Address of the MECC Secretary General Professor Michel Abs
At the Opening of the Regional Conference: "Countering Hate Speech and Protecting Human Dignity"
Held in the Arab Republic of Egypt
In the name of the Creator of all that is, the source of light and of the elements of life,
In the name of those who suffer in every corner of the earth from discrimination and persecution,
In the name of all who endure stigma, marginalization, and bullying in their daily lives,
In the name of human dignity, which is equal to life itself and which nothing but social cohesion can secure,
We come to you with this conference — challenge.
We come to challenge a fate that no caution can avert.
We come to sound a warning together, and to say: cursed is the one who awakens strife in my wounded country, and blessed is the one who lays it to rest.
It was a blessed hour when we visited the Reverend Dr. Andrea Zaki, President of the Protestant Churches of Egypt and President of the Coptic Evangelical Organization for Social Services (CEOSS), and put to him the idea of this conference. With his characteristic spontaneity, he responded at once that CEOSS could host it.
And so it was. The idea took shape in our gathering here today around the theme of demonization and hate speech. It was made possible through the collaborative efforts of Ms. Samira Louka, Ms. Iman Mamdouh, Dr. Laure Abi Khalil, and the Journalist Lea Adel Maamary.
From the land of Egypt, the land of encounter — the country to which the Holy Family fled to escape the demonization of children more than two thousand years ago, and the nation that taught the world the meaning of unity in life through the “House of the Family” as well as through social unity — we open our conference today on a subject that touches the very core of our existence as citizens of this East: confronting demonization and hate speech.
Let me say at the outset, even before we hear what our distinguished researchers — who share with us the pain of the hatred spreading in our countries and across the world — have to teach us: the Arab lands, my homelands, are candidates to become a theatre of bloodshed born of hatred, so intense is their ethnic, racial, and sectarian diversity, unless we challenge the status quo and stand as one against the projects of fragmentation and division. These projects which can succeed only through an individual and collective pathology called demonization and hatred.
Demonization is to strip the other of his humanity and to clothe him in the attributes of the devil.
It is that when I disagree with you, I make of you an absolute evil, a danger that must be eradicated.
Hate speech may say: “I do not accept you.” Demonization says: “You are not human, you are a devil, and your existence is a threat to God and to the nation.”
When we reach this stage, violence becomes justified and killing becomes sacred in the eyes of the killer.
Herein lies the greatest danger facing our East today.
In the Middle East we suffer not only from wars and armies, but from a war of narratives, a war of words. A single word on social media, or on a wall in the street, is capable of setting off events of varying gravity.
Allow me to state it plainly before you: we are not only victims. At times we are unwitting partners in this discourse. When we raise our children at home or at school to fear the other or to reject him, when someone employs the language of the righteous against the wicked, we contribute to the manufacture of demonization. Today, through this conference, we wish to call for a collective repentance.
Demonization means turning the other — whether an individual or a group — into an image of absolute evil, and stripping him gradually of his human attributes. The process begins with generalization: a mistake committed by one person becomes the trait of a whole group, and the crime of an individual becomes an indictment of an entire sect, community, people, or class. Then comes selection: we look only for what confirms the image we have formed of the other, and ignore everything that contradicts it.
The danger of demonization therefore lies not only in the harm done to the other, but in the fact that it alters the moral structure of society itself. It replaces knowledge with fear, argument with condemnation, and difference with enmity, and it creates an environment in which violence becomes more acceptable.
Demonization operates on two levels, individual and collective. It may begin with a professional, family, or private disagreement. But the danger multiplies when this mechanism moves to the level of groups. A person may then be asked to hate someone he has never met, simply because that person belongs to a different religion, sect, nationality, or party. At this stage identity becomes an instrument of moral classification.
Hate speech accompanies demonization in a causal relationship.
In contemporary societies, hate speech has become one of the gravest challenges threatening civil peace and social cohesion. Its danger lies not only in the words used, but in the path that leads from idea to utterance, from utterance to attitude, and from attitude to violent behaviour.
