Drawing the line on hate speech

With so many proponents pushing for the freedom of speech, some may wonder where the line is drawn when it comes to hate speech.

Singapore academician Cherian George, in a talk last night on “The Global Assault on Religious Tolerance”, admitted that there is a “big debate” on where the line should be drawn.

Citing international human rights standards, George, who is an associate professor of journalism at the Hong Kong Baptist University, said the line should be drawn when there are elements of incitement.

“When a speech crosses the line into incitement – people being instigated to cause harm to other people – that’s where we draw the line.

“If it is merely offending feelings, it should be legal – not that it’s something good, or should be promoted – but if it is a problem, we solve it through non-legal means. We don’t lock people up for it,” said George during the programme held in Kuala Lumpur.

However, George, whose research centres on freedom of expression, noted that many societies around the world had opted for more “traditional standards”.

“They don’t wait for speech to incite harm – the moment it offends and hurts feelings, they make it illegal.

“One country that does this is my own, Singapore,” said George, whose latest book, titled “Hate Spin” highlights examples of religious right movements in the United States, Indonesia and India, among others.

Noting that Malaysia, too, has similar laws, he added that Singapore’s law, citing its Penal Code, was “not original”.

“This is copied and pasted it from the Indian Penal Code.

The case of Amos Yee

George cited the case of Amos Yee, the Singaporean teenage blogger and YouTube personality who was charged under Section 298 of the Singapore Penal Code for insulting Singapore’s late prime minister and wounding the religious feelings of Christians and Muslims.

“This law is definitely not where international human rights standards is,” said George.

As for Yee’s (photo) argument that he was merely exercising free speech, George said Yee was right to a certain extent, since liberal democracies state that one can say anything he or she likes about ideas, including on holy books.

“The law is not going to come after you, the law will only come after you if you inflict harm on human beings, partly because God doesn’t need your help.”

And the argument, said George, was somewhat sound.

“One who claims to be truly devout and believes in supremacy of God should feel that it’s demeaning that God needs the help of human beings.

“That’s sacrilegious. God can look after himself,” added George.

He also noted how hate groups were particularly empowered in countries that have laws concerning blasphemy, seditious libel and lese majeste.

“With these laws, they can demand state action. They can say ‘I’m hurt and that the state is obliged to protect me’.

“As a particular offence is subjective, it would be difficult for a government to say what should be said,” noted George.

On the other hand, communication and media studies professor Zaharom Nain said developments in Malaysia in the past three decades have led the country to become a nation of “ethnoreligious rhetoric”.

“All these years of socialisation have raised this question – are we now looking at division, rather than diversity? If so, how do we deal with this?” Zaharom (on left in photo) said.

The University of Nottingham academician then cited policies and institutions introduced from the time of the country’s fourth prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad – such as the renamed National Civics Bureau (BTN) and the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (Jakim), among others.

Pointing to recent events, Zaharom mentioned the halal-haram assertions involving food and instances involving dogs and even hot dogs.

“Many of us laugh about this. But they are going on and being accepted.”

Citing the recent kidnapping of religious leaders, Zaharom said that things have moved from the “not so sublime to the ridiculous”.

“And underscoring all of this is the belief in superiority and purity of one’s religion,” he added.

Later, citing part of his arguments in his latest book, George called on journalists and analysts to make it their business to “uncover what the real agendas were”.

Believing that journalists would find it embarrassing to simply take a press release from a company that was caught polluting as the final word, George said any self-respecting journalist would do investigative journalism to find out who benefits in this.

“Who benefits in pollution and if there is corruption?”

George lamented how most people would “play stupid” whenever they witnessed ethnic conflicts, such as fighting between followers of different religions.

“There's always some agenda at work that benefits from the conflict. We've been very lazy about uncovering those agendas.

“Once we recognise that there are those agendas at work, immediately it raises our defence and we then become less susceptible to that kind of propagandising.

“When we see these supposed religious groups fighting, what actually is happening is that a politician is benefiting.

And while the losers tend to be the very religious groups themselves – the foot soldiers who were sent to battle – the puppeteers, added George, would benefit and get away with it.- Mkini