Pluralism

Anila Malik

Pluralism is not the sheer fact of plurality or diversity alone,but is active engagement with that diversity.One can be an observer of diversity.One can “celebrate diversity”,as the cliche goes.Or one can be critical of it or threatened by it.But real pluralism requires participation,engagement.Diversity can and often has meant isolation and the creation of virtual ghettos of religion and sub-culture with little traffic between them.The dynamic pluralism,however,is one of the meeting,exchanging,and two-way traffic.

Pluralism is more than mere tolerance is important,but tolerance by itself may be a deceptive virtue.Sometimes an attitude of tolerance may stand in the way of engagement.Tolerance does not require people people to know anything at all about one another.As a result,tolerance can let us harbor all the stereotypes and half-truths that we want to believe about our neighbours.  Tolerance does little to remove our ignorance of one another.Tolerance is definietely important,but it is probably too thin a foundation for a society as a religiously diverse and complex.

Pluralism is not simply relativism,but makes room for real abd different religious commitments.Some people are wary of the language of pluralism,insisting that it effectively waters down one’s own religious beliefs by acknowledging that others believe differently.Some mistakenly think that a pluralistic perspective assumes that there is no real difference among various religious traditions and their values.On the contrary,the encounter of a pluralistic society is the encounter of real commitments and real differences.

Pluralism does not require relinquishing the distinctiveness of one’s own tradition of faith to reach the “lowest common denominator”.In the public square of a pluralist society,commitments are not left at the door.Rather,pluralism invites people of different faith or or none to themselves,with all their particularities,and yet to be engaged in a creating a civil society,through the critical and self-critical encounter with one another.pluralism is a process of creating a society by acknowledging,rather than hiding,our deepest differences.

The contributor is Karachi based student hailing from Salmanabad, Hunza.