Hatred and Treason-Mongering!
We are not all far removed from the hate speech that spreads like a plague under various guises. In these homelands, burdened by forms and patterns of direct and indirect colonialism, infiltration, and numerous fabricated narratives of history and reality—seeping into the folds of sermons, religious discourses, journalistic reports, and debates labeled “objective,” even those taking place in renowned universities and colleges—that discourse continues to haunt you. You either grow accustomed to it or resist it, until the noose tightens and you become part of a community, both private and public, that echoes sayings that, on the surface, appear to affirm the right of each individual to their differing views. Yet, beneath that veneer, there is a gradual contamination with words, slurs, subtle jabs, and veiled insults, followed by direct attacks. Then they recite that proverb, worn out from overuse: “Difference does not spoil friendship.” Vile speech surrounds you, and everyone sinks into an unfathomable quagmire.
You sit with someone you have just met in a small restaurant in a quiet, beautiful neighborhood in Beirut, a city devastated by blood and destruction yet clinging to pockets of joy. The conversation turns to our present reality, in a phase perhaps called the new Sykes-Picot. He whispers, “Let’s lower our voices, because the restaurant owners disagree with what we’re saying,” or so I understood.
The waitress arrives with her smile, carrying today’s dish with salad, repeating the customary Levantine greeting: “Sihatain” (To your health). We smile and stop talking, but she returns, joins us with a cup of coffee, and says without preamble: “This country was ruined only by the Palestinians and the Syrians.” She then begins recounting what she believes to be unblemished historical facts, which are largely recycled salon conversations now transposed to social media. Hate speech is not new; it is one of the most important tools of colonialism, and there are examples and models in not-so-distant history.
Franz Fanon was among the first to understand how colonialism operates in this regard. It does not merely occupy land; it also divides people, deepens the fissures between them, and constructs a world of “us” and “them.” A society afraid of its own members is easier to subdue than one that knows its true enemy. Perhaps here lies the first seed of hatred: fear and ignorance. We fear the different because we do not know them. Then comes someone with an interest in our fear, explaining why we should hate them. After that, the distance is short between a word spoken in a café, from a pulpit, or on a screen, and defamation, then incitement, then the bullet, the machete, or the mass grave.
Since 2011, hate speech has intensified, donning various coats, some religious, others under the banner of “patriotism.” Everyone competes: Who loves the homeland more? The homeland itself has become a cliché for anyone wishing to flatter here or insult there… all in the name of the pitiful homeland. You object to the genocide in Gaza, and they stand with you, but they wink, implying that this faction is to blame. When you confront the same project in Lebanon, the rhetoric heats up: “They are not like us,” and their organization is what destroyed the country…!!! All this because you have not turned into a parrot, or simply because you still try to dig behind the news, the word, and the smile… and say something different, which may be wrong or right. But since when is a word met with a bullet, an opinion with defamation, and difference with the cutting off of livelihoods???!!!
