Hate speech, why the humiliation?

By Nange Mbehni

Hate speech is an online and offline negative activity that has become an aspect eating deep into society. Accompanied by hate action from one angle to another are pictures with demeaning captions, slang covered with hate yet the perpetrators say it is for fun, and the dehumanizing comments and slang thrown at people for not “living up to societal standards.” The rhetorical question is who has set these so-called standards that when one doesn’t meet-up with, hurtful words are thrown at them?

The convocation ceremonies held at the University of Buea on November 5, 2022, and the University of Bamenda, on November 16, 2022, saw some social media users on Facebook and Whatsapp expressing hate speech and hate actions towards some of the candidates who dressed according to how they wanted and could afford, trolled all over these spaces with dehumanizing captions such as, “who send this one for UBa (University of Bamenda) noh, super woman, merlin in UB (University of Buea),” photo of US artist DJ Khaled cropped with a student’s and on them written, “DJ Khaled” on one side (artist’s), and “DJ not so Khaled” on the other (student’s).

A student who seeks anonymity says she saw her picture on Whatsapp status and couldn’t help but cry as the writing, “suffer pikin for UBa” was the caption that followed her picture. “I came back from matriculation and as I went online, a few of my contacts had posted my picture with the caption “suffer pikin for UBa.” Others showed they screen shot it from somewhere I do not know. I felt bad. I cried and that was it. So I don’t feel comfortable dressing up again and going out there, worst of it all sitting in class.”

All these, the perpetrators refer to as ‘catching cruise’. It is on this note that some organizations such as Global Visionaries Network, and student bodies such as the Faculty of Arts Students’ Association of the University of Bamenda, have sent out information on flyers against hate speech and hate action.

According to Honorable Etoh Anzah, Civil society activist and Africa Fact-Checking Fellowship (AFF) fellow, the effects of hate speech and hate action on victims are devastating. “There are a lot of consequences when someone is victimized by hate speech. It can lead to violence. Imagine going out there and discovering that this person is responsible for your trending pictures online, insulting you, and calling you all sorts of names all over social media, it can cause one to want to react violently against the perpetrator. It can stir a feeling of revenge, one feeling as to pay back and it will propagate the hate.”

Talking about the role of peace in every economy, Honorable says “hate speech and hate action actually hinder the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16 clause, which elaborates on peaceful societies and inclusion. It goes as far as causing a lot of trauma to the victims. Retiring home on the day of matriculation and your pictures everywhere with hurtful captions is bad. And for sure, the web is one place you can’t control messages as they go viral. This causes trauma to the victim(s) and this trauma can have adverse effects on the victim(s) as it can lead to death and suicide because they start feeling they are less of humans because their faces are trending with negative captions. In a school milieu, it can cause the victim (student) to drop out if he/she knows they are not comfortable walking around the university with everyone jeering and making a mockery of them. It goes as far as people pointing fingers at you saying you are the one trending on social media.”

The peace advocate recommends that one of the things Cameroon needs is to train more peace crusaders who will create awareness of the ills of this syndrome. Hate speech is a course undertaken by many organizations and individuals to eradicate.

This phenomenon has caused some students to be mindful of what they put on and step out because of the fear of “trending” for ‘not up to standard’ reasons. For how long will people continue to go offline and online with negative content? Some go as far as commenting on resentful hate speech under social media posts. For how long will hate speech and hate action continue?