A PRESENTATION TO THE LEADERSHIP OF THE FELLOWSHIP OF CHRISTIAN STUDENTS (FCS) AND MUSLIM STUDENTS SOCIETY OF NIGERIA (MSSN) ON: THE CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE OF HATE SPEECH, LESSONS FROM THE SCRIPTURES
AT THE ACADEMIC STAFF UNION OF POLYTECHNIC HALL: KADUNA STATE POLYTECHNIC, 25TH OF AUGUST 2018.
Fr Stephen Ojapah MSP
Director: Dialogue and Ecumenism; Catholic Diocese of Sokoto
INTRODUCTION:
I will like to begin by thanking the organizers of this wonderful event. My friend and brother Imam Jameel Muhammad Jammel did invite me though on a short notice, but I see this as a life time opportunity that I did not want to miss. An opportunity to share the message of peace and tolerance that we all are enjoined to spread. When Jesus rose from the dead, the first word he spoke to his apostle in the gospel of John 20;19 was Salama Alaikun!! These beautiful words we hear our Muslim brothers and sisters repeat a million times every. Yusuf Estees a renowned Muslim scholar explains Islam in five words. Surrender, Summit, Obedience, Sincerity, and PEACE. In the gospel of Mathew 5:9 Jesus said: blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God. This search for peace is greatly threatened in Nigeria by the phenomenon of hate speech!! And there is no limit to the terrible effects of hate speech. The experience of Rwanda should still be fresh in our minds.
This presentation is simply to demonstrate what hate speech is in our context; and to present a distance of the phenomenon from Christianity.
And I will like to begin with a brief story of the genocide in Rwanda. In 1994 the world was shocked with the human massacre in Rwanda between the Hutus and the Tutsis. The Hutus developed a word for the Tutsis that fuelled the killings. The Hutus referred to the Tutsis as Cockroaches and from our human experience of seeing a cockroach in your living room, or the kitchen; we know the speed at which we kill them. Such was the experience of the killings that the Tutsis witnessed in three months; the Hutu militias killed “cockroaches” cf Left to Tell, by Immaculee Ilibagiza. But the most shocking side of the stories of the killings is the fact that, the Hutus and the Tutsis worshipped in the same church, called the name of Jesus under the same roof, and spoke the same language. Thus hate speech is as much a human phenomenon as it is a Christian phenomenon, and Christian clerics had and will always have a big role to play.
WHAT IS HATE SPEECH?
Hate Speech refers to the phenomenon wherein hateful speech and other forms of verbal abuse are targeted at a particular race, religion or even ethnic group. Over time, hate speech has become part and parcel of our contemporary world, particularly with the right to freedom of speech. It has however taken freedom of speech and turned it into a weapon against peace and unity within societies, the Nigerian state, being one of such societies. Nigeria is made up of over 3 main religious groups, over 70 ethnic groups with over 200 indigenous languages spoken. The average Nigerian city is made up of several ethnicities and religious groups living and working together, at some point this was not a cause for discord because Nigerians believed in peace and unity. Today however, the same is not the case, discord has become the order of the day and hate speech is one of its many tools. The Nigerian society has experienced an infiltration of Hate Speech and its proponents within the society and this has only worsened the current volatile state of the Nigerian nation because it is completely impossible to bring peace to a country when religious groups and ethnic groups seek to destroy each other.
Hate Speech does no good to any society, because it breeds discord and disunity within the society, creeping into all sectors, from the political to the religious and the socio-economic. This discordant feature has become rather prevalent within the Nigerian sphere with various factions springing up along religious and tribal lines and each group sending threats, insults and blames on why the nation fails to progress. Hate Speech is not a new phenomenon in the country, during the Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Biafran War; hate speech was the final nail in the coffin of Nigeria’s unity, fuelling the discord that has existed. The Nigerian Civil War was a blow to the country, destroying it in more ways than one; and following that; hate speech simmered it, because people could still remember the carnage of war. However it appears many have forgotten and are instead itching for another Civil War, a rather disappointing development. Today both on the streets and on the internet, hate speech seems to be the new order of the day, the insults flying back and forth, for instance during the most recent Biafran agitation, hate speech had a swell day with both the Biafran campaigners and those against it, throwing insults to themselves, and on some occasions leading to violence.
