Is it time for us to stop tolerating intolerance?

The French Enlightenment thinker Voltaire once said: “I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it”. This is the liberal ideal upon which much of Western civilisation was built. Modern Europe still believes there is no such thing as too much tolerance – that freedom of speech is a basic human right. But immigration, far-right extremism and anti-semitism are testing our values. So how do we maintain liberal principles without being tolerant of the intolerable?

One of the fallouts of the financial crisis was the undermining of a European identity established on the pillars of globalisation and open borders. Politics is often polarised, and occasionally paralysed, with politicians who strive for answers swept aside by those riding the wave of anger and frustration.

We must protect our freedoms without leaving ourselves open to violence and hatred. If we are to achieve security and protect our civil liberties, we must re-examine our attitudes to tolerance, which can no longer be unconditionally applied to those who reject open-mindedness.

As a society we must ask ourselves some tough questions. Should preachers be allowed to influence our youth without any checks and balances? Should criticism (or a boycott) of Israel be tolerated in instances that deploy the type of anti-semitic tropes seen in the 1930s? Should women, homosexuals or other people not deemed sufficiently devout be vilified and have their rights restricted? And, crucially in today’s digital society, to what extent should technology and media companies, such as Facebook and Google, take responsibility for the dissemination of hatred and fake news?

Unless we are able to change the discourse about what tolerance means and how we safeguard it, we risk losing the very freedoms we are trying to protect. European society today too readily turns a blind eye in the name of free speech. But if we are to protect our civil liberties, we cannot tolerate violence, terrorism and those supporting it. As well as defending liberal values, we must robustly confront illiberal ones.

Such is the principle behind the Kantor Prize for Secure Tolerance, an initiative launched by The European Council On Tolerance and Reconciliation, which offers a €1million grant for ideas to help solve one of the biggest challenges of our time: preserving and creating free, open and pluralist societies while maintaining security.

We can’t sit back and let extremism and intolerance become an accepted part of public discourse. We must be active in preventing radicalisation, focusing our resources on addressing the greatest threats to society: hate speech, political radicalisation and not integrating diverse communities.

To prompt a generational shift we must weed out cultural prejudice and intolerance from education systems or risk polluting young minds. A response from the international community is also necessary, as intolerance is not confined to our borders. We can only break the cycle of radicalisation and extremism if we re-evaluate our priorities, and think afresh.

Moshe Kantor is president of the European Jewish Congress