June 18 is “International Day Against Hate Speech”. When we debate whether freedom of expression should be absolute or not, we forget to take into consideration the effects of hate speech on the minorities of a country.
Belonging to a religious minority community myself, it feels like hate speech is being normalised in our country in recent years. Hate speech has proved to be a very effective way to gain popularity through news debates and social media.
When somebody gives such provocative hate speech, some sections of society hail them as heroes while others condemn them. But, during that, we fail to acknowledge the role that it plays on the larger socio-cultural level and psychological level in the individual capacity of the members of the affected communities by speeches.
Normalising hate speech always makes you live in under fear and you’re just praying that it doesn’t trigger violence. Especially when such culprits mostly sneak their way away from the eyes of the law. Maybe that is the reason why they say, “the law is blind”.
It is important to acknowledge the role that hate speech plays in shaping the opinions of people and creating prejudice and stereotypes against the marginalised communities and take concrete measures to address the issue.