There are situations where specific ethnic or religious groups are not allowed to live or work in certain places, and the reasons often provided for such actions cannot even be termed logical, they range from “it’s my house/my company and I do not like them” to “they are diabolical and I don’t want trouble”. It is ironic that people are judged in Nigeria by virtue of being from a particular ethnic or religious group without any attention being paid to his/her personality; this is a country where individuals hold prejudice to a particular ethnic or religious group and teach their children to also have these prejudices. How true the eternal plea of Martin Luther King Jr when he says “ I have a dream that one day my four little children will be judge by the content of their character not the colour of their skin”.
THE ‘SPACE’ OF HATE SPEECH IN THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
Though individuals and communities have actively participated in the propagation of hate speeches against the other, it is never based on the principle of the Christian faith. And certainly not on the injunction of the teaching of Jesus; The Entire message of Jesus can be summarized in two words; love of God and love of Neighbor. The Catholic Church for example has offices and commissions and dicasteries for the promotion of peace round the world. Every 1st of January is dedicated to the world day of prayer of Peace. The pontifical council for inter religious dialogue for the past 50 years has been issuing statements of friendship and prayers to our Muslim brothers at the end of every Ramadan fast. And a thousand other minor projects for peace.
Thus hate speech does not have a space in the Christian faith. “Do not speak evil of one another, brothers, whoever speaks evil of a brother or judges his brother speaks evil of the law and judges the law. If you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is one lawgiver and judge who is able to save or to destroy. Who then are you to judge your neighbor?”(James 4:11-12). In chapter 2:12 it says; “so speak and act as people who will be judged by the law of freedom. In the same book of James 3:1-12 it talks about the evil and the blessings that come from the tongue. In verses 5-6 we read “In the same way the tongue is a small member and yet has great pretensions. Consider how small a fire can set a huge forest ablaze; The tongue is also a fire”
In all these quotations and explanations the key element that the Christian faith forbids and condemns from the bible we have just read is what some saint James referred to in the real Hebrew translations as Rakil or slander
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SLANDER..
In the scriptures it simply means a secret hostile speech against another. The advanced learners dictionary defines slander as “The false spoken statement about somebody that is intended to damage the good opinion that people have of them” There is an unfortunate narrative that seeks to define Islam as terroristic, that is slander..There is an unfortunate attempt to define Christians as infidels and kafiris in the north and elsewhere; that is slander.. There is an unfortunate attempt to refer to the Fulani nation as a whole as a people terrorizing the country, that too is slander. There are thousands of names that we call our perceived enemies in other to reduce them to nothing and to incite the entire system against them. This manner of behavior has no place in our faith and religion. The Catechism of the Catholic Church articles 1905-1912 talks about the core principles of the COMMON GOOD. And these principles can be summarized in these three points.
I. Respect for persons; in the name of the common good public authorities are bound to respect the fundamental and inalienable rights of the human person.
II. The principle of the common good requires the social well being and development of the group itself. Development is the epitome of all social duties when hate is eliminated.
III. Finally the common good requires peace that is the stability and the security of the just order. It presupposes that authority should ensure by morally acceptable means the security of society and its members. It is the basis of the right to legitimate personal and collective defense.
So how can we achieve the latter in an atmosphere of hate speech and evil induced opinions of one another?
CONCLUSION:
There is a popular adage in Nigeria that says when you want to kill a dog give it a bad name. we all know the bad names we have given ourselves ready to kill at any given opportunity. Let us begin to unlearn those bad names. So that peace will reign in other for development to be assured God bless you.
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