PROFESSOR DR MUHAMMAD MUMTAZ ALI delves deep into the causes of hate speech and violence being committed across the world, and presents practical solutions to the problem from ethical and spiritual perspective.
In the presence of the constitutional provisions of several countries and their hate speech laws, the graft of hate speeches and violence is going high and high day by day. The current statistics provides a consistent framework to see the rising trends. For example, from 2005 to 2010, hate crimes motivated by religious hate speeches have upward course. In 2005 hate crimes constituted 17.1 per cent due to hate speeches. In 2010 the number reached to 20 per cent. This is the highest rate of crimes motivated by hate speeches for the last 18 years since the record was first collected in 1992.
The official statistics of several countries shows that hate crimes against some specific communities are at their highest levels since 2001. The most recent data indicates that in a one-year period, from 2009 to 2010, there was a shocking 42 per cent increase in hate speeches and crimes against some communities.
It seems that the legal measures adopted by the national and international organisations and governments have failed to prevent the environment of hate speech, violence and hate crimes. Our concern in the 2015 Parliament of the World’s Religion seems to be genuine and most urgent. No part of the world, no continent is free from hate speeches and violence. It is argued that there is an indisputable link between inflammatory, bigoted rhetoric and the soaring incidence of hate speeches and crimes everywhere in the world. It’s high time we need to pay serious attention. Unfortunately, the causes, obstacles and solutions have not been studied seriously.
Hate Speech is considered harmful. What are the causes, obstacles and solutions?
We generally focus on implications. It is asserted that we all are facing the implications of hate speeches and hate crimes. Hence, in certain cases, we are told to accept these as a part of life. Some others suggest that we should react to this unwarranted hate speech and violence. We should not allow insults to unduly bother or disturb us. Conversely, some of us were probably made to feel convinced to socialise to return, perhaps to respond, with violence. If insulting language is “part of the game” in contemporary discourse, why should we become uniquely concerned when the insults fall into the category of hate speech? Online websites are full of reports of hate speeches, hate crime, and violence. We do not need to waste our time to report all of them which have exhausted us. We individually, even collectively, feel helpless.
There are many solutions. For example, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of UNO contains the right to equal protection under the law in Article 7, which proclaims: “All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination”.
No doubt, the UDHR was decisive in setting a framework and agenda for human rights protection, but the Declaration is non-binding. It is also a reality that there exists a series of binding documents that have been subsequently created to offer a more robust protection from limiting the freedom of expression and protection against discrimination. Out of those documents, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is the most important and comprehensive when addressing hate speech and contains the right to freedom of expression in Article 19 and the prohibition of advocacy to hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence in Article 20.
We should not repeat what kinds of documents have been produced to protect our dignity and rights. What is important to us at this stage of our concern is to realise that all the empirical phenomena and statistics compelled us to rethinking about our documents, policies, strategies and activities adopted and practised by national and international agencies and organisations.
Our observation of happenings and analysis of data demand from us that the experts and concerned authorities and every one of us have to make new efforts to comprehend the root causes, obstacles and realistic solutions to the problem of hate speech, hate crime and violence.
Let us investigate into the root causes of the problems of hate speech and violence.
1. FAILURE OF ETHICAL, SPIRITUAL, MORAL UNDERSTANDING OF LIFE
There is no time and space to present, discuss and analyse here in detail our subject. Generally we are in haste. We propose to suggest some immediate solutions to the problems without diagnosing them carefully and deeply. In our time there exists an especial tendency which does not allow us to look into the root causes of the problems. We do not want to understand the truth and reality of the problem though we make claim that we are looking for root causes. We do not make efforts to go deep beyond surface and see things in their original form.
Unconsciously, for example, we overlook the truth and reality of the problem and take happenings around us as a reality and end up with mixing reality with happenings. In truth, every problem of our time requires both the immediate and long term solutions. We focus only on immediate solutions. The long term and lasting measures have been forgotten as they demand a deep and dispassionate analysis of the problems of hate speech, war, violence, etc.
At this stage, I would suffice to refer to my conclusion. I have realised, based on the data collected from several sources and its analysis that the root causes of the rise of the environment of hate speeches, hate crimes, violence and terrorism lie basically in our failure to realise the truth and reality of life and the world based on an ethical [rational] inquiry, historical and empirical studies, fully supported by ethical [rational], historical and empirical evidence. It is further followed by an equally important failure of us that is our failure to recognise and differentiate between the true actions of people that is religiously sanctioned and pseudo-actions of people, which are committed in the name of religion such as hate speeches and hate crimes.