Hatred does not begin with a hostile act; it begins in consciousness. It begins when a negative stereotype of an individual or a group is formed through demonization; that image then becomes a sweeping moral judgment, then a discourse that justifies exclusion, and in some cases it culminates in discrimination or violence.
This process may be summarized in three interlinked stages: thought, then attitude or expression, then action.
When we speak of hate speech, we are not speaking only of wounding words or extreme expressions, but of a path that begins as an idea and ends in violence. Violence is not born at the moment the hand is raised; it begins long before, when a person or a group is reduced to a fixed negative stereotype, and when the other becomes, in the collective consciousness, a danger, an enemy, or a being of lesser worth. Hence our emphasis on this exceedingly dangerous mechanism: demonization.
As for the factors that fuel hatred, their sources are many.
The factor may be religious, when doctrinal difference turns into condemnation of the other.
It may be sectarian, national, or ethnic, when identity is built on the idea of superiority or on fear of other groups. It may be class-based or economic, when economic crises turn into a search for a scapegoat. It may be social, the product of inherited stereotypes. The political factor is among the most dangerous triggers of all, because some forces resort to manufacturing an enemy as a way of rallying their own constituency.
When politics is built on fear, the existence of a “demonic adversary” becomes a necessity for sustaining mobilization.
In the same vein, we must pause at the role of the media in generalizing hate speech.
Hate speech may arise within narrow circles: a family, a political group, a religious community, or a limited social milieu. But the media and social media give it an extraordinary capacity to spread: a word that once remained confined to a small gathering can today reach millions of people within hours.
Herein lie both the responsibility of the media and its danger.
And so anger becomes a media commodity.
The media, whose vocation is to be a school of knowledge, pluralism, and dialogue, suddenly becomes an amplifier of hatred — an instrument of destruction that may lead to broad social confrontation.
Ignorance, for its part, constitutes fertile ground for the growth of hate speech and plays a fundamental role in shaping it.
Ignorance is not merely a lack of information; it may be an inability to distinguish between news and opinion, between the individual and the group, and between difference and enmity. The less a person knows of the other, the more susceptible he becomes to believing stereotypes about him. Man fears what he does not know, and is the enemy of what he is ignorant of.
The most dangerous form of hate speech lies in its political instrumentalization. Such political use arises when not a shred of conscience remains in certain political leaderships. This is social criminality in its purest form.
When public policies fail, it may be easier to lay the blame on a social, religious, or national group. The other thus becomes a device for explaining every crisis — a scapegoat.
The history of societies has shown that many conflicts were preceded by a long phase of discourse portraying a particular group as a danger, a burden, or an enemy.
Hate speech is therefore not merely a linguistic problem; it is a mental and cultural structure.
Religious Traditions in the Confrontation of Hatred
In the face of all this, the religions offer a vast moral heritage that can serve as a foundation for confronting this scourge.
Religions possess deep moral resources for confronting hatred. These references, for all their differences, converge upon a single truth: society cannot be protected if a person’s identity becomes a reason to squander his dignity.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ said: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” This is not a call to accept injustice or to relinquish one’s rights, but a refusal to let the confrontation of evil become a reproduction of it.
The Arab Prophet said: “The Muslim is the one from whose tongue and hand other Muslims are safe.” What is striking here is the pairing of tongue and hand, of word and deed — for the protection of the human being begins with the word before it reaches the body.
Imam Ali likewise articulated a profoundly humane principle: people are “either a brother to you in religion or your equal in creation.” Difference in religion does not abolish equality in creation and in dignity.
And in Buddhist teaching, the Dhammapada expresses a meaning of great clarity: hatred is not extinguished by hatred; it ceases through non-hatred.
This call does not abolish justice, but it refuses to turn conflict into hatred of the human being himself.
Without delving deeply into the divine teachings, we see that across differing religious contexts there is a clear convergence around protecting human dignity and refusing to turn difference into a justification for enmity.
What might the components of a comprehensive national plan to confront hatred, demonization, and the discourse they produce look like?
First, education in diversity, dialogue, and critical thinking must be introduced into school curricula.
