It's not because they are nice and tolerant.
People are threatened, brainwashed and provided with semblance of comfortable life in equal measures. Like that boiled frog, little by little they lost all their basic fundamental rights and freedoms to the point where a large part of the populace doesn't even question what's happening and those who do can't do anything about it. It is a profoundly disheartening to see what happened to the country and how very few cared.