The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 1995 the United Nations Year for Tolerance with UNESCO as the lead organization. (It had invited the Economic and Social Council to consider the matter in an earlier session.)
The idea and practice of tolerance was widely promoted in schools in many member states. Tolerance was held to be an 'endangered virtue' in many parts of the world, particularly those who were under racial and religious wars, such as those in Bosnia and Rwanda. UNESCO said that five key planks were required to overcome intolerance: law, education, access to information, individual awareness and local solutions. Tolerance is thus a political, legal and moral duty to protect and preserve human rights.
The International Day for Tolerance is now celebrated on November 16 every year, in recognition of the Paris Declaration which was signed that day in 1995 by 185 member states.
In 1995, a press conference was held at the United Nations by 12 year old Mark Semotiuk who launched his book "401 Goofy Jokes for Kids" which united kids from Ukraine, Canada and the United States, as one of the symbols for the United Nations Year for Tolerance.
Famous quotes containing the words united, nations, year and/or tolerance:
“Before abstraction everything is one, but one like chaos; after abstraction everything is united again, but this union is a free binding of autonomous, self-determined beings. Out of a mob a society has developed, chaos has been transformed into a manifold world.”
—Novalis [Friedrich Von Hardenberg] (1772–1801)
“Other nations use “force”; we Britons alone use “Might.””
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966)
“We hold on to hopes for next year every year in western Dakota: hoping that droughts will end; hoping that our crops won’t be hailed out in the few rainstorms that come; hoping that it won’t be too windy on the day we harvest, blowing away five bushels an acre; hoping ... that if we get a fair crop, we’ll be able to get a fair price for it. Sometimes survival is the only blessing that the terrifying angel of the Plains bestows.”
—Kathleen Norris (b. 1947)
“... the structure of our public morality crashed to earth. Above its grave a tombstone read, “Be tolerant—even of evil.” Logically the next step would be to say to our commonwealth’s criminals, “I disagree that it’s all right to rob and murder, but naturally I respect your opinion.” Tolerance is only complacence when it makes no distinction between right and wrong.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 2, ch. 2 (1962)