Before Fight Against Hate Speech Boomerangs

By UbongAbasi Ise   | Published On Monday 11^th September, 2017 in The Sensor Newspaper, p.3

“Those willing to give up a little liberty for a little security deserve neither security nor liberty.” - Benjamin Franklin

Looking back at the annals of history, one would find out that major catastrophes that befall humanity had their origin deeply rooted in speeches of hatred. Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo made no historical mistake when he pertinently pointed out at Nazi Germany and Rwanda as the hotspots of hate speeches where war of words eventually gave vent to reckless brutality unprecedented in the history of mankind. Similarly, as a scholar of history, I would launch incursion into the past, beam spotlight, and bring up few historical instances in a way that would help this discourse in tackling the issue of hate speech facing Nigeria today.

It would interest us to know that prior to the First World War, some Austrian writers maintained that squabble between nations must be settled not at the conference table but on the battlefield; not with the pen, but with the sword, not with ink, but with blood. This position existed side by side with tendentious journalism which whipped up cruel hatred against Germans who were quite domineering in Europe at the time. This backdrop remained latent until the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria by a Bosnian student in Sarajevo on 18^th June 1914 which precipitated the existing hostility to the extent that brought the world to the grip of the Great War.

Hate speech played out again with the emergence of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party in Germany, just before the World War II. Of course, Hitler would not relent in running hateful, inciting speeches against Weimar government and Versailles Treaty. In his 1925 autobiographical book, Mein Kampf, in which his personal views were expressed, Hitler submitted that “the whole of nature is a continuous struggle between weakness, and eternal victory of the strong over the weak… one is either the hammer or the anvil. We confess that it is our purpose to prepare the German people for the role of the hammer.” Indeed, this excerpt became part of Nazi thinking, and thus racism became basic doctrine of Nazi ideology. Hitler’s speeches were decorated with hues of hatred for non-Aryans. To him, Germans were superior race because of their Aryan and Nordic ancestry, and Jews, Slavs, blacks and so on were seen as inferior to Aryans. It was this bizarre expression of hatred on other races that fanned the embers of the Second World War which left the world devastated and broken.

In Africa, we have a fare share of history of blood whereby Rwanda, in 1994, lost more than 800,000 lives to genocide. This calamity began with hate speeches as Prof. Osinbajo noted.

Particularly, the principal orator and purveyor of hate speech in Rwanda was Leon Mugesera, a confidante of the president. His speeches were filled with genocidal intent. Mugesera insistently called for destruction of Rwanda's Tutsi population. Here, it is significant to note that Mugesera himself did not commit genocide in real terms, but his speech provoked hostility against Tutsi in the Gisenyi region of the small African country. According to report, Mugesera left Rwanda more than a year before the killings of hundreds of thousands began in 1994. His crime involved words alone which featured prominently in the buildup to the genocide.

           

            Still in Rwanda before the crisis peaked, a more provocative and hysterical journalism emerged. There was, particularly, a print media outfit, Kangura, that designed its editorial agenda in a way that attacked "the dominating spirit of extremist Tutsis." In December 1990, Kangura issued the "Ten Commandments of the Hutu." According to William A. Schabas in his 2000 article on Rwandan Genocide, "Ten Commandments" described the Tutsi as "thirsty for blood and power, seeking to impose their hegemony over Rwanda by rifle and cannon." Tutsi were accused of using their two favourite weapons, "money and Tutsi women".  Accordingly, Kangura warned that "every Hutu must know that Tutsi women, wherever they are, work for their own ethnic group. The report says that in the early years of the 1990s, Rwanda's print media were abuzz with hateful invective and racist caricatures. And this trend continued till the country was overtaken by the carnage that saw hundreds of thousands people losing their lives in 1994.

            Given the foregoing, it is therefore not out of place for Nigerian government today to identify the danger of hate speech as it is capable of sinking the whole nation. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, the other day, equated hate speech to terrorism and promised to deal with it in line with the Prevention of Terrorism Act (As Amended) 2011. He maintained that silence over it contributed in promoting genocide in Nazi Germany and Rwanda as noted above.

