“You Can Sit With Us”: Defining Tolerance From Millennials’ Eyes
Finding from IDN Times Survey
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Jakarta, IDN Times - “I think tolerance is more than about respecting others, but it’s about giving freedom to others for believing the things they want to believe and having rights to choose and decide the things they want to do,” said one of our respondents from East Java when we asked about her opinions in defining tolerance.
As a the number 4 most populous country in the world, tolerance is always being a hot issue in Indonesia which has approximately 300 ethnic groups and 6 different religions among its people. Thus, understanding tolerance is important in Indonesia as it’s the foundation of creating a harmonious country.
Our tolerance will absolutely influence how our society works. If someone is being bullied because of her religion publicly and you are among the bystanders, will you defend her? If some people yell at someone because of his skin tone, will you stand up for him?
In August 2019, IDN Research Institute and IDN Times, did the online survey on millennial perception on tolerance. This survey involving 438 millennial respondents across 28 provinces in Indonesia to understand their own definition of tolerance.
The majority of respondents were female (58.2 percent), most of them were between 20-27 years old (45 percent), and they were mostly employees in private sectors (38.8 percent ) and students (36.8 percent). Thus, millennials’ definition of tolerance that we’ve got from the survey was quite interesting and relieving at the same time, fortunately.
Baca Juga: Sikap Toleransi, Kunci Persatuan dan Kerukunan Bangsa
1. Millennials care about what you say more than about who you are
The word ‘tolerance’ is more often than not being closely related to religion differences. If we googled the word ‘tolerance’, there will be a lot of news related to conflicts which aroused from religion differences. But, is it true that millennials always see tolerance from religion differences point of view?
“I think tolerance is not only about religion as it goes beyond that. It’s about having patience and the act of accepting differences in many aspects of life,” said one of our respondents who’s still a high school student. Indeed, our survey revealed that millennials’ definition of tolerance is broader than about religion differences.
In our survey, we broke down some behaviors which manifested from 5 types of tolerance. From 5 types of tolerance, which are social tolerance, thought tolerance, religious tolerance, racial tolerance, and sexual tolerance, Indonesian millennials were mostly choosing thought tolerance behaviors in defining their own definition of tolerance.
Means that, millennials will more likely care about your opinions, point of views, and/or your thoughts rather than your religion, gender, social status, and other personal backgrounds.
Baca Juga: Koran IDN Times Vol. 2: Ini Kata Millennials Soal Toleransi