MEANING OF TOLERANCE The principle of tolerance requires respect for

different points of view in ethics, politics and religion on the assumption that all

opinions are entitled to coexist in peace; it is not required to give up our beliefs, their defence and their dissemination, but only to do so without using violent dictates.

RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE

The matter of tolerance starts to be discussed around the XVIth century, a period rich in events as The Reformation and the Counter Reformation, the constitution of the absolutist states and the wars for the European predominance.

Others religions then the Catholic one are born and spread. After the Protestant Reformation the religious intolerance toward the new confessions leads to wars, persecutions and inquisitions.

This shows how the religious sphere is the first to be interested in the problem of tolerance.

The great humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam (1469-1536) condemned the religious intolerance and affirmed the pax fidei aspiration, the agreement to the faiths, recommending the practice of imitation of the Gospel of Christ, a simple and immediate religion, available in comparison.

Lutero e Calvino

Erasmo da Rotterdam

THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENTAfter the Peace of Westphalia (1648) which marks the end of

the Thirty Years War, the last of the so called religious wars in Europe comes back to the surface the issue of religious tolerance. The need to preserve the political order and social peace is felt in spite of the plurality of religions.

In the Age of Enlightenment, thanks to the philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) and the famous “A Letter concerning Toleration” the battle for religious tolerance is extended to more general problems like freedom of thought and conscience.

John Locke

JEAN-BAPTISTE VOLTAIREThe French philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778) is another great

pillar in defence of the principle of tolerance. He wrote the “Treatise on Tolerance”, published in 1763,

following to the unequal sentencing to death of a Protestant, decided by the judges of Toulouse, under the impulse of a blind religious fanaticism.

More than two hundred years after Voltaire’s words sound still alive and current: “Thou, O God, you didn’t give us a heart to hate or hands to kill mutually. Let’s us help each other and the small differences between our clothes, languages, customs, including all our imperfects laws, so different from each other, and so equal in front of you, are not the bug of hatred and persecution”.

THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURY

In these centuries the principle of religious, political and cultural tolerance becomes a factor universally recognized and variously fixed in treaties and international positions.

The liberal political thought of the nineteenth century elaborates the model of “rule ol law” intended to give the fundamental impression to democratic political institutions of the West throughout the twentieth century.

Tolerance frees itself more and more on religioud issues and acts as a bulwark of the right to freedom of opinion and ensures the democratic process of different ideolagical positions.

PERSECUTION OF THE JEWISH RACEUnfortunately, in the XXIth century intolerance has not disappeared;

in contemporary reality sometimes comes back with the face of political fanaticism, just as blind religious fanaticism, as it is proved by the persecution wrought by totalitarian regimes.

During the Second World War the Nazi power of Adolph Hitler carried out the terrible genocide of the Jewish race.

In Italy, during the Fascist dictatorship, begins the repression of any religious and ethnic diversity and, especially, the persecution of the Jews with the implementation, in 1938, of the first racial laws and measures for the defence of the Aryan race, by Benito Mussolini. It increases in the following years by reducing the freedom of the Jews, till the order, in 1943, to intern them in concentration camps and confiscate their properties.

SOLIDARITY OF ITALIAN PEOPLEMany Italians, however, risquing their own lives, helped

persecuted Jews, housing them in their homes or helping them to cross the border to take refuge in neutral countries.

In Italy, are officially more than 400 people honored by the title of Righteous Among the Nations for their efforts in favour of persecuted Jews during the Holocaust.

The small community of Cotignola, near Ravenna, distinguished itself for rescuing Jews during tha racial persecution.

Cotignola is perhaps the only one in Italy, on 8000 municipalities, where all the administrative structure, under the guidance of the Prefectural Commissioner Victor Zanzi organized salvation of Jews, partisans and deported people by providing them with false documents and hospitality. The name of Zanzi is honored in the Gardens of the Righteous in Israel.

THE WALDENSIAN MOVEMENTDuring the Nazi occupation of North Italy in the Second World War,

Italian Waldensians were active in saving Jews faced with imminent extermination, hiding many of them in the same mountain valley where their own Waldensian ancestors had found refuge in earlier generations.[

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From the Middle Ages, when he was born, the Waldensian movement, had been subject to repression and persecution, because considered heretical. In fact, its founder, Valdo was a strong religious personality, a merchant from Lyon (France), who gave up his trade to live in poverty and in meditation the Christian faiths in its primitive purity, like Francis, the poor man of Assisi.The Waldenses joined the Protestant Reformation in 1532 organizing communities and survived several massacres, butliving marginalized as Jews in the ghetto. Their civil and political rights were recognized by the edict promulgated by Charles Albert on 17th February 1848; the largest Waldensian community lies around Pinerolo, in the valleys of Piemonte.

CONSTITUTION OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLIC (1948)

Article 2The Republic recognizes and guarantees the inviolable human rights, be it as an individual or in social groups expressing their personality, and it ensures the performance of the unalterable duty to political, economic, and social solidarity.

All citizens have equal social status and are equal before the law, without regard to their sex, race, language, religion, political opinions, and personal or social conditions.

Article 3 It is the duty of the Republic to remove all economic and social

obstacles that, by limiting the freedom and equality of citizens, prevent full individual development and the participation of all workers in the political, economic, and social organization of the country.

Article 6 The Republic protects linguistic minorities by special laws Article 8 Religious denominations are equally free before the law.

Denominations other than catholicism have the right to organize themselves according to their own by-laws, provided they do not conflict with the Italian legal system.

TOLERANCE NOWADAYSThe most important challenge that we face in recent years is

certainly the ability to carry out the process of integration with other cultures which belongs a growing number of people from other countries in search of work and better conditions of life.

In Italy, in particular, occured in the last two years a massive flow of migrants from North africa in revolt, which forced the Italian government to deal with emergency situations, with a great deal of difficulty.

Yet, the Italian government has always provided a first welcome to immigrants, helping people often come to the end of his strenght, and saving lives after moving hallucinating.

The inhabitants of a tiny Italian island, Lampedusa, become the front line for African migrants looking for better life in Europe, was extremely generous, providing food and blankets to these desperate people.

Sicily, in particular, was in the past, a land of emigration for its poor living conditions and the Sicilians didn’t forget it.

THE HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAYOn 20 th July 2000, the Italian Parliament introduced, by Law 2011,

the Holocaust Memorial Day, so adhering to the international proposal to declare January the 27 th (date of opening the gates of Auschwitz) as a day commemorating the victims of the Shoah operated by the Nazis and Fascist, and in honor of all those who risked their lives by protecting the persecuted.

The warning is that the Shoa is valid for all humanity, and from it comes the imperative: we must know what it was, because we must not let that happen again.

The horror of what happened during the Second World War is the base of the foundation of a Europe focused on the values of respect for human rights and dignity of every person.

And starting from the Shoah was promulgated in 1948 by the United Nations the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, whose first article, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and race”, it is the significant foundation.

THE FUTURE OF TOLERANCEThe ideal of tolerance is not an accomplishment, even if it is

true that a great progress has been made.Each of us has to change things from everyday lie and

personal example. Tolerance must be built day by day. It is also important to educate the news generations to be tolerant from an early age, trough a collaboration between school and family.

Indeed, we should go beyond tolerance. This term, in fact, has insipt a concept not entirely acceptable, because “tolerate” etymologically means “bear”.

We need then take a deeper and human conception: respect for differences and appreciation of each of them for a mutual enrichment.

THE END