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In the Western Hemisphere, religious and ethnic pluralism through Tolerance as a legal-political condition
were placed first on Governors Island in New York harbor in 1624.
As iconic National Symbol of America’s ultimate
virtue of Tolerance and social cohesion, a proposed 151 feet high Tolerance Monument will be anchored to a 50-acre Tolerance
Park on 30% of Governors Island. They will restore the island to its historical integrity and imbue it with its original historic
symbolism.
This living museum-park-to-tolerance will emanate lasting loyalty to America’s earliest value―the
elemental precept of Tolerance as a subset of American Freedom and as a primary pillar of American culture and democracy.
The historical meaning of Governors Island lies in its existence as unrecognized Conceptual Art since
1624 when the conception of religious tolerance as the basis for ethnic diversity was delivered onto it. Its transformation
to Visual Art and National Symbol is to be accomplished by way of the envisaged Living Museum Park with the Tolerance Monument
as centerpiece. It will be the Western Hemisphere and the nation’s first park that addresses dynamic tolerance issues
as they define American Freedom thus defending personal freedom (= Liberty) visually and intellectually.
In
the way that New York City’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is housed in a mixed-use skyscraper wherein about 20% is dedicated
to exhibition space and 80% to residential use, the Tolerance Park will similarly be dedicated to exhibition space devoted
to interactive educational exhibits about religious, ethnic and racial tolerance. The remaining structures of the living museum
village will serve as America's first mixed-use urban artist colony that focuses on arts and crafts with emphasis on those
from before the 19th-century.
The envisaged Tolerance Monument of global meaning, thematic substance and
21st-century visual greatness will be portrayed by appropriating an image from the American artist Barnett Newman. His sculpture
Broken-Obelisk (a copy of which is in MoMA) was dedicated by him to the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. after his assassination.
By using contemporary technology, materials and engineering, the image can be extrapolated to a height of
151 feet (46 meters). This height equates that of the Statue of Liberty’s without pedestal (that is, half the total
Liberty Monument's height because Broken-Obelisk stands on the ground) because Tolerance and Liberty are equal partners
in American Freedom.
This new iconic emblem will be an implicit tribute and testimonial to racial tolerance—recognizing
the fact that, for the African-American segment of the population, liberty was a concept from which they were largely excluded
legally and culturally.
The image of the Barnett Newman sculpture―implicitly honoring Martin
Luther King―thus transformed into the Tolerance Monument, will comprise a museum of human servitude with special emphasis
on the Atlantic arena in the 15th through 17th centuries. The contemporary relevance of such a museum may best be underscored
by the fact that, today, there are more chattel slaves in the world than ever before: between 12 to 27 million. This is in
spite of the United Nations' 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in Article 4, that "No one shall be held
in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms."
It will highlight
uplifting exhibits and narratives of Herculean courage as inspirational demonstrations of humanity’s capacity for astonishing
compassion that emerges from the depths of depravity and indifference. The color of the pyramid section will be black to reflect
its theme: "Black has an innersound of nothingness bereft of possibilities, a dead nothingness as if the sun had become
extinct" so wrote Kadinsky.
Because black’s cognate is blue, the upside-down obelisk section
will be translucent to radiate blue light as a blue-sky tribute to mankind’s power to rise and create ex nihilo. It
will be situated on the same spot within the Tolerance Park as where Fort Amsterdam was positioned within New Amsterdam.
Just
as when Governors Island became the region’s first crossroad of three cultures in 1613, the Tolerance Park Historic
New Amsterdam, when it opens in September 2009, will become a meeting point for the cultures of the world to debate on these
issues of profound importance to future generations.
The Tolerance Park will be of architectural uniqueness
and cohesiveness and therefore reflective of harmony-in-difference—the ideal condition of the virtue of tolerance. It
will be a place where 350 years of contrasts will visually dissolve harmoniously into a new and unique village, just as divergences
and boundaries melt away through the ethical force of tolerance into common humanity.
Consequently, the Tolerance Park Historic New Amsterdam will link visually the 1624 historic planting of tolerance (that
is, the "father" of American liberty and the basis of successful pluralism) on Governors Island with broad 21st-century
awareness of that dynamic ethical force as being indispensable to religious, ethnic and racial liberty in contemporary American
society.
