A Vote Against Hate Speech By Kayode Komolafe kayode.komolafe@thisdaylive To avert the real and present danger posed by the deployment of hate speech in the campaigns towards the 2015 elections is too serious a job to be left to politicians. In any case it is the politicians, publicists and public intellectuals who purvey toxic campaigns as analysis and commentaries. Under the pretext of making political statements they spread political viruses with reckless abandon. In some of these statements, hate speech could be decoded in the form of virulent attacks on the religion, ethnicity or regions of candidates. A noxious mixture of insults, incitement and lies is substituted for electoral debates. It is, therefore the civic duty of individuals and organisations that have as much stake in the country as these propagandists to stop the use of hate speech in the course of legitimate political mobilisation. For instance, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) drew a crucial attention to this worrisome trend recently. Statutory bodies and civil society organisations should also speak out against it. The impact of hate speech should not be underestimated in a country that is increasingly being polarised along the fault lines. Recent history should teach our politicians and their publicists some important lessons. They are fixated on the end of elections unmindful of the means being employed. For some of them, the focus is solely on the win or lose outcome of elections. They are not bothered about deepening democracy; political development is none of their business. They approach every election as if it would be the end of Nigerian history. But as the tragic experiences have shown in this country and elsewhere, the consequences of the build-up to the lection may transcend the declaration by the electoral commission. Terrible things that happen in the electoral process may diminish the quality of the outcome even when it means victory for your party. Several months after the declaration of results in the last Kenya presidential election the winner, President Uhuru Kenyatta, was on trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Hague, the Netherlands. Charges against him were only dropped a few weeks ago. The violence that erupted during the election was traced to alleged incitement of one ethnic group against the other. A number of other Kenyan political figures were charged with incitement to mass murder. For the avoidance of doubt, the 1999 Constitution guarantees freedom of expression. Candidates and their canvassers have the right to promote their platforms and convince the voters why they should be preferred to their opponents. But these political rights should not be a licence to embark on hates speech as some partisans of political parties are doing. Some of the statements that are finding their way into the media in less than two months to the elections are laden with toxic ideas. They are divisive and inciting. They denigrate religious and ethnic groups and assault the human dignity of individuals. When concerned individuals and organisations express fears of violence during or after the election, the often unstated fact is that hate speech that is fast poisoning the public sphere could be one of the causes. Hate speech is a political virus that spreads, causing infection and wreaking great havoc to the health of thebody politic. Like its microbiological equivalent, a political virus issuing from the computer keyboard or the mouth of a political propagandist could multiply fast in the moment of mass hysteria. The consequences could be disastrous for the society. In a way, this negative trend is unwarranted. Parties are supposed to operate within a Code of Conduct. The Code definitely forbids hate speech and other pollutants of the public sphere with or without elections. The Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) should perform its monitoring duty and ensure strict compliance with the Code. It is easy to decipher hate speech in some of the statements made in print, on air or in the cyberspace. Whatever the reckless makers of hate speech may say, the 2015 elections will not be between the “saints” and “devil”. To start with, there will be neither “ saints” nor the “devil” on any ballot paper to be printed by INEC. For instance, the presidential elections will be contested by Nigerians who have strengths and weakness like other human beings. The electorate will vote depending on the balance they make of these strengths and weakness. No candidate is a “saint” or a “devil”. The electoral law does not require qualifications bordering sainthood or devilry. Furthermore, no religious party is registered by the INEC to contest the election. The Nigerian state which would be at the service of whoever wins the election is not defined by any religion. Whoever wins will be the President to Muslims, Christians, adherents of traditional religion, atheist, agnostics and others. That is the reality of the multi-ethnic and multi-religious composition of Nigeria. Is it not therefore illogical to make religion an issue in this election? So, the propagandists should stop looking for inappropriate scriptural metaphors and religious injunctions to debate with their opponents. The issues are patently laid bare on the streets. Some of them are purely existential and unarguably material. You don’t need to make distorted religious invocations to discuss them. The other day, UNICEF posited to our national shame that 119 million Nigerians lack access to modern toilet facilities. Political parties should be coming up with how workable social housing policies would reverse this scandalous trend. Ideas should be flowing on what roles even local governments elected on the platforms of political parties could play in this regard. Despite efforts by state and federal governments over the years, access to potable water is still an issue for millions of Nigerians. Policy debates should be on how to significantly improve on the situation. Such a debate would not be between “agents of the devil” and “saints.” It should be between human beings with divergent policy orientations. But our propagandists are bereft of potent answers to these big issues of our time; they would rather curse their opponents or denigrate their religion and ethnic groups. The political parties especially the major ones have a role to play in bringing sanity into the campaigns. The chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, and his All Progressives Congress (APC)’s counterpart, Chief John Odie-Oyegun, should take responsibility for the statements being made in the name of and in support of their parties. They should not ignore the danger posed by hate speech. Hate speech poses a danger to national cohesion. It is a threat to peace just as it is inimical to democratic development. They should remember Rwanda. They should learn lessons from Bosnia. After all, the indisputable truth is that there must be a nation before any one can win election and exercise his mandate over it.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 12:21:44 +0000
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