Being tolerant of another race, culture, religion or set of values is to recognise the rights of a particular community to have its own space in society, even if one disagrees with the beliefs and practices.

Acceptance, however, requires more. It requires one to see another community's beliefs and practices as valid as one's own, and to place humanity before social constructs such as culture and race. For a multiracial society to work, tolerance is the minimum condition. But the extent to which a society is truly multiracial can be seen from the levels at which its members accept the involvement of other racial and cultural groups in their personal lives. This ranges from casual association to friendship. An inter-racial marriage is thus the ultimate test of the extent to which people are willing to accept another culture or set of beliefs in their personal spheres.

This is not to say that someone who rejects a person of another race in his or her family is racist. It simply means that he or she is not able to walk the talk of true multiracialism, and is still beset with a culturally insular attitude. For culture, which is particular, is granted more importance than human relations, which are universal.

Tan Chui Hua (Ms)

NOT THERE YET

'By linking race to these social constructs, the writer seems to demonstrate that we still have a long way to go before achieving true multiracialism.''

SEAH SU CHEN (MS), responding to Mr Nageswaran's view in his Forum letter last Saturday, in which he reasoned that the preference to marry within one's own race should not be construed as racism as each community may wish to maintain the practices, culture and precepts which are unique to it