The politics of hate

In the last few weeks, we've seen a lot of hate in the United Kingdom.

We had the delightful Jan Moir penning her thoughts in the Daily Mail on the premature death of Stephen Gately. Ignoring any inconvenient facts from the police or the coroner, Jan pretty much put Stephen's death down to his perverse life-style (you know, going to clubs, taking drugs, being “married” to some bloke, etc etc). A lifestyle so alien to journalists, I'm sure. Anyway, the twitterverse fought back, as the great and the good highlighted the factual inadequacies of Jan's piece, withe a record number of complaints to the Press Complaints Commission. The outcry was so great that a number of advertisers demanded that their ads were pulled from the internet version of Jan's article, lest they be associated with her subtle homophobic views. Jan put this down to an orchestrated attack on her by that nasty gay & lesbian “community”. I'm not sure that Jan's completely right – the penned outcry I saw came from across the sexual spectrum. Most people took a dim view of Jan's ill considered article., even if it was in the Daily Hate, er, I mean Mail. If you're going to dance on someone's grave, it is considered polite to wait until they've been buried.

I can't bring myself to point you to Jan's article, but you can read Charlie Brooker's response to it here.

Then we had the outcry surrounding Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP, appearing on BBC's Question Time. For readers not in the UK, the BNP are a political party are a nationalist party akin to the KKK. I actually quite enjoyed the programme – it was a treat to see the audience and panel united in denouncing the views of the BNP. Bonnie Greer was an absolute star, calmly pointing out that Nick Griffin's definition of “British” (those who were here just after the last Ice Age) would be Neanderthal man. The BBC were right to have Nick Griffin on, as he represents a party that people vote for (to the point that they have elected councilors and MEPs). My problem is that people vote for them.

The politics of hate doesn't come out of nowhere. Whilst the press will denounce the views of the BNP, the language used by the tabloid press does much to win votes for the BNP. The likes of the Daily Mail do much to paint a picture of Britain awash with immigrants and asylum seekers, and the language they use is invariably negative and emotive. It doesn't help that politicians address this by using the same language. There are benefits for society from immigration and offering asylum, and these need to be communicated to counter the great threat portrayed in the (tabloid) press.

Less coverage was given to an attack on a woman on a train in Kent. Any violence, whether in a public place or not, is clearly a bad thing. Why was this woman attacked? She was too fat, apparently. And that was reason enough. Sadly this didn't spark off a furore in the twitterverse, and perhaps it should have. It's not so different. Picking on someone because they're different isn't a good thing to do – because we're all different. Our differences should be a cause of celebration, not a reason for violence, distrust or discrimination.

What can we do about it? Start with ourselves – recognise our own prejudices and know them for what they are. Prejudices, not facts. And point out the same in other people.

Here is a little film for your entertainment:-




Oh, should we find that engagement with the enemy fails, we can always adopt the following approach:-