The hate speech pandemic

In recent days, hate speech once again reared its ugly head on the Maltese islands.

The past days have seen people calling for young activists - who were demonstrating in favour of immigrants held on tourist boats in Maltese waters to be let into the country - to be shot and gang-raped; figures such as a Maltese international football player told to go back to his country, in spite of the fact that he was born and raised in Malta, by a football club official; and also some self-styled patriots responding to protests in favour of the Black Lives Matter movement and calling for justice for Lassana Cisse with the Nazi salute.

The latter point is especially ironic when one recalls that it was the Nazi regime which aimed to bomb Malta into submission just over 70 years ago, but we digress.

It isn’t the first time that hate speech or hate crimes have been prevalent. Lassana Cisse was murdered in cold blood in what has been said to be a racially-motivated attack, while the aforementioned type of speech make an appearance every time illegal immigrants enter the news cycle.

The government, in response, inaugurated a new hate crime and speech unit in October last year. So far this year, five people have been charged with hate crimes, while the unit itself has handled 34 reports. Politicians from all sides – including former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and his successor Robert Abela – have also been very vocal in their condemnation for all forms of hate speech.

And yet, recent events – namely the plight of immigrants stuck outside Maltese waters, and a protest in favour of the Black Lives Matter movement – show that hate speech is not only alive and well, but may be becoming worryingly more prevalent.

When discussing the matter of racial hate speech specifically, one thing needs to be remembered: Malta is a nation built by immigrants. This is not groundbreaking news – Malta was largely uninhabited towards the tenth century, before it was repopulated by – according to DNA analysis – clans, likely Arabic, who resided in the then-Arab held Sicily and Calabria. As historical rulers came and went, that only further expanded our gene pool.

Any notion of some sort of ‘pure’ and untainted Maltese ethnicity is therefore not borne out of any established facts. And yet racial hate speech attempts to draw a difference between locals and foreigners simply on the basis of their place of origin and, more so, their skin colour. It is no coincidence that one would be hard-pressed to find similar examples targeted against foreigners with a fairer complexion.

Time and time again, freedom of speech has been used to justify these examples of hate speech – with the advocators of such remarks and their contents even arguing that the establishment of a police unit dedicated to hate speech and hate crime is more akin to the state envisioned in George Orwell’s 1984 rather than that of a properly functioning democracy.

It is true that the line between freedom of speech and hate speech is sometimes blurred; some comments may be downright offensive, but not illegal. However, criminalizing the incitement of violence or threats – the like of which we have seen several times over the past few days – is certainly a justified point where the aforementioned line should be drawn. Freedom of speech does not equate to freedom from the consequences.

This all being said, hate speech is not something which can be eradicated overnight. In some, it can likely never be eradicated at all. This is why education is key. It is more important now than ever, in a world which has grown closer than ever before, that the principles of integration and acceptance are transmitted to our children.

Only in that manner can we have a future without hate speech and hate crimes. Till then however, the fight against hate speech and hate crimes must go on.