Tackling dehumanising language,hate speech

THE EDITOR: Naila Ramsaran’s use of the dehumanising word “cockroaches” to describe PNM supporters is reminiscent of anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda.

The word “cockroaches” was used by both the Nazis and those behind the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

The Nazi media described people that their masters wanted to eliminate as cockroaches.

The Rwanda radio station RTML incited Hutus against the Tutsi minority, repeatedly describing the latter as “cockroaches,” resulting in their genocidal mass slaughter of about one million people over the course of 100 days in 1994.

Such language used by Ramsaran cannot fall under the guise of freedom of expression. It feeds a vicious cycle of unrestrained intolerance and incitement to hatred by race.

It is time for the first piece of major legislation to respect the inviolable dignity of the human person and by extension curbing incitement to hatred by race.

I urge the Government to take urgent steps to legislate to eliminate this increasingly racial hatred trajectory.

In the neighbouring Commonwealth of Dominica, for example, it is an offence to incite racial hatred when someone says or does something which is threatening, abusive or insulting on grounds of colour, race or ethnic or national origins and the person either intends to stir up racial hatred or makes it likely that racial hatred will be stirred up (The Nationality and Racial Offences Act, Section 6). The offence carries a prison sentence.

Similarly, in the UK any use of derogatory language towards ethnicity, race carries a penalty of imprisonment.

Furthermore, it is extraordinary and deeply shameful to see the nasty underbelly of racism and such open race baiting that characterised the recent election.

For general election candidates and supporters – be brave enough to speak out but be aware of the dangers which lurk in the depths of your vocabulary.

History has shown us time and time again where talk of cockroaches can lead and the dangers of demonising ethnic groups by dehumanisation – the millions of people killed by Nazi persecution and in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur.

ULA NATHAI-LUTCHMAN

lawyer, UK