Before Fight Against Hate Speech Boomerangs
By UbongAbasi Ise | Published On Monday 11th
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 18th
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 2nd,
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
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