Ethnicity, Hate Speech And Nation-Building By Jideofor Adibe

Am I alone in noticing how
Nigerians seem to enjoy
profiling and pouring
invectives on one another
whenever they congregate in
their in-group to discuss the
Nigerian condition? And if
you think this is only a past-
time of the uneducated and
those who believe the world
revolves around their ethnic
enclave, you may be
disappointed. Just read the
‘comments’ that follow most
articles online – whether in
newspapers, blogs or on the
numerous online news-and
features aggregator sites on
the country, and you will
marvel at the capacity of
educated Nigerians, including
Diaspora-based ones who are
presumably living in ‘civilized’
countries, to write from their
base animal instincts. Hate
speech is so pervasive in
Nigeria that it is doubtful if
there are many Nigerians
that are completely free from
the vice.
The irony is that people who
usually complain of being
insulted by other ethnic
groups often use even more
hateful words in describing
the groups they feel have
insulted them. Net effect: the
widening of the social
distance among the different
ethnicities that make up the
country and an exacerbation
of the crisis in the country’s
nation-building.
Several observations could be
made about the interplay
between ethnicity, hate
speech and the crisis in the
country’s nation-building
project:
One, hate speech employs
discriminatory epithets to
insult and stigmatize others
on the basis of their race,
ethnicity, gender, sexual
orientation or other forms of
group membership. It is any
speech, gesture, conduct,
writing or display which could
incite people to violence or
prejudicial action. There are
individuals and groups in this
country who openly relish the
freedom to rain insults and
profile others by
appropriating to themselves
the role of ethnic and
religious champions. The
problem is that hate speech
is often the gateway to
discrimination, harassment
and violence as well as a
precursor to serious harmful
criminal acts. It is doubtful if
there will be hate-motivated
violent attacks on any group
without hate speech and the
hatred it purveys.
Two, there is nothing wrong
in people celebrating pride in
their ethnic and other
cultural identities. It is not
always a manifestation of
ethnicity when someone
proclaims, ‘I am a proud
Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba or Efik’.
Most ethnic groups across
the world feel that their way
of life – their foods, dress,
habits, beliefs, values, and so
forth, are superior to those
of other groups. There is
nothing wrong with this.
The boundary between this
love for one’s ethnic identity
(ethnocentrism) and ethnicity
(which is conflictual in
character) could however be
thin. When our love for our
ethnic identity results in
seeing other groups as
competitors or the reasons
why we are not getting what
we believe we deserve to get,
then there is often recourse
to hate speech to vent our
frustrations on the out-
group. At that point, the love
for one’s ethnic identity has
become conflictual in form
and thus crossed the
boundary to ethnicity. It is
important to underline that
although ethnicity is rooted
in the struggle for the scarce
societal values – political
positions, jobs, contracts,
scholarships etc – by the
various ethnic factions of the
Nigerian elite, it has overtime
acquired an objective
character such that it now
exists independent of the
original causative factors. Not
surprisingly therefore we
have a group of ‘ethnic
watchers’ whose only
vocation appears to be
working the arithmetic of
which ethnic group gets
what, when and how in the
proverbial sharing of the
‘national cake’.
Three, there is an urgent
need to do something about
hate speech because of its
tendency to exacerbate
ethnicity and the crisis in our
nation building. For instance
though the International
Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR) – a multilateral
treaty adopted by the United
Nations General Assembly on
December 16, 1966 and
which came into force from
March 23, 1976 – encourages
countries to prohibit any
advocacy of national, racial,
ethnic or religious hatred, in
practice hate speech is
difficult to prohibit. In the
US for instance, hate speech
is protected as a civil right
(aside from usual exceptions
to free speech such as
defamation, incitement to
riot, and fighting words). In
fact laws prohibiting hate
speech are unconstitutional
in the United States as most
often fail legal challenges
based on the First
Amendment of the Country’s
Constitution which prohibited
the restriction of free speech.
In the US law courts, even
‘fighting words’ – which are
categorically excluded from
the protection of the First
Amendment – are not that
easy to separate from hate
speech.
