Mutual Respect, Backbone of Democratic Society

By Majda Benayache

Casablanca – In any society, the advancement of a particular majority destroys conviviality. Among the reasons our society lacks mutual respect, especially towards the different religious, cultural and linguistic minorities, is the majority’s indecisiveness about the joint pillars that constitute the basis of a democratic society. 

This reminds us that democracy is not restrained to elections and political matters, but it involves social matters as well: freedom values, rational management of institutions, high consideration of the law, separation of authorities and so on. The joint pillars of society are nothing more than the awareness of one’s obligations and rights and the realization of their importance in the maintenance of public order. To grasp the importance of mutual respect is to establish a democratic structure for society.

Before the 17th century any individual that seemed different from the majority was not easily accepted and was treated based on the difference of their skin colour, religion or language. Nowadays with the concept of citizenship, difference has enriched our society because each individual holds something we lack in our own culture and by adding one to the other we have a positive for both sides. Citizenship has stripped us of the need to ask others to conform and has established equality.

One pillar of citizenship is acceptance and with acceptance comes tolerance. If we dig deep for the reasons why tolerance and acceptance in our society are rare, we are faced with the fact that our educational system teaches us that anything different from the religion practiced by the majority is wrong. This creates a standardization of society on the basis of belief, which destroys diversity and restrains an entire culture. This also leads to the death of the youth’s hopes and dreams, and thus constricts creativity, leading eventually to intolerance. We must agree that this is the complete opposite of the pillars of tolerance and co-existence.

The concept of numerical majority, which does not take into consideration equality in a human rights’ frame, destroys conviviality and social co-existence. The voices of our country’s minorities should be heard because its difference is of value to the growth of our country.