From top: Anne Marie canvassing during the last General Election; Anne Marie
Wouldn’t it be great if equal attention was paid to online trolling and the far more ubiquitous and damaging elements of the traditional media who seek to create division and hatred between us and our fellow humans?
Anne Marie McNally writes:
Last week I wrote about the horrific tragedy in Orlando – the hatred and intolerance that had bred the killer who carried out the atrocity and the public narrative which had sought to justify various positions of different groups which, in either a direct or indirect way, had facilitated such a tragedy.
This week is tragically no different. Jo Cox, a Labour Member of Parliament, a mother, a loved one, was brutally murdered as she went about her constituency business as normal on Thursday afternoon.
She was slain by a man reportedly shouting “Britain first”, a man who later identified himself in court with the statement: “My name is death to traitors, freedom for Britain.”
Jo herself was an ardent supporter of refugee rights and humanitarian efforts. Yet despite these pretty obvious pointers, many in the public space seemed loathe to label the murder as a far-right act.
‘Na, it was just a mad-man saying anything at all, his comments meant nothing’ went the refrain…probably from those who nod in agreement with Daily Express and Telegraph headlines about ‘Migrants taking Over’ or ‘Rapists hide among them’ or ‘One out of every five killers is an immigrant’ (Am I crazy that I’m worried about the other 4?!)
One of the most disappointing things I encountered during my recent outing in the General Election campaign was the insidious racism that was becoming evident in people’s everyday lexicon. They would never in a million years identify themselves as racist but it was there.
No matter what way you dress it up if you’re saying ‘I’m not racist BUT….. look after our own first; or there’s too many of ‘them’; or they’re getting benefits/jobs/school places/houses etc. etc.’…then yes, you may not mean to be but you are rationalising racist rhetoric.
In a culture where that attitude is not only being propagated by far-right extremists but is instead becoming parlance du jour for front pages and Betty next door out pruning her roses or changing her tyre, it is not difficult to see why extremists feel more comfortable mingling with Joe and Josephine Soap.
In a thankfully less serious but also horrifying way, we have seen our own racist attacks in this country recently, not least of which was the beating of an Afghan family with young children in the leafy Dublin suburb of Rathfarnham.
The rhetoric and indeed the proliferation of outlets for such rhetoric, hate speech and violence to be promoted and propagated is extremely worrying but so too is the counter-culture which, perhaps unwittingly or perhaps not, in some cases, seeks to dull the sound of legitimate dissent by labelling it as hate-speech, trolling or online abuse.
It is an entirely different thing to call out a politician for questionable policies or actions you don’t agree with than it is to threaten rape, murder or harm to family members.
Let’s not conflate the two. To do so is a dangerous perversion of free-speech, political discourse and active engaged citizenry.
Labour TD Joan Burton’s comments over the weekend called for ‘the problem of online abuse to be confronted and tackled now’ before it gets too far out of hand.
We’ve all seen idiots at play on social media. We’ve all seen the hateful crap and often the bile that online commentators can spew. It’s not acceptable.
Every right-minded person knows that, and in most cases, calls it out.
However we’ve also seen some of the stuff that has been labelled by Joan Burton, Lorraine Higgins, (the former Labour Senator who crusaded to control social media) and others, as hate speech and it’s not.
It’s not abuse. it’s simple disagreement with political actions, there’s a significant difference.
The other day I pointed out something regarding a former representative who I, and others, thought had acted inappropriately.
I was accused of ‘waging a war’ of ‘going after him’ and various other hyperbolic statements, none of which were true. I was simply pointing out something I disagreed with, in a respectful and appropriate fashion.
If we seek to close such responsible political discourse by means of somehow avoiding the irresponsible and dangerous elements of online trolling then we do ourselves a serious disservice.
Wouldn’t it be great if equal attention was paid to the far more ubiquitous and damaging elements of the traditional media who seek to create division and hatred between us and our fellow humans wherever they may hail from?
And…I know I can trust that the comment section under here will have armies of those who respectfully disagree with me and think I’m an awful person without wanting to cause me harm or spew bile at me.
And that’s perfectly OK, in fact it’s healthy – you wouldn’t want me looking to close the comments section would you?! ;-)
Anne Marie McNally is a founding member of the Social Democrats. Follow Anne Marie on Twitter: @amomcnally
