Fighting Hate Speech is a complicated concept. However, we are not helpless- there are things you and I can do.
If it’s on social media, you might choose to engage with the speaker and battle his/her hateful messaging by putting forward a contrary message. The #iamhere campaign, a counter narrative to hateful messaging, which was started in Sweden spread quickly to other parts of the world because of its simplicity of function. Admins of the group routinely post articles that have hateful remarks onto their page, encouraging members to counter speak with the hashtag #Jagärhär (which means “I am here.”) This drives up the counter posts, effectively drowning out the hateful content. In India, at Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh protest site, a young man fired into the air, in an attempt to register his dissent towards the protesters. The next day, a group of young citizens launched a campaign called “GoliNahiPhool (Flowers not Bullets) and showered the protesting women with flower petals in a show of peace and solidarity.
A different and polar opposite way to counter speak is to further share and retweet the hateful messaging to generate awareness. While this may seem counterintuitive at first, it does help to bring the problem into the collective consciousness of the audience. This is demonstrated well by the twitter account #YesYoureRacist, which seeks to make visible the fact that racism exists.
Another method young Indian counter speakers have embraced is through the creation of art- whether music, poetry, paintings or street art. Resistance art has always been a big part of any movement, and countering hate is no different. From Bella Ciao (and subsequently Pujan Saahil’s Waapas Jaao) to Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s beautiful yet defiant poem Hum Dekhenge which made the news in India forty years after it was first written, strong resistance art has been known to possess the power to move people and to unite them -- the ultimate goal of any counter speech.
Lastly, you might choose to reclaim words that are used as slurs against communities, minorities or any other group. An example of this is the way the Slutwalk campaign, a global campaign calling for the end of rape culture and slut shaming chose to reclaim the offensive word and rebrand it, rejecting the idea that women should experience shame over their sexualities, sexual preferences and choice of clothing.
Whatever method you choose, do choose something. Because when it is the best of times, and the worst of times, it is always the ordinary citizen who takes up the torch and leads the way.
Image credit: Tyler Street Art