Second, media and digital literacy programmes must be developed, so that young people learn to verify information, understand the mechanisms of disinformation, distinguish between fact and rumour, and refrain from sharing inciting content.
Third, an independent national observatory for hate speech should be established to monitor and analyse the phenomenon and to issue periodic reports on its sources and trends.
Fourth, a code of media ethics should be developed, setting out clear rules for covering conflicts and religious, sectarian, and political issues, and avoiding generalization and language that dehumanizes groups.
Fifth, religious leaders bear the responsibility of reviewing religious discourse and purging it of expressions that demean those who differ or strip them of their human legitimacy. Protecting the dignity of those who differ does not mean surrendering one’s creed; it means distinguishing between steadfastness in faith and the transformation of doctrinal difference into human enmity.
Sixth, political leaders bear the responsibility of refraining from exploiting fear and division for electoral or popular gain. A word spoken by the holder of power is more capable than any other of inflaming society or of calming it; he must therefore draw a clear line between legitimate political competition and the demonization of opponents.
Seventh, a precise legal framework must be developed that distinguishes between freedom of expression and direct incitement to violence or discrimination. Combating hate speech must never become a means of suppressing criticism or opposition.
Eighth, universities, research centres, and civil society must be engaged in studying and measuring the phenomenon and in developing knowledge-based tools of intervention.
From this standpoint, what are the challenges as the Middle East Council of Churches sees them, and what role does it play in confronting hate speech?
Christ teaches us a lesson in the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Hebrews regarded the Samaritans as devils, as unclean, as traitors. Yet Christ made of the “demonized” Samaritan a model of mercy — as if to tell us: the one you take for a devil may be closer to God than you are.
Likewise, the noble verse says:
“O mankind, We have created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of God is the most righteous of you. Indeed, God is All-Knowing, All-Aware.”
The Council has been a pioneer of dialogue since its founding in the 1970s, and has been highly active in this field. Its relief and development work is likewise a means of dialogue and rapprochement among the components of society, for joint development work in the field and collective social struggle bring people closer and unite them around shared causes.
Beyond relief and development, our work in dialogue and reconciliation falls under the following three headings, within a dedicated unit concerned with dialogue, social cohesion, the rehabilitation of human dignity, the value system, and social capital:
· Shared religious spaces in the Middle East, where we work steadily to bring out what is common in our religious beliefs in this region — to which we have added a substantial chapter on shared cultural spaces, in order to highlight the unity of cultural values that binds us together.
· Combating demonization and hate speech; this regional conference forms part of that track.
· Pioneers in Human Fraternity — programmes through which we demonstrate the social cohesion and mutual maturity among people that place them in a state of elevated fraternity, impervious to every attempt at sowing strife.
Conclusion
Hatred is not a phenomenon that is born suddenly. It is a path that begins as a mental image, then becomes discourse and attitude, then practice. It is not a fait accompli but something that is made — and the confrontation must therefore begin before violence appears.
Confronting hate speech means restoring the primacy of the human being over his identity, of truth over rumour, and of dialogue over condemnation. What is required is not a society without disagreement, for that is impossible, but a society that possesses a culture of managing disagreement and diversity.
What is required is a society able to disagree without hating, to criticize without demonizing, and to defend its own beliefs without insulting the beliefs of others.
The most important measure of our success in this battle is not the number of laws we enact, but our capacity to build a culture that sees the human being in the other even when we disagree with him. For the moment we cease to see the humanity of the other is the moment the march toward violence begins. But when we safeguard the humanity of the other, we will have taken the first and most important step toward building civil peace and a sound, stable, and prosperous society.
Distinguished guests,
History will record that a select group of Arab thinkers and researchers, concerned with the fate of their homeland, gathered on the land of Egypt and issued a document that will stand as a preventive reference against fragmentation and disintegration for generations yet unborn.
May the Lord bless the work of this conference and the service of all who take part in it, for the harmony of hearts, the safeguarding of human dignity, and the rehabilitation of the social capital that guarantees a better tomorrow.
He is the All-Knowing, the All-Wise; with Him lies all success, and His hand is with the community.