Governors Island Tolerance Monument-Vital National Symbol

Implicit tribute and testament to racial tolerance
ToleranceMonumentNewmanwithTEXTLBlueforweb.jpg
The appropriated image of Broken-Obelisk by Barnett Newman venerating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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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 Governors Island Tolerance Monument, the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island and the American Immigration Museum on Ellis Island compose a National Heritage Triangle of uniquely historic islands as National Symbols and as visual sentinels of American Freedom and beacons to humanity.

                                                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)

                Description of Tolerance Monument in Historic New Amsterdam:

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 valuethe 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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                Transformation of Governors Island through the Tolerance Park:

The French gift of the Statue of Liberty (inaugurated in 1886) transformed Bedloe Island to Liberty Island in 1956 to become an omnipresent, fundamental American symbol.

Similarly, our proposed 50-acre canvas for the creation of a masterpiece of thematic and visual excellence―the tolerance park Historic New Amsterdam wherein situated the Tolerance Monument as its centerpiece―will transform Governors Island, over time, to Tolerance Island.

The envisaged canvas for profound creativity will explicitly acknowledge constructive pluralism-through-tolerance as an original, historic, indispensable dynamic notion in American freedom since 1624―the year in which it took root on the very place where it was planted first on Governors Island in the Western Hemisphere.

The 50 acres for the work of art―legislatively set aside for that purpose―will generate the third iconic island symbol as a quintessential, fundamental American symbol in New York harbor.

Governors Island, the nation’s oldest natural, historic, primary symbol since 1624, precedes the later created island symbols (“Liberty” by way of the Statue of Liberty and “Welcome” by way of the American Immigration Museum) in historical priority and national meaning.

These three symbols happen to be ideal complements and are fully interdependent with respect to a more insightful understanding of what constitutes American freedom.

Each island embodies a unique facet of its own history that is inherent to the way we experience personal freedom.

Geographically perfectly aligned in a triangle, the island triad thus composes a new ubiquitous American icon: The National Heritage Triangle.

The tolerance park Historic New Amsterdam―a preservation, education and history project for the benefit of future generations―will unveil Governors Island’s currently concealed historic symbolism for the nation.

It will provide our children with an opportunity to understand the twin notions of tolerance and liberty of American freedom and imbue them with a deeper appreciation of the meaning of freedom in a pluralist society through broad awareness and conscious vigilance.

The envisaged park will therefore protect the nation’s ideal and tradition of tolerance and uphold America’s ultimate, active virtue to the world while preserving the national significance of Governors Island's historic symbolism as an enduring beacon to humanity.

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What is Tolerance? (2)


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)

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What is [In]tolerance?

"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 or accuses 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. The culture of liberty-for-all supersedes the strictures of individual religions.

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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What is Tolerance?


"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.


When I think about that, I remember an important man of México called Benito Juárez, who one time said: "El respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz " 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.


Well, I think..."

(Rocío Alejandra, student, City College of San Francisco)

CLICK here for the web site TOLERANCE PARK HISTORIC NEW AMSTERDAM.

Please click here for third-party VIDEO on YOUTUBE

Click here for 34 SLIDES with concise captions for easy understanding

Click here for Foundation's MISSION on National Heritage Triangle site

Click here for QUICK OVERVIEW on Governors Island National Symbol site

Click here for DETAILED HISTORICAL OVERVIEW on the site Tolerance Park

There can be no American Welcome (Ellis Island is its symbol) on the basis of religion, ethnicity and race where there is a deficiency of liberty. Liberty (Liberty Island is its symbol) is not possible in an intolerant society. The portrayal of Barnett Newman’s image―Broken-Obelisk―on Governors Island as implicit tribute to racial tolerance resolves this riddle. It will radiate America's ultimate virtue through the formula:

[dynamic] Tolerance + [static] Liberty = American Freedom [defined]
 

In the Western Hemisphere, religious and ethnic pluralism through Tolerance as a legal-political condition was placed first on Governors Island in New York Harbor in 1624.


"Most of our opinions are based on a dearth of knowledge and lack of understanding."

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