{UAH} Hate speech's terrible, but it still beats people not being allowed to speak out
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Hate speech's terrible, but it still beats people not being allowed to speak out
A South Sudan government soldier prepares to deploy from the capital, Juba on January 13, 2013 as fighting continued to rage in South Sudan. There is a conversation we Africans have never really had; the one about the social shape of our countries, writes Charles Onyango-Obbo.PHOTO/FILE/AFP.
In Summary
- The discussion between, say, the Luo and Kikuyu about whether they want to be citizens of the same Kenya, or the Baganda and Banyankole about whether they should be part of the same Uganda, is legitimate.
- You can run away from them for even 100 years, or suppress them, but they will always pop up
By CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBOMore by this Author
Kenya is presently in a tizzy over hate speech. The country, those who are worried say, is being torn apart by bitter and explosive ethnic tensions, which are partly being fuelled by hate speech on social media and FM radio programmes.
Politicians from both sides of the political divide, and some chaps who have been vociferous on social media, have been charged or fingered over hate speech.
Let's make no mistake, hate speech can be deadly, as the post-election violence in Kenya of early 2008 in which nearly 1,500 were killed and 600,000 displaced reminds us.
And if that is not enough, how can we forget the horrors of the 1994 Rwanda genocide in which nearly one million were killed? The State forces used radio to mobilise murderous gangs to hunt down the Tutsi.
First, there is always competition among social groups in society. Those who are losing out, tend to lash out angrily – and hate speech is increasingly their first weapon of choice.
Those who have something to lose feel threatened, and thus rally their groups (religion) or ethnic community to get into the trenches and defend their thing. Like the losers, they too are increasingly resorting to hate speech.
If you take away the disagreeable form in which these two groups express themselves, then you have to acknowledge both have legitimate reasons to speak out.
'A VERY DIFFICULT CHAT'
There are formal legal institutions that are supposed to fight these battles for us – Parliament, government, civil servants, and so forth. If people felt these institutions were speaking for their interests, they would not have any need to themselves fight for their tribe or whatever.
In many ways, then, hate speech occurs where there is a governance vacuum or failure. Secondly, sectarian sentiments have always been there in society. The difference is that today there are tools – Twitter, Facebook, blogs, FM stations – that are democratic avenues for us to express them.
We must be careful not to see a technological shift, as also indicating an underlying shift (for the worst, in this case) in society.
Most importantly, there is a conversation we Africans have never really had; the one about the social shape of our countries.
Virtually all African countries were cobbled together by colonialists in the 19th Century. The Sudanese had a very difficult chat about Sudan that was carried out through a bitter war that lasted nearly 30 years.
It ended in South Sudan breaking away as an independent nation. Then, of course, the South Sudanese too went for each other's throats.
Constitution-making, like that which happened in Kenya in 2010, doesn't solve this problem because the territorial entity of a country is taken as a given.
'THEY ALWAYS POP UP'
But the discussion between, say, the Luo and Kikuyu about whether they want to be citizens of the same Kenya, or the Baganda and Banyankole about whether they should be part of the same Uganda, is legitimate. Those conversations can be depressing, and even frightening, but they are what produce lasting internal social settlements.
You can run away from them for even 100 years, or suppress them, but they will always pop up as they have done in Britain, where Scotland will have a referendum in September that could decide whether or not it remains part of the Union.
Often, the results can be surprising, as events in Scotland are revealing. The Scottish nationalists pushed for the voting age to be lowered, so that Scots as young as 16 could vote.
That was because they thought the majority of people between 16 and 18 would vote for independence. Now polls are showing the majority of this group is likely to vote for the Union!
The unionists, meanwhile, saw women voters as being more pragmatic and sensible than men on these matters, and threw a lot of time and resources campaigning among them in the hope that they would vote to keep Scotland in the UK. Guess what?
The latest polls show the majority of women are leaning towards an independence vote!
It is important to ensure that destructive extremists don't hijack these debates, but the only countries that have successfully reduced hate speech are those that allowed it to burn out through their expression.
Mr Onyango-Obbo is Editor of Mail & Guardian Africa (mgafrica.com). Twitter:@cobbo3
Democracy is two Wolves and a Lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed Lamb contesting the results.
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