Prominent members of the Lords joined Ms Berger at the Westminster event celebrating the release of a new children's book inspired by a scared Hindu text and co-written by Jewish author Jemma Wayne-Kattan
October 17, 2018 10:58
Labour MP Luciana Berger has spoken of the need for our society to progress beyond just a basic level of tolerance between different cultures and religions.
During an event in Westminster featuring prominent members of the House of Lords – including Baroness Prashar, Lord Parekh and Lord Hameed – the Jewish MP said: “I think tolerance suggests a grudging acceptance of difference.
“As a Jew living in modern Britain I don’t want just to be tolerated like a dripping tap or a stone in your shoe.
“In our modern world we must celebrate our diversity, embrace our common humanity and learn from our different perspectives as citizens, as equals and as humans. I think tolerance suggests there is a norm – that the normal must learn to live with the abnormal.
“That’s certainly not the world I want for the next generation or for my children.”
Citing the works of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, Ms Berger suggested there was now a need for our society to “celebrate” rather than just “tolerate” the differences between us.
Baroness Prashar, a crossbench member of the Lords and former Chief Executive of the Runnymede Trust was quick to praise Ms Berger’s suggestion that the act of tolerance was at the lower rung of a ladder than needed to be climbed.
Other speakers to address the topic of discussion - Teaching Tolerance: Ideas to Unite the Next Generation - included journalist Justin Cohen.
Monday’s event was chaired by Lord Popat and celebrated the recent publication of Gita –The Battle of the Worlds, a children’s book written by Sonal Sachdev Patel and Jemma Wayne-Kattan, which took inspiration from the classic Hindu text.
Ms Wayne-Kattan said felt “entirely natural” to be a Jewish writer collaborating on the text with Ms Patel. She added that the sacred Hindu text - which was about the need for introspection and the requirement to become a good person – chimed with her own religious upbringing.
But she warned that while there was mutual respect between the Hindu and Jewish communities in her own local community, there was other examples of communities “fostering or teaching intolerance”.