We accepted, in our modern period, on one side, without ethical [rational] inquiry, historical and empirical evidences, the defeat of spirituality, morality and religion and separated them practically from the mainstream of life and society. In this way, on one hand, we reduce human beings to the level of selfish beings, and on the other hand we accepted and adopted wholeheartedly the notion of material existence of life and the world as truth and reality. We did not realise that the materialistic view of life without spirituality and morality would affect people seriously. This approach to life makes them understand that the real life stands to fulfil their selfish and material interests.
In addition, this phenomenon of selfishness and greed is fully supported by the Machiavellian political culture of our modern world. This political culture has penetrated into social and religious fabric of our life. This was and is the reason that the pseudo-actions [non-religious actions which are committed in the name of religion] become dominant in our life and societies.
The rise of hate speeches, violence, religious fundamentalism, extremism, emotionalism, sectarianism and reactionary responses are all the faces of the same truth and reality – the failure of us to realise the spiritually- and morally-oriented view of life and the world as well as the failure to recognise the difference between true actions, religiously sanctioned, and pseudo-actions. The rising tide of hate speech, violence and terrorism are, on one side, the manifestation of pseudo-actions and, on the other side, the best examples of our failures.
2. FAILURE OF LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES
The second important reason of emergence of the environment of hate speech and violence is the failure of the law enforcement agencies. Laws have been enacted everywhere in the world to limit the freedom of expression and check hate speeches, discrimination and violence but due to the influence of materialistic view of life and Machiavellian political culture that the law enforcement officers do not enforce the law. This hypocritical attitude of law enforcement authorities and agencies has been the source of exploitation of masses for communal and irreligious purposes. How to guarantee that the existing laws are duly enforced without any negligence involves the question of education and training of the law enforcement authorities. Our existing educational system focusses on material dimension of life and ignores spiritual and moral aspects of life. Hence, fails to create peace loving peoples.
3. FAILURE TO DISSEMINATE JUSTICE AND EMERGENCE OF DUALITY IN LIFE
In most of the cases in the world justice is not done. Justice is costly and out of reach of ordinary people. Those who commit hate speeches and violence are not punished according to law. Communal and corrupt forces in administration fail to do justice. From local to regional, from national to international affairs a kind of duality is maintained. It has become a palpable phenomenon. Every event and every person is judged from a particular point of view.
Objective and dispassionate approaches have been shelved. We can read about them only in books. We cannot observe them in practice. No one is questioning authorities and authors who commit injustice. Books on religious phobias are being published and sold by reputed publishers. National and international bodies whose fundamental job is to do justice have been turned into the institutions of injustice. Several national and international issues are still pending for the last several decades. But some other issues are addressed immediately as they belong to some specific communities. Group interest and national interest supersede human interest. All this is the result of lack of spirituality and morality in education, life and society.
4. FAILURE TO INTEGRATE SPIRITUALITY AND MORALITY INTO LIFE AND SOCIETY
Due to lack of spirituality and development of pseudo-actions, people in general and activists of pseudo-actions in particular, have forgotten that we all are accountable for our hidden and open actions and activities on the Day of Judgement before our Creator Allah the Exalted as reminded repeatedly in the Qur’ān. We can hide everything from the eyes of people and go against law but cannot hide anything including intentions from Allah the Almighty, the All-Seeing and All-Hearing. The people, who have forgotten this truth and reality, who are also sitting in authority, have been, on one side, committing continuously unlawful activities and, on the other, ignoring constantly unlawful actions and crimes.
In the presence of constitutional provisions, laws of limitations of freedom of speech and laws of restrictions on hate speech, the hate speeches and violent activities are increasing everywhere in the world. The most interesting but shocking aspect of this is that these things are committed by the highly educated. The biographical sketches of hate love speakers are sufficient to shed light on this undeniable truth. We do not need to take trouble to find out the evidence. The evidence is manifest as one can observe the financial corruption, crimes, hate speeches, violence are not committed by illiterate, uneducated and labour class forces. These are committed by those people who are highly educated and trained professionally with skills and techniques.
