Examining the roots of violence and extremism
Documentary series seeks to unpack why hatred exists and how it is being exploited by despots to gain and retain influence, writes John Harvey
The past few years have seen the rise of populist leaders who are not particularly interested in whether the world is at peace or not.
These figures will use any means necessary to secure power and have recognised that if they zero in on sections of society who perceive themselves to be disaffected, driving home the narrative that “others” are responsible for their circumstances, they can rally tremendous support.
Sowing division is the name of the game, and hate is what is used to play it.
Why We Hate, a six-part documentary series streaming on Showmax, seeks to unpack why hatred exists and how it is being exploited by despots to gain and retain influence.
Not only does the series look at scientific and cultural explanations, but also modern tools that are employed to deliberately stoke animosity between different groups of people.
Social media has become something of a devil’s pitchfork in this regard.
Because people are only reading, watching and liking what resonates with their own beliefs they have become blind to the experiences of others. Meanwhile, political manipulators bombard these platforms with targeted marketing campaigns, painting anyone of the opposing view as an enemy to be feared.
Search engine algorithms are also complicit, according to Safiya Noble, a professor of communications at the University of Southern California.
Noble examined how Dylann Roof, the young white supremacist who carried out the 2015 Charleston church shooting, became radicalised.
She found that Roof had done a Google search on “black on white crime”, and was led to websites that “looked like they might be credible information sites” but in actual fact were white supremacy sites.
She explains: “Google is an advertising platform. You can pay to outbid the next company. You optimise certain words in relation to your content.
“The problem is search engines like Google have become authoritative in our culture. So you might search for something like the weather, and the results are usually pretty accurate, but that reinforces our trust that if you look for something more complex like ‘black on white crime’, it’s also going to be authoritative.”
Extremism is also put under the microscope in the series. Remarkably, extremist groups at the opposite ends of the scale share identical traits in terms of their members’ make-up.
Jesse Morton, a white American who formed the radical Brothers of Revolution Muslim, preached hatred towards the US and Israel and devised several terror plots that were foiled. He eventually reformed.
So too did Frank Meeink, except the Philadelphian spent his day as a neo-Nazi not a Muslim extremist.
Both men had been severely abused as children and found themselves ostracised by their peers, leading them to seek out any groupings where they might find acceptance, regardless of the ideology.
The science behind human hatred is rooted in competition for resources, and notions that perceived enemies are threatening to move in on a particular turf.
Episode 1 of Why We Hate explains how chimpanzees in the Congo actually patrol their territory’s borders for fear of other groups encroaching, but if they feel their numbers are strong enough, they will invade the neighbouring land and eat their rivals’ young alive.
Yet only a short distance away from the chimpanzees’ forest is a community of bonobos, or Pygmy chimpanzees, which is able to rely on more abundant resources.
The bonobos are far more peaceful and do not display any aggressive behavior towards others.
Humans, according to primatologists interviewed for the series, tend towards chimpanzee, not bonobo, attitudes.