Words matter

Cong Corrales .

“And now you do what they told ya, now you’re under control.” – Killing in the Name, Rage Against the Machine

WORDS can have consequences especially when a hate-laden speech is spoken by an influential public figure. Words matter. These can rouse an apathetic crowd to action or an angry mob. These can even spur a solitary loon to action.

These can validate deep-seated biases and bigotry. Our freedom of expression is not absolute because along with that freedom comes the responsibility with what we espouse publicly. One cannot just spew hate rhetoric and wash their hands once their avid audience takes action on what they said.

As I was watching the news over the weekend, one particular item caught my attention. It was about the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting. On Sunday morning, Robert Bowers opened fire at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg, USA. He killed at least 11 people.

He was single-minded in purpose. Prior to the shooting, he wrote on a right-wing social network: “I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered.” Apparently, Bowers is under the impression that a Jewish nonprofit organization that supports refugees have been smuggling in “invaders in that kill our people.”

World history taught us that toxic politics, along with the hate rhetoric and black propaganda that goes with it, never ends well. A hate