. The countries of traditional Europe — Germany, the UK, and France — occupy a middle position with respect to us.

“To raise the level of tolerance among Ukrainians, one should first of all improve their living standards because a poor society is by definition not very tolerant. Second, we badly need representatives of the religious elite to propagate modern values. But this means there should be no conflicts between denominations. If we want to live by the standards of Europe, we should accept its values. But this can only be done if people really show a desire to know these values and put them into practice. The Europeans overcame traditionalism and isolationism long ago. This is in fact the price of a nation’s openness and tolerance.

“Third, Ukraine should form civic community cells, and not just because there is so much talk about this. The truth is that there is no sense talking about tolerance until society becomes active.”