Author: Lee Kuan Yean

Today marks the 349th anniversary of the day Charles II of England rode triumphantly into London and claimed the English crown. It was also his 30th birthday; as birthday presents go, that’s quite a good one. It was the end of the English Civil War, and the end of an era remembered for its overzealous Puritanism and wanton persecution of effectively the entire populace. Charles had spent the preceding years either running from persecution in his own country, or living in exile in France. For him to have escaped and survived to the point where he was able to return to his kingdom after 11 years is a testament to his character and to those who helped him.

Charles is today remembered as a rather merry character, and for being the first of the modern British monarchs. There is a facet of his kingship that underlines his right to be called a modern monarch, that being his attitude towards Catholics in his realm. It’s a bit ironic in a sense, as it is this particular modern hallmark that places him alongside some of the most revered and well-remembered leaders in the history of the ancient world: religious tolerance.

Charles was a king torn between a Protestant parliament (which itself was bitterly divided between Anglicans and Presbyterians) and a debt owed to his Catholic subjects. It can’t have been pleasant. The legacy of Henry VIII demanded that English monarchs be good Protestants, and that the Catholic cause was to be quashed. Yet Catholic subjects were the reason Charles was alive, having assisted him with his escape to France while the country descended into a frenzy of religious zealotry. Charles never forgot the kindness of the Catholics, and promised to convert to Catholicism, a promise which he fulfilled on his deathbed. But during his lifetime as king, he set the ball rolling for what was eventually (albeit slowly) to lead to the total emancipation of the Catholics.

That in itself is not the most shining example of religious tolerance. There are better, much older examples:

In the 3rd century BC, Ashoka the Great of India declared in his edicts that “all religions should reside everywhere, for all of them desire self-control and purity of heart.”

In 622 BC, the Prophet Muhammad drew up the Constitution of Medina, and included a section specifically addressing the rights of non-Muslims in Medina. These included the right to freedom of religion and the right to decline participation in the religious wars of the Muslims. At the same time, the constitution mandated the responsibility of each citizen, regardless of faith, to defend the city in the event that it came under attack from external invaders.

After the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem during the Crusades of the 12th century, Saladin allowed the Christians to remain in the city, and invited the Jews to return – though that was how things had always been in the city until the Crusaders came along and massacred everyone nearly a hundred years before.

These are just three examples of many, nearly all of which are associated with people who are dearly loved in history. Does this, I wonder, provide us with a theme for the future?

It’s a sad fact that religious wars have alternated with religious harmony in a cyclical fashion for centuries, even millennia. The key to prolonged harmony cannot therefore lie in either war or tolerance. We must go beyond our comfort zones, abandon our prejudices and examine the exact nature of tolerance. I do not believe that tolerance is a word that describes the sociological place to which we should aspire. It is only one step away from intolerance, and only two from persecution. What we should seek is understanding.

Understanding is about learning what it is to be something that you are not. It is the ability to feel the joys and pains of other humans, even when a fundamental principal grates with you. To choose not to understand is to be radiantly ignorant of the human condition, a trait often masked by a front of supposed godliness. Answering to the divine by separating it from the secular is arrogant and to be done at the risk of widespread and indomitable peril, as many wars in history have proven.

What Charles II learnt about Catholics is probably something he never would have learnt if not for his great hardship. This rings true for all of us; the things that are worth having above all else are those which are the hardest to obtain. Whatever we go through in order to achieve a new age of enlightenment will probably be unpleasant, but if we swallow our pride, open our minds and begin to understand, it might just be worthwhile.