SOLUTIONS
1. The Need for Spiritually- and Morally-Oriented Education and Discipline
Millions of people in our civilized world are kept illiterate, uneducated and poor in spite of tremendous resources, natural and other. We spend millions of dollars on the production of weapons and defence budget. We need to realise that this action is neither supported by ethical inquiry nor historical and empirical evidence. The conquests of lands always failed to conquer the hearts of people. We need to eliminate the fear of neighbour as well as reduce our defence budget. We need to spend more and more on education so that all people can be educated. All this depend on spiritually- and morally-oriented education and discipline of people.
As a long term solution we need to realise and remember that we are rational beings. Hence, we need to think and act rationally [ethically]. At present our educational system is suffering from lack of spiritual and moral qualities.
The above analysis reveals the truth and reality that long term solution of hate speech and violence lies in the development of spiritually- and morally-oriented education. Look into some of the observations made by Harry R. Lewis, former Dean of Harvard University, in his work Excellence without a Soul: How a Great University Forgot Education. He says:
I have been a Harvard professor for more than thirty years, having started in 1974. Over the decades I have heard many academic discussions about teaching, about the curriculum, about grading, about athletics, and about responding to student misdeeds. I have almost never heard discussions among professors about making students better people.
In short, universities have forgotten their larger educational role for college students. They have succeeded better than ever, as creators and repositories of Knowledge. But they have forgotten that the fundamental job of undergraduate education is to turn eighteen- and nineteen-year olds into twenty-one and twenty-two-year-olds, to help them grow up, to learn who they are, to search for a larger purpose for their lives, and to leave college as better human beings.
Universities have lost the sense that their educational mission is to transform teenagers, whose lives have structured by their families and their high schools, into adults with learning and wisdom to take responsibility for their own lives and for civil society.
Without bringing change in our educational system as a part of long time planning we cannot expect long lasting solutions. Our political leaders need to understand that this is the need of humanity. No one wants to live a life of hatred and uncertainty. To make life and society safe and secure, every one of us must get spiritually- and morally-oriented education. This is the most important and fundamental right of every human being. The 2015 Parliament of the World’s Religion, to be truthful to its noble objectives, must demand cut in defence budget and increase in educational budget. Uneducated, illiterate people are easily influenced and motivated by hate speeches and causing destruction to our own nations, countries and even to our self. After spending more than thirty years in the field of education, I am more than convinced that most of our problems of contemporary societies are the result of inadequate educational process.
2. The Establishment of International Islamic University Malaysia: A Model of Spiritually- and Morally-Oriented Educational System
The need for spiritually- and morally-oriented education based on rational and empirical lines was first realised in some countries by some thinkers and scholars which was shared with educational ministers of several countries during 70’ and 80’. The net result of these conferences was manifested in the form of the establishment of international Islamic universities on the philosophy of spiritually- and morally-oriented education. My university is one of them. The objective of this university is to produce graduate of moderate thinking on rational and empirical lines.
For this purpose, a comparative method of education is adopted. Students are instructed into several perspectives. It is expected that they can form an independent point of view. My Department – Department of Usuluudin and Comparative Religion – offers courses in comparative perspectives on religions, ideologies and philosophies so that students with an open mind can benefit from all religions and perspectives. Moderate, rational and empirical [scientific] thinking and understanding is encouraged. Literalist, exclusivist and idealist thinking and thought are examined and their shortcomings are exposed. I take this model of education as a measure to counter extremists, emotional, sectarian, and reactionary thinking and thought. It is a practical approach to tackle with the problem of hate speech and violence.
In conclusion, we can say safely that the existing laws and provisions of restrictions on hate speech are not implemented honestly. If we look for some more new laws or measure there is no guarantee that they will be implemented. As a result of this negligence of execution of hate speech checking laws, the tide of hate speech is not stopped. This phenomenon demands as a long term planning against hate speech and violence a rethinking of our understanding of material view of life and the world.
This exercise requires a fresh ethical [rational] inquiry into the materialistic view of life and the world along with historical and empirical evidence. Our analysis also sheds light on the need of change of mindset of people which does not seem to be possible without introducing a radical change in our educational process. A change based on spiritual and moral view of life and the world seems to be indispensible.
[Extracted from the writer’s paper presented in 2015 Parliament of the World’s Religions held in Salt Lake City, UTAH, USA from 15 to 19 October 2015. PROFESSOR DR MUHAMMAD MUMTAZ ALI <[email protected]> teaches in Department of Usuluddin and Comparative Religion, Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences, International Islamic University Malaysia.]