Our society has become highly intolerant. This intolerance is exhibited both by religious fundamentalists and the so-called 'liberals' that dominate our urban areas. The liberals had welcomed General Musharraf because his PR managers had them fooled. His first picture holding two puppies and his subsequent attendance of various fashion shows endeared him to them. In reality, he was an intolerant, illiberal despot and the worst kind of male chauvinist as was proven by his remarks to Washington Post that "women of Pakistan get themselves raped in order to get foreign visas". By his orders, the 80 years old Baloch leader Nawab Bugti was murdered just for the crime of having exercised his right of dissent. Our uneducated religious fundamentalists are on the other extreme, denying others of even the right to enjoy life. The women are victims of both. The liberals don't tolerate women if they choose to wear the hijab while the fundamentalists are also daggers drawn if a woman exercises her right not to observe hijab or wear clothes of her choice. The resort to frequent violent sectarian strife in our cities is also symptomatic of this same endemic disease called 'intolerance'. Tolerance, though, is necessary for making a pluralistic, democratic society. -ALI TARIQ, London, UK, via e-mail, November 23.