The rise in hate crime: what fuels hate?
Over the last year, the Home Office reported an estimated 7% increase in hate crime in England and Wales. There are a multitude of reasons behind this; political parties will blame the politics of the other, whilst perpetrators justify their actions as a legitimate defence against an enemy of their own creation. What is overlooked, and seldom considered, is why people choose to hate.
To hate someone is a very strong feeling. Beyond disagreeing and disliking them, to hate someone for reasons they cannot control (the colour of their skin, their accent, or where they were born) seems at odds with basic humanity and respect. We live in an undeniably strange and volatile time, where changes being made every day have put an unbelievable strain on working people. We have all been conditioned to search for the problem, and it is no surprise that an increasing minority have been turned to believe that migrants, or people of colour, or people who practice other religions are to blame. When the mistakes of those in power are to blame, chaos is caused to cover up their failure as leaders to us all. This is not a new change, the Irish will remember, as will the Windrush Generation and the South Asian’s, a time when they were all scapegoated to cause chaos and hide the shortcomings of consecutive Governments.
The 14th century African scholar, Ibn Khaldun, recorded this well in his masterwork: The Muqqaddimah, where he uncovered several social and economic factors driving human history. Through analysing the rise and fall of empires and societies at the time, he discovered that the ruling classes gained power by joining in a majority, to take down the then-current ruling classes, creating a cycle. When power is accumulated, the rulers become out of touch with the common people, which leads them to revolt. This trend can be seen in more modern history, with the Russian and French revolutions. In the context of today, however, mainstream media and social media have made it so easy to push views and separate people, making it so much more difficult for individuals to truly see where the blame should be put.
Unlike times before, the shackles of our subjugation are harder to overcome, members of the resentful exploited classes cannot get over their differences and see that they have more in common than what separates them. The elites prey on this chaos, as it prevents them from being overthrown and allows them to continue accumulating wealth and power. The medium of our exploitation has advanced in a way we cannot, they use emotion to drive narratives that can harbour hate, and until we are able to have control over our emotions, we will continue to be manipulated. Whilst education and policing are essential, and are constantly evolving elements trying to help prevent hate crime, until we the people are able to remove hate from society, it won’t ever really go away.
To the readers, in these trying times when it seems society is so filled with hate, think about how you can control your own narrative, form opinions and think more critically, else you all risk being infected by the same poison that is cursing so many in today’s age. Put down your phones, go outside more and talk to real people, read books you may not enjoy, find love in the mundane things, and throughout this remember not to let hate remove your humanity.