An insight into how the
American jurisprudence
protects hate speech is in the
way the law treats the Ku
Klux Klan – one of the worst
purveyors of racial hatred in
that country. In a landmark
case, Brandenburg v. Ohio
(1969), the arrest of an Ohio
Klansman named Clarence
Brandenburg on criminal
syndicalism charges, based
on a KKK speech that
recommended overthrowing
the government, was
overturned in a ruling that
has protected rascals of all
political persuasions ever
since. In a unanimous
judgment, Justice William
Brennan argued that “the
constitutional guarantees of
free speech and free press
do not permit a State to
forbid or proscribe advocacy
of the use of force or of law
violation except where such
advocacy is directed to
inciting or producing
imminent lawless action and
is likely to incite or produce
such action.” In another
important case, Snyder v.
Phelps (2011), Westboro
Baptist Church, which has
achieved some notoriety for
celebrating the 9/11 attacks
and picketing military
funerals, was sued by the
family of Lance Corporal
Matthew Snyder who was
killed in Iraq in 2006 for
intentional infliction of
emotional distress after it
picketed during the
Corporal’s funeral. In an 8-1
ruling, the U.S. Supreme
Court upheld Westboro’s
right to picket.
There are at least four key
arguments for justifying free
speech in American
jurisprudence– the
importance of discovering the
truth by allowing ideas to
compete freely in the
marketplace of ideas, free
speech is regarded as an
aspect of self-fulfillment, it is
also seen as indispensable for
a citizen to participate in a
democracy and there is the
deep suspicion of
government and a belief that
only free speech can restrain
the government from
trampling on the rights of the
citizens.
Away from American free
speech jurisprudence, hate
speech is prohibited in
several jurisdictions such as
Canada where advocating
genocide or inciting hatred
against any ‘identifiable
group’ is an indictable
offence under the country’s
Criminal Code with maximum
prison terms of two to
fourteen years. In the United
Kingdom, several statutes
criminalize hate speech
against several categories of
persons. In South Africa, hate
speech (along with incitement
to violence and propaganda
for war) is specifically
excluded from protection of
free speech in the
Constitution. The Promotion
of Equality and Prevention of
Unfair Discrimination Act,
2000 in fact contains the
following clause: “[N]o person
may publish, propagate,
advocate or communicate
words based on one or more
of the prohibited grounds,
against any person, that
could reasonably be
construed to demonstrate a
clear intention to― (a) be
hurtful;(b) be harmful or (c)
to incite harm and (d)
promote or propagate
hatred”.
Four, how should the
government tackle the
menace of hate speech-
should it follow the American
model and believe that the
ability to live with speeches
that shock or awe should be
a small price to pay for
safeguarding free speech and
that Nigerians should see it
as part of the process of
nurturing the culture of
tolerance? Or should it follow
the European and South
African model that explicitly
prohibit hate speech? My
personal opinion is that the
government should go for a
cross between the two. For
instance using the law to
prohibit free speech could
sometimes be
counterproductive. A good
example of this is what
happened in the Australian
state of Victoria where a law
banning incitement to
religious hatred has led to
Christians and Muslims
accusing each other of
inciting hatred and bringing
legal actions against each
other that only served to
further inflame community
relations.
I will recommend the
following measures: There is
an urgent need to develop, in
conjunction with critical
organs of the society such as
media owners and
practitioners, taxonomy of
what constitutes hate speech.
Media houses through their
unions should incorporate
these as part of good
journalism practice and
impose sanctions on erring
members who publish or
broadcast hate speech-laden
materials. The National
Orientation Agency, in
concert with civil society
groups and community
leaders, should also embark
on a campaign against the
use of hate speech. In the
same vein, Internet Service
providers should be
encouraged to bring down
blogs and websites they host
which publish, promote or
give unfettered space for the
expression of free speech.
Above all it should be
impressed upon the political
leadership at all levels that a
deep distrust of the
government is at the heart of
the sort of free speech
jurisprudence you have in the
United States and that
Nigerians have the same level
of distrust of their
governments.

#CONSENSUS 2015