INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR COUNTERING HATE SPEECH



While the seeds for this day were sown way back in 1919, when a couple of rebellious speeches began to be heard in the US, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing probably pressed for it's necessity. With a growing consensus that hate speech was not just incitement but also responsible in encouraging violence, UNGA this day in 2022 observed the first International Day for Countering Hate Speech...

The day seeks to mitigate hate, and to spread a message all over for peaceful coexistence by way of education and international cooperation, as also by raising awareness of the perils and futility of hate speeches...

The usage of words to ridicule, humiliate, vilify or incite hatred based on colour, race, religion, gender, ethnicity, disability, political leanings, national origin etc., certainly poses a threat to human rights and the principles of nature...

While it has been known since long that spoken words could hurt just as much as actions to threaten all forms of safety, many nations have laid down guidelines on what one could utter. Incisiveness of public discourse for political gain is common. Wouldn’t be wrong to say that the world has witnessed speeches leading to atrocities and crimes, genocide included...

With the ease of spread of information in recent times, thanks to SM, hate speech has become commonplace, rendering the issue all the more difficult to rein in. From another angle the same SM could be used proactively to educate others, support the affected, hold public discussions, report hate speech, begin a global movement so on and so forth, to counter the growing menace...

Words and speech have their own inherent beauty, aroma, fragrance and grace too. It wouldn't be wrong to say that the usage of words could either endear or push-away two individuals. We seem to have deviated from the tracks set by the likes of Demosthenes, Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King et al. for quite some time now...

Just as we serve dishes with love and care, let us strive to do likewise with the words we speak, in order that they gladden the acoustic faculty rather than traumatize the human psyche...

🙏🙏

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