Source: Human Rights Commission
The Human Rights Commission receives many complaints about hateful and harmful speech.
By ‘speech’ we mean words, pictures, videos, social media, and other expressions.
When we look closely at the complaints, we sometimes conclude the speech is lawful but unacceptable in a democratic, diverse, inclusive society like Aotearoa New Zealand.
That is, although the speech is unacceptable, it is in breach of neither the civil law nor the criminal law.
Also, we sometimes come to the view that, even though the speech is unacceptable, the law should not be changed to make it unlawful. A human rights-based democracy requires that some unacceptable speech may be lawful.
All democracies must establish the threshold – they must draw the line – which divides unacceptable lawful speech and unacceptable unlawful speech.
We have already set out where we think this threshold – this line – should be in our submission on the Ministry of Justice’s Proposals against incitement of hatred and discrimination. See also the Commission’s resource on the existing legal framework on hate speech.
Sub-threshold speech
In this post, we are not setting out where we think the threshold should lie between lawful and unlawful speech. Instead, we are focussing on speech which is unacceptable but lawful in Aotearoa New Zealand. In other words, we are focussing on what we call ‘sub-threshold’ speech.
To be more precise, we are focussing on one feature of sub-threshold speech.
Often people who give voice to unacceptable but lawful speech know exactly what they are saying and doing.
But sometimes people say something unacceptable but lawful without fully grasping why their words are objectionable. Sometimes words are especially unacceptable and objectionable because of their associations or other context. If speakers do not fully understand these associations, they do not realise how unacceptable or objectionable their words are.
Tropes
Some of the speech which is drawn to the attention of the Human Rights Commission includes longstanding ‘tropes’.
A trope is an image, analogy or idea that is repeatedly used. It’s a stereotype, like a cliché. Tropes affect all communities.
Some tropes are tired, but unobjectionable, while other tropes are deeply unacceptable and profoundly hurtful.
In this post we provide, by way of illustration, a few brief examples of antisemitic and Islamophobic tropes.
One antisemitic and highly objectionable trope, associated with Nazi Germany (1933-45), is that Jews are sub-human or animals. Another is that Jews are part of a ruthless conspiracy to take over the world by controlling banking and the media. This is based on absurd fabrications such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which has fuelled the hatred of Jews for 120 years. In a similar vein, painting the holocaust as a hoax arising out of a deliberate conspiracy to advance Jewish interests, extract reparations from Germany and gain world sympathy is a deeply harmful holocaust denial trope. Six million Jews and many non-Jews were murdered by the Nazis.
Islamophobic tropes are also highly objectionable, for example, the misrepresentation that the Quran encourages violence rather than peace. Cherry-picking verses from any religious text, including the Quran, and insinuating they inherently ask followers of the religion to commit acts of violence is deeply harmful. Another Islamophobic trope is that Muslims want to impose Sharia on western-based democracies. Another is that all Muslim women are oppressed. These tropes continue to perpetuate wrongful and negative stereotypes associated with religious groups.
The collective blame of Jewish and Muslim communities for the wrongdoing of individuals or organisations from their communities is antisemitic and Islamophobic, respectively.
A matter of common decency
Antisemitic, Islamophobic and other unacceptable tropes have no place in Aotearoa New Zealand. This is not ‘political correctness gone mad’, it is simply a matter of common decency. It is important that we respond through conversation, awareness, education, and opposition to the normalisation of racism and other forms of harmful speech in public discourse.
In a plural, inclusive, democratic society, grounded on Te Tiriti o Waitangi, public discussion must not include hateful stereotypes, falsehoods, and tropes, whether they are lawful or not.