Buhari                                                 Udom

            In a way, the battle against hate speech should begin with the idea of what constitute the hate speech because it would be a gross error in a democratic setting to pass every opposing view as hate speech. According to the original Draft Convention on the Crime of Genocide of the United Nations, hate speech has to do with “direct public incitement to any act of genocide, whether the incitement be successful or not.” Put differently, when a speech contains threatening, discriminating and inciting elements this is when it should be viewed as something that is tantamount to terrorism. Acknowledging the dangerous presence of hate speech should not mean that criticism on government policies, actions and inactions of officials of government should be outrightly be classified as hate speech. The human rights lawyer Femi Falana, while describing the purported directive of the federal government to the military to clamp down on purveyors of hate speech as unlawful, maintained that as the Federal Government is entitled to continue to defend the corporate existence of Nigeria, the right of any group to disagree with the official stand within the ambit of the law and should be respected. And I believe he is not the only Nigerian sharing this view. It therefore becomes apparent that attempt to suppress opposing views with the pretext of combating hate speech can boomerang in a way that renders the APC government suspicious and unpopular, especially, as the contest for power in 2019 is around the corner.

            Gagging the governed is one act that portrays the power that be as tyranny government, and this, more often than not, backfires. Take for instance the public uproar that greeted social media bill in 2015 when APC Senator, Bala Ibn N'Allah from Kebbi South, sponsored a bill titled 'A Bill for an Act to Prohibit Frivolous Petitions and Other Matters Connected therewith', which provided that ''where any person through text message, tweets, WhatsApp or through any social media posts any abusive statement knowing same to be false with intent to set the public against any person and group of persons, an institution of government or other such bodies established by law shall be guilty of an offence and upon conviction, shall be liable to an imprisonment of 2 years or a fine of 2 million naira or both...''. Had the bill succeeded, the present APC-controlled democratic government would have shared the same thing in common with Buhari’s military junta era when the Head of State declared in Section 1 of Decree 4, 1984 that '' any person who publishes in any form, whether written or otherwise, any message, rumour, report or statement....which brings or is calculated to bring the Federal Military Government or the Government of a state or public officer to disrepute, shall be guilty of an offence...''. Following this Decree, two of the Guardian newspaper's editorial staff, Nduka Irabor and Tunde Thompson were imprisoned for some months and financial sanction was imposed on the Guardian newspaper. This state of affairs brought the Gen. Muhammadu Buhari’s military government into disrepute, and it almost cost Buhari victory in 2015 if not that Nigerians wanted away Goodluck Jonathan’s government.

            It is the sincere hope of Nigerians that criticisms on wrong policies and programmes  of government would not be passed for hate speech, and if the battle against hate speech becomes a ruse for silencing opposing voices, then this would definitely cross the red line, and breaks the backbone of democracy. And this could puncture APC opportunity come 2019.

To avoid the reenactment of Rwanda experience in Nigeria, federal government should earnestly begin war against speech of hatred with Coalition of Northern Youth Groups (CNYG) which issued an ultimatum to Ndigbo living in the northern Nigeria to quit their land before October 1 this year. This trend is capable of tearing this country into shreds.

In Akwa State on January 2^nd, 2017, the public were overtaken by bewilderment at Ibom Hall grounds during New Year thanksgiving service where Mr.  Udom Emmanuel made a speech that implicitly incited the youths against those from other side of political divide. Our leaders should eschew from similar incongruity. As 2019 electioneering gathers momentum, inciting speeches similar to Udom’s utterance should be avoided to obviate fratricidal calamity in the life of the state.

Yes! I am UbongAbasi Ise. For Comment, send SMS to 08189914609 | Email: ubongabasiise@gmail.com  | Twitter: @ubongabasi_ise

Credit: The Sensor Newspaper