The evils of hate speech and torture are that they deny a person’s humanity.
In June, two sombre days remind us of the cruel things that we human beings do to one another. The first is the UN International Day for Countering Hate Speech (18 June). The second is the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture (26 June). Both hate speech and torture are expressions of hatred and contempt. Both are destructive because they attack the heart of their victim’s humanity – our respect for our own worth, goodness and value. Hate speech destroys our trust in ourselves and in the humanity of other people. It destroys by vile words; torture destroys by vile actions. Both often flourish in war, in which anger and fear can make enemies of people on the other side regardless of their human qualities. Torture can never be tolerated in a decent society. Hate speech can never be approved. Both must be banished by changing hatred of people because of their race, nation or government into acceptance of their personal value regardless of their nation of origin.
The reason why torture is so evil is that it aims to annihilate the soul as well as the body. It works by destroying people’s sense of self, their self-worth, and both their own and their torturers’ recognition of a common humanity. Apart from inflicting pain it also strips away the decencies that enshrine self-worth. Torturers make people go naked, deprive them of human company, remove their privacy, rape them, make them live in filth, multiply arbitrary and harsh rules and punishments, and deprive them of sleep and light. Torture is designed to make people feel worthless and isolate them from human society. It is aimed at destroying any sense of a shared humanity, trust in a moral order, and belief in decency. Those who survive it live lastingly with its effects.
Hate speech confines itself to words, but these words can have an equally destructive effect. They can erode people’s sense of their own value, make them walk in fear of violence, isolate them from society and prevent them from contributing their gifts to their world. They can prevent people from looking others in the eye for fear that they will find hatred and threat.
When responding to accounts of hate speech or torture we need to take them seriously, seeing them through the eyes of the people at whom they are directed. We need to see as addressed to ourselves the pained question that the eyes of a person tortured ask of their torturer and those of person insulted ask of those who speak hatefully at them because of their race or religion. Their eyes ask, ‘Why are you hurting me’? Their eyes, too, ask all of us who share with them a common humanity, ‘Why do you encourage, excuse, allow or tolerate these people hurting me’? These are not questions with which we sit comfortably. But they touch our common humanity. They embolden us to show our disapproval when we see people abusing others and to reach out in friendship to the people so abused.
Fr Andrew Hamilton SJ is an editorial consultant at Jesuit Communications
