Today’s metropolises contain multiple cultural communities that ask to maintain their own expressions, while wanting to contribute, along with others, to the common future. Cities are, and will increasingly be, melting pots of identities, of multiple languages, diverse traditions or different religious practices.
We can observe that a person attacks another because they belong to a certain social group, because they are of a different nationality, because of their ethnicity, because they are poor, because they are homeless, because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, because of their political affiliation or because they have a disability. Discourses of intolerance and hate speech are rooted in and based on predominant values in society as a whole and serve to make invisible the real causes of those forms of violence that can only be perceived by their concrete consequences, such as extreme poverty, gender-based violence, spatial segregation or homelessness. All of this leads to the emergence of discourses of intolerance and hatred.
Cities and territories of peace must promote tolerance and respect for diversity, as well as promoting coexistence and dialogue. Through the promotion of policies of care, aiming at reducing “constructed vulnerability” and ensuring respect for human rights.
