Extract from Eureka Street
- Home
- Vol 35 No 12
- On confessing hate speech in times of war
- Andrew Hamilton
- 18 June 2025
In the prayers recited at confession in the Anglican and Catholic Churches, people confess to sinning in “thought, word and deed.” In a week marked by the International Day for Countering Hate Speech, and preceded by the Israeli attacks on Iran and the Iranian response, the formula is helpful in teasing out some of the issues involved in the swirling arguments about hate speech.
For many years, hate speech has been the focus of public debate. In identifying the systemic nature of racial and gender discrimination and domestic violence, many people have demonstrated how demeaning and discriminatory language can make violent action seem justifiable. Critics of social media have also highlighted the violent verbal assaults and the level of hatred evident in online exchanges. More recently, the war in Gaza has sparked anger among people with connections to Palestine and Islam, and those with connections to Israel and to Judaism. Advocates for each side have drawn attention to alleged hate speech by the other. These and other debates have led to legislation that criminalises hate speech, and to opposition to such legislation on the grounds that it infringes freedom of speech. The heat of debate and the level of denigration will only increase with the extension of war in the Middle East.
The linking of thought, word and deed in the confessional formula sets the discussion of hate speech in a broader context. Speech arises out of thought, however rudimentary; it naturally leads to action, for better or worse; and action will generate and shape further thought. This cycle of thought, speech and action means they should not be considered in isolation. Acts of kindness will encourage kind thoughts that will find expression in kind words, which may encourage kind actions by others. Similarly, angry and hateful thoughts will generate hateful words that in turn will find natural expression in violent and angry actions. It follows that to address hate speech we must consider and address the whole cycle. Otherwise, the action of banning hate speech may only intensify hateful thoughts, words and abusive actions.
The war in Gaza shows how complex the relationship between thoughts, words and deeds is in the conflict between peoples. Hateful thoughts and speech are an understandable, if regrettable, expression of the response of Israeli and Jewish people to the brutal killing and kidnapping of their citizens by Hamas. They are also an understandable response of Palestinian people and their relatives abroad, and of Muslim people more generally, to the killing, unhousing, starving and harrying by the Israeli Government of the people of Gaza. In both cases, pity and a desire for reconciliation may be the most noble response, but that can come only by grace and not by expectation.
Beneath the recent events and responses to them lies a long history of violence, of loss, of fear, of violation and of terror. The list of bitter thoughts, hateful words and violent actions between Israelis and Jews, Palestinians and Muslims, Western Christians and both, goes back more than a century in the Middle East and more than a millennium in world history. The cycle of hateful thoughts, words and actions can seem irresistible. It asks us how we, as individuals, as a society, and as public representatives of a nation that is mercifully spared from direct involvement in these large conflicts, might respond to such a fraught situation. The answer must include attention to our thoughts, words and actions.
First, as individuals we should attend to the way in which we respond emotionally to what we see and hear. We should pay attention particularly to our angry and vengeful thoughts and recognise how they will colour our judgments. Then, in weighing commentary on the conflict, we shall be better equipped to judge which words reflect a concern for truth and which are armed as weapons.
“It follows that to address hate speech we must consider and address the whole cycle. Otherwise the action of banning hate speech may only intensify hateful thoughts, words and abusive actions.”
Second, as a society, we should be grateful that we are relatively free from the war and violence that plague our fellow human beings in the Middle East. From this privileged position, we should encourage peaceful thoughts and words and an unbiased consideration of the actions that have led to conflict and of those that might prepare the way for a just peace. We should also praise and encourage the international agencies and courts which, for all their inadequacies, stand outside the conflict. The theme of Counter Hate Speech Week, which commends a “multi-stakeholder approach,” stresses the importance of this. It encourages us to be proud of the freedom of speech on which peaceful communication depends.
Third, our politicians and governments should generally be circumspect in responding to calls for legislation against hate speech. They should certainly ensure that speech designed to encourage and provoke violent action is illegal. Such words are weapons. The banning of words, however, can weaken respect for the freedom of speech it is designed to defend. It can also be seen as a weapon in a polarised society and can itself encourage violent action instead of discouraging it. Laws against hate speech must be tightly defined to ensure that they focus on civil disorder.
Fourth, governments, politicians, institutions and individuals should discourage and show their disapproval of wounding and contemptuous speech, whether on public transport, on sporting grounds, or in the media. They should also promote gatherings that bring together people from different ethnic and religious communities. Such meetings allow people to see one another as persons like themselves, and not as faceless members of a despised and violent group.
Fifth, individuals and their political representatives should call out attempts by media commentators and outlets to polarise the community by demonising one side and canonising the other through demeaning headlines, cartoons and partisan comment. Although such reporting should not be made illegal, it should be called out for fostering hate speech and division, and for putting at risk freedom of speech.
If hate speech is to be addressed in a society not directly affected by a conflict, it must be accompanied by encouraging generous words, thoughts and actions, both in those directly affected by it and in the Australian community.
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