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What
is Tolerance? (1)
Tolerance
as moral force in the understanding of [American] freedom is a pro-active process. It transforms peaceably pre-modern values
and beliefs held in certain societal segments to modern Western values, norms and customs.
As dynamic precept in the
concept of [American] freedom, Tolerance engenders debate about ever-present differences in cultural norms and values.
As a state of mind, Tolerance is about mutual understanding, respect and full acceptance.
Cultural values and practices
imposed on individuals by groups based on exclusionary or confining aspects of religious, ethnic and racial behavior are subordinate
to individual rights given and protected by the state and may even be unlawful. For example, it is religious belief, not religious
conduct, which is protected by the First Amendment.
Only through broad awareness and conscious vigilance can Tolerance
sustain Liberty.
Tolerance is the realization that postmodern humanity is determined by crucial themes of normative differences
(tolerances) as standard deviation of the mean - Freedom.
Tolerance is a universal value and was adopted by the United
Nations as a human right under its Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. (Joep
de Koning)
What
is Tolerance? (2)
I remember an important man of México called
Benito Juárez, who one time said something like: "The respect to the right of the other people is the peace."
I think that this just explains what Tolerance means.
If we want our world to be better, we must be tolerant in
our relationships between persons, countries and cultures; we must know our differences and accept them with respect and always
remember that my freedom finishes where your rights begin.
Tolerance is to be conscious that you aren't the only person in the world.
When I think about this concept, words like
patience, respect, equality, differences, will, knowledge, education, and culture come to my mind. I think that they are all
in the concept Tolerance; they are all indispensable.
Sometimes, people believe that their ideas, customs, behaviors and education are correct and think
that all the other people must be equal to them. Sometimes, we believe that we are right. We haven't learned yet to respect
the differences between the humans.
Modernity directs us to globalization, and I think that that makes us less tolerant. Globalization means to make universal
the ideas, customs, behaviors, political and economic model, but in this case the concept equality abolishes cultural differences,
the right to think according to your customs, and the right to practice your culture. (Rocío Alejandra, student, City College of San Francisco)
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| Image of Barnett Newman's Broken-Obelisk |
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| Venerating the Memory of Martin Luther King Jr |
The twin concepts of Tolerance and Liberty define the juridical
and cultural construct to which American Freedom refers. An island triad of America's primary values in New York Harbor
― the Tolerance Monument on Governors Island, the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island and the American Immigration
Museum on Ellis Island ― compose a National Heritage Triangle of uniquely historic symbols as visual sentinels of American
Freedom.
Mission Statement
The Foundation for Historic New Amsterdam is a public, non-profit organization which seeks
to establish a National Heritage Triangle encompassing America's three primary values in New York harbor. Its core mission is to protect and
to preserve Governors Island's vital message of tolerance by restoring the island to its historical integrity as the birthplace
of New York State and as the nation's oldest natural historic symbol (1624). Because the island's cultural and national
heritage have outstanding universal value it may qualify as a potential World Heritage Site. The precept of tolerance is New York State's
identity and legacy to the nation. This cultural patrimony-uniquely rooted in the State's 1624 birth on Governors Island-was
critical in the development of American and Western liberty as we know it today. As a moral dynamic, tolerance is the lifeblood of American liberty. Re-linking
it with Governors Island in this time of heightened global uncertainty will extol America's ultimate virtue as an ethical
force and will sustain it for future generations as the defender and definer of liberty in an ever-changing society. The National Heritage
Triangle will be composed of Governors Island, Liberty Island and Ellis Island, together representing an island triad of the
nation's fundamental ideals. The American conceptions of Tolerance, Liberty and Welcome will be embodied therein. Governors Island-on
which the historic message of toleration (= religious tolerance) was first planted by the first settlers from the Dutch Republic
in 1624-will be recognized as America's virtuous symbol of Tolerance through the creation of a 50-acre living museum,
to be known as the Tolerance Park Historic New Amsterdam, with a 151 ft (46 m) high Tolerance Monument as its centerpiece. Similarly, Bedloe
Island-where one could reside free from prosecution in 17th-century New Netherland (the New York Tri-State region)-was transformed
into the American symbol of Freedom by the French gift of the Statue of Liberty while Ellis Island was transformed into the
symbol of Welcome through the creation of the American Immigration Museum. Freedom has no meaning in an intolerant (disrespecting, discriminatory) society
as demonstrated by the horrific 9/11/2001 assault which was perpetrated in the name of religion. This shameless act of global
intolerance was an attempt to set up the Judeo-Christian culture against the Islamic culture on a worldwide scale.
