Today, 18th June, marks the International Day for Countering Hate Speech which, this year, falls during Refugee Week.
The International Day for Countering Hate Speech was created by the U.N. General Assembly in July 2021. The UN’s working definition of ‘hate speech’ is ‘any kind of communication in speech, writing or behaviour, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are…’
Hate-speech is often a precursor to acts of violence, and indeed to genocide. So, to counter hate speech, and the hatred which fuels it, is to resist violence and to work for peace.
What is hatred?
In Elif Shafak’s recent novel, There are Rivers in the Sky, a young girl from the Yazidi community called Narin asks her grandmother about hatred: ‘Why so much hatred towards us?’.
Her Grandmother replies: –
‘Hatred is a poison served in three cups. The first is when people despise those they desire – because they want to have them in their possession. It’s all out of hubris! The second is when people loathe those they do not understand. It’s all out of fear! Then there is the third kind – when people hate those they have hurt’.
‘But why?’
‘Because the tree remembers what the axe forgets.’
(E. Shafak, There Are Rivers in the Sky, London, Penguin, 2024, p. 43)
I find this to be a powerful metaphor: hatred is a poison which is served in different cups.
‘People loathe those they do not understand. It’s all out of fear!’.
How true is this today, not least when it comes to hatred towards those seeking sanctuary and safety?
How, then, to counter hatred? How to counter hate speech?
One way is by creating opportunities for people to know and understand one another. It is through encounter that people become less afraid of one another so less likely to hate one another. When I encounter another person and come to know them, I am more likely to see the humanity I share with them.
This is a key part of the community project work which JRS UK has been doing: working to create spaces of encounter, trust, and understanding between different groups through activities such as gardening, litter-picking, and board games. Through such encounter, fear of one another slowly dissipates and so too does hatred.
In addition, we have been learning about how to listen and respond when people do express hatred or hostility.
This can be rather challenging.
How not to hate those who themselves hate? How to see the humanity in the very people who use language which dehumanises?
Working with an organisation called Who is Your Neighbour?, the community projects team have been learning practices of listening and dialogue which have been helpful in this regard.
We’ve been working on ways to open up the conversation when hate-filled views are expressed, how to understand the experience that may lie behind the words of hatred, and how to give a person or a group space to think through what they are saying and to self-critique.
Through non-judgmental listening, fuelled by love, hatred is countered. ‘Perfect loves casts out fear’ (1 Jn 48). And – perhaps one could add – hatred too.
In loving people, it becomes possible to separate their views from the essence of who they are: to look upon people with understanding and without condemnation, even if one critiques what they say.
In receiving love and loving others, one can cast out fear and break the vicious cycles of hatred which tear people apart.
Dwelling in Love, one can counter hate speech and see humanity in those whom it would be easy to condemn.
