Purveyors of hate speech are Kenya’s enemies

The most succinct dictionary definition of the noun “Hate Speech” cuts straight to the chase: “Bigoted speech attacking or disparaging a social or ethnic group or a member of such a group”.

Few definitions can be as categorical as this one.

So, why is it so hard for some media houses to spot the phenomenon, recognise it for the malignancy and threat to civilised society that it is, isolate it and only report or comment on it in the most circumspect manner, the way profanities are rendered in print in polite society?

Hate speech is the precursor of hate action and the herald of attempts at, or actual, genocide.

However, mid-last last week, a local newspaper carried a Page One story and an Editorial to the effect that leaders on one side of the forthcoming National Referendum on the Proposed New Constitution had threatened certain communities with ethnic cleansing.

The paper contrived to report an outrageous instance of hate speech in great detail and then editorialised on it in a manner that clearly succeeded in giving it a platform and disseminating its potentially poisonous message far and wide.

The report then proceeded to name the communities most likely to perform the evictions and those most likely to suffer from them.

The story made for some horrendous and frightening reading.

The newspaper also pointed out that the hate speech mongers had invoked Section 67 (e) of the Proposed Constitution as the basis for their dire warnings.

It then quoted the Section, which says the National Land Commission will, “initiate investigations, on its own initiative or on complaint, into present or historical land injustices, and recommend appropriate redress”.

And then came the clincher, which exposed the report for what it truly is, a megaphone for the hate-speech mongers.

Adopting its most pious attitude and tone the paper declared, “The Section does not state that there will be ethnic cleansing”.

Where on Earth does there exist a constitution, whether enacted or prospective, that provides for ethnic cleansing?

The editorial also contained the same startling assumption — to the effect that ethnic cleansing is not codified in the Proposed New Constitution. How could it ever be?

It is not an option. The matter does not even arise! The newspaper’s mishandling of a highly volatile subject is also precisely the sort of thing that the National Cohesion and Integration Commission is monitoring and commendably cracking down on.

The gravity of the matter cannot be gainsaid.

Hate speech too often prefaces massive discrimination and genocidal violence. In many mature democracies, exponents of hate speech face very severe legal sanctions indeed.

The peddlers of hate speech are genociders in waiting.

They must not prevail in Kenya, whoever the purveyors of their cancerous creed might be.

Dr Ndemo is the PS, Ministry of Information and Communications.