There have been alarming reports recently of what appears to be an impending implosion in Ethiopia. Fears are that it is being stoked by hate speech on Facebook. It was reported that a viral Facebook post led to 80 deaths in October last year, though there had been episodes of ethnic violence in Ethiopia for more than a year prior. In June this year, the BBC reported that popular singer Hachalu Hundessa, whose songs addressed the rights of an oppressed ethnic group, was murdered. His death sparked calls for bloodshed which ended with hundreds of people dead and the burning and destruction of property. Much of the incitement to target ethnic and religious groups was said to be shared via social media. Hundessa’s murder and the ensuing carnage all happened despite Ethiopia’s parliament having passed legislation criminalising hate speech and ‘fake news’ in February this year.
Human Rights Watch and the UN Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression had expressed concerns that the Hate Speech and Disinformation Prevention and Suppression Proclamation Law posed a threat to freedom of expression which is still tenuous in Ethiopia. Instead, it was recommended that the government adopt a comprehensive strategy to address hate speech.
Ethiopia is not the only country faced with this dilemma. In not so recent history, cultivated ethnic hatred led to genocide in Rwanda.
It was 26 years ago, that close to one million people, mostly of Tutsi ethnicity, were murdered in that country following incitement by journalists on a radio station, after years of the Tutsis being stigmatised and dehumanised. Rwanda later enacted a sectarianism law in 2001 and legislation proscribing genocide ideology, genocide minimisation, genocide revisionism, and negationism in 2008. However, subsequent scholarly reviews found that these laws were not only stifling free speech but were being manipulated to silence opposition and critics of the government.
But not all legislation to curb hate speech is geared toward political manipulation. It is well known that European countries have such laws in place and they often extend to online content and materials; for example, statements denying, disputing, minimising, or condoning the Holocaust, or (neo-) Nazi ideas and promoting or distributing Nazi paraphernalia. The European Union’s cybercrime convention also prohibits racist, xenophobic, or anti-Semitic speech, though these continue to occur with increasing regularity. It seems there is a new global culture of online animosity and minorities are most often the targeted victims.
The fact is that while laws are necessary in order to prevent societies descending into total chaos, even the threat of punishment does little to deter crime. Hence the need for enforcement, usually through the police. However, it is clear that the internet is a sort of no man’s land. It allows for some amount of anonymity and propagators of hate speech can choose to show themselves, as the bolder ones do, hide behind false names, or operate through bots. The latter is more pervasive, particularly in the local context.
Events which occurred between March 2 and now in Guyana have seen a proliferation of hate speech on social media platforms. Long an issue, the vitriol spewed and its acceleration and have seriously harmed already precarious race relations in this country. And although no formal evidence of this exists, it has possibly incited violence as well. While the Guyana Police Force has a cybercrime unit, the online race hate has largely gone unchecked. More recently, in the wake of the recent gruesome murders of Joel and Isaiah Henry in West Berbice there have been violent protests and several people, including political leaders have been accused of making statements which incite racial hatred.
The situation having attained dire proportions, President Irfaan Ali proclaimed last week, that he was deeply grieved, “when I see almost every day on social media, the degree of race baiting, racial hate and racial hostility which pervades the social media platforms”. He added that he was determined to do “everything within my power and to use all the laws at my disposal, to put an end to this behaviour, which can only result in dividing our country and our people”.
The statement issued by the president also said, “Such conduct, publications and utterances constitute grievous criminal offences under the Racial Hostilities, Cybercrime and other similar penal legislation and the State will not hesitate to resort to these provisions in our laws in appropriate circumstances”.
President Ali has to be living in a cocoon if he believes the result is still to be realized or that it would take more hate speech to arrive there. The division already exists. It is constantly stoked by disharmony. A significant contributing factor to our inability to stop this disturbing cycle includes adults teaching children to hate. The chasm will continue to widen as long as we kid ourselves that this is a problem that can be solved simply by law enforcement.
But how serious can we be about mending race relations in this country when politicians, and not just from the governing party, choose to appear on the social media platform of a person who has made extremely divisive statements online? When that platform is a space where salacious posts are made possibly with the intention to inflame, leading to some of the worst examples of hate speech in the comments? Leadership is also a verb, so whoever takes up its mantle must be prepared to influence positive action. Sadly, this is in demonstrably short supply.
