September 11, 2017

Storm in a teacup? How to respond to hate - with love

located:	Myanmar, India, USA, Canada, Norway
editor:	Gurmeet Singh

I want to talk about reactions, and what they could possibly mean in different political contexts. The specific reactions I'm talking about are the 'positions' people are immediately take on world events and news. These might include so-called 'hot-takes', or bits of content written to generate clicks and views, but I'm more interested in people's reactions, both in real-life and on social media, to world events.

First, let's take a look at the Rohingya Muslim situation in Myanmar. Rohingya communities have been persecuted since 2012, and many have fled the country for India and Bangladesh (and in some cases, they have also faced persecution there). The international community is beginning to – and rightly so – use the terms 'ethnic cleansing' and 'genocide' to describe the persecution of the Rohingya by the country's predominantly Buddhist population and government. However, people like Tommy Robinson, English Defence League founder and full-time racist, see fit to defend the persecution. And many moderate people have tweeted similar responses to the extreme Robinson. After all, it's Muslims who are suffering, right?

Secondly, hurricanes Harvey and Irma – the kind of intense storm only witnessed in movies – made landfall over the last two weeks. Irma destroyed several Caribbean islands, and is currently wreaking havoc in Florida. Both hurricanes have been described as unusually intense, and scientists are warning that this is becoming the norm under accelerating climate change. But the desire to deny such a thing means people like Ann Coulter could tweet that Floridians are more likely to die of boredom, than the hurricane. What Coutler meant is that the forecasted hurricane didn't exist. It landed in Florida five hours after the tweet. Nevertheless, the tweet still saw many people reacting with smileys, etc.

Then what about dumb Youtube dramas like PewdiePie. This guy is just lame, I really don't want to talk about him. He's a Scandanavian shock-artist who makes videos of himself reacting to things, movies, other Youtube clips, etc. (the Internet truly is a marvellous place). And recently, frustrated by a video game, he called his opponent a "fucking n****r". He laughed and said sorry. All his fans were quick to defend him with statements like "he's not racist, but he did a dumb thing", as though it's normal to just shout a racial epithet when frustrated. PewdiePie is incidentally Youtube's most popular blogger/ vlogger/ whatever.

My point in all three cases is that normal, moderate people follow their logic and rationalise racism, climate denial and even genocide, very, very easily. I do not know how to disenthrall people from state power or racial power or anti-science power, but I do know that reactions shape events, just as much as events shape reactions. The more people feel strongly about something, the more likely politicians and businesses will notice it. This is why, difficult and repetitive as it might seem, it's important to continue speaking out and reacting against hatred and stupidity.

Take Jagmeet Singh's reaction last week as an example. After being accused by a heckler of wanting to institute Sharia Law in Canada and disavowing Islam by saying he was a Sikh, he instead answered 'we love you, we welcome you' to the heckler. He wanted to respond with love and generosity. How about that for a change?