This week is 'Pink Week' at UCT a campaign 'intended to promote gay rights and highlight homoprejudice across the country' initiated by RainbowUCT society. One aspect of this was 'The Closet' campaign which included placing a pink closet on the universities central plaza (in front of Jamieson steps) on which students were able to write messages engaging with the theme of homosexuality. Night before last a group of people (or a person) attempted to burn it down. (can read more about the incident at http://www.rainbowuct.org/). I feel like this incident is a manifestation of a more general attitude (behaviour) of misplaced frustrations and anger in our society... I think that people are really highly strung... from the roads to schools there's just so much aggression. There is a gentleness and solidarity that we are missing.
Intolerance rears its ugly head....
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Uno
... and rationality.
Couldn't agree more. Striking photo, sad event.
Love
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The Graduate
what an amazing picture 1love. thank you for your insight. you're right. it feels like there's a pervading energy frustration and anger like you said. and, it feels like none of us is willing to wait on or for anything anymore. as soon as there isn't anything to hold our attention- what do we do? take out our phones, go online, mostly do anything to be engaged and mentally stimulated.
the cellphone phenomena is something that I observed when I was at a PASS gig over the weekend. so many people went for their phones as soon as they didn't have anyone to talk to or there wasn't anyone on stage. that's scary. why can't we handle an empty moment and be present in it? what is that fear of just being able to be and observe what's around us and not needing to have anything fill a moment, you know? sorry. I'm blabbing on your wall. apologies!
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Jeff Rikhotso
People have to be forced to respect and tolerate others, through rules,laws and other pieces of papers that tells of the consequences if one does not abide. It can never be just because it the right thing to do. People feel they r better than other or others cant be what they choose.....at a learning institutions for that matter, its really interesting.
Remember Xenophobia attacks.
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Greer
I hate that word, tolerance - i don't want to be tolerated I want to be accepted - anyway, I LOVE this post. You're right in saying there is too much aggression in society.
beautiful image.
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Sam Buk
this is beautifully made
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Diaan
Like it. It's unfortunate that some hater had to try burn it.
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Daz
Great shot. Tells a story. Or 2.
Everything in tension.
Burned pink.
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Buchu
We never had a catharsis in SA after apartheid.
We're basically walking around, damaged families and communities.
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onelove
Hi sorry for slow response, I only have access to internet twice a week and working most of the time...
Thx for all the comments.@ Graduate, pls don't apologise for your blabbing, it gives me food for thought : ) I agree with your observations. I think as a society we're highly self-important and from this stems the need to be and appear engaged in something important, and maybe just 'being' seems like a waste of time? I dunno... Maybe our lives have also become so fast that we can't manage to just be...
@ Jeff, what you bring up is really interesting, an attitude like this coming from people who are supposedly engaged in learning and (given the status linked to universities in some professions) may enter leadership positions (indeed one of the aims of universities is to produce students with leadership qualities) is really worrying. I'm not sure about the actual issues of the person/people who did this but more generally i do think that universities should be tasked with developing people in a more holistic way. This is especially important given that much identity formation happens in universities. I think the focus on mental development in isolation from other aspects of students means that people can go through university without maturing in other ways that are required for engagement in a democratic society.
By the same token the attitude/ belief that sparked the arson could exist anywhere i guess...@Shy1 Thanks for making that distinction. I found this useful description of the difference between acceptance and tolerance:
“Acceptance involves understanding and togetherness; it celebrates differences and allows people of different places and lifestyles to live together and help each other. Accepting someone means that you let them completely into your heart regardless of their lifestyle or way of thinking. You connect yourself to them and openly share yourself with them and them with you. There are no boundaries, just different ways of approaching the same problems.
Tolerance involves separateness and ignorance; it requires that two sides endure each others presence, even though neither one enjoys it. One side is right and the other one is wrong, but there is nothing that you can do about it. You don’t understand why other people are the way they are and you don’t want to know. When you tolerate someone it is like tolerating bad behavior from a child. Some will ask “why do we tolerate this” and others will want to move into action to discipline the child, but doing so will disrupt the system so those feelings are suppressed.
Acceptance is unconditional, while Tolerance is conditional. If conditions change tolerance changes with it, but acceptance doesn’t change. A parent might tolerate a kid’s bad behavior until it affects her in a big way, in which she will blow up and take care of it. If this parent accepted the bad behavior, no matter what the kid did she wouldn’t do anything. While this is a very superficial way to look at acceptance vs tolerance, I hope this helps illustrate the point. When dealing with people, we accept the people and not necessarily their actions.
Tolerance hides deeper problems. Acceptance embraces reality. Accepting the wrong things can be a problem, but at least it’s honest and consistent.”
http://beyondbounds.org/2009/01/acceptance-vs-tolerance/
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