Not acting upon recognized intolerance affirms that indifference, complacency,
laxity and apathy are the friends of iniquitous bigotry (as, for instance, in Europe in the 1930's and in America from
1941-46). As
a two-way street, tolerance makes specific demands. It entails reciprocity and reciprocal respect rather than unilateral accommodation
and in defining American freedom, it is a prerequisite for sustainable liberty. Indeed, the limits of tolerance set the standards
of liberty and societal freedom itself. Governors Island, when so acknowledged by Governor David A. Paterson and the State Legislature,
will instill confidence in the dependable and binding power of tolerance and conciliation as indispensable to the concept
of American freedom.
Hence, the Legislative Resolutions of May 2002 will not suffice in realizing this National Symbol
and future World Heritage Site through the living museum-park-to-tolerance. Only unanimous acceptance of a two-house bill
will accomplish that. The
three islands happen to be ideal complements to one another, each one exemplifying its own unique facet of history. They are
geographically perfectly aligned in a triangle and thus compose and portray a new and omnipresent American icon. *********************************** What is Tolerance? (3) The conception of
Tolerance was introduced in the Western Hemisphere as a legal-political and cultural tradition in 1624. In that year, Tolerance
was placed on Governors Island in New York Harbor with the landing of the first settlers to the New York Tri-State region.
It was the foundation of New York's unique characteristic of cultural diversity and pluralism.
This Tolerance
had its roots in the independence of the Dutch Republic from Spain in 1581. It was re-introduced as a legal-political and
individual right in 1789 and codified in 1791 after the formation of the republic of thirteen United States in 1776.
As an ethical force, Tolerance lies thus at the core of American culture and is America's ultimate virtue. As a prerequisite
to sustainable liberty, the limits of tolerance also set the standards of liberty and societal freedom itself.
With
regard to religion, ethnicity and race, the twin credos of Tolerance and Liberty comprise Western/American freedom. Hence,
the vibrant notion of Tolerance is a subset of American freedom as well as a crucial pillar of democracy. Tolerance is the
lifeblood of liberty as we know it.
As an active dynamic, Tolerance entails reciprocity and reciprocal respect.
Always bilaterally demanding, it forges Western/American freedom by relentlessly transforming plurality into constructive
pluralism as a never-finished product of Western culture.
In the face of intolerance, Tolerance is neither uncritical
acceptance, appeasement or submission, nor laxity, sloth or indifference.
Left unnurtured and unprotected, simple
liberty invites and facilitates the "friends" of intolerance and extremism-complacency, carelessness, apathy, passivity
and insipidness-opening the door to insidious assaults on civil liberties.
Tolerance builds liberty. Intolerance
kills liberty. It impairs democracy and may even destroy it.
Governors Island, when set aside for this timeless
message by the New York State Legislature, will instill confidence in the dependable and binding power of tolerance and conciliation
as indispensable to the concept of Western/American freedom.
(Joep de Koning,
President, Tolerance Park Historic New Amsterdam) *********************************** |
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What is [In]tolerance? (4)
"In [certain] Islamic countries...cruelty
is implacable and inequality is the law of the land. Dissidents are tortured. Women are policed both by the state and their
families to whom the state gives the power to rule their lives. In the West, individuals enjoy rights and freedoms that are recognized and protected by the state. To accept subordination and abuse because Allah willed it - that, for me, would
be self-hatred. This mindset [of intolerance] makes the transition to modernity very painful for all who practice Islam. We in the West would be wrong [by accepting intolerance through appeasement and
indolence] to prolong the pain of that transition unnecessarily by elevating cultures full of bigotry and hatred toward women
to the stature of respectable alternative ways of life. The
freedom of expression that I found in Holland - the freedom to think - is unknown where I come from." (From "Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, 2007) Editor's comment: The Tolerance
Monument neither targets a religion, ethnicity or race nor advances any religion, ethnicity or race. Religion and culture
are not synonymous. If religious interpretation is a problem rather than religion itself, then, its derived culture, if stagnant,
can be transitioned to modernity and accelerated through freedom of expression. Tolerance is about debate (two-way) because it is a dynamic precept which defines the limits of liberty. It thus
sets the [never-static] standard of freedom. "The principle of freedom of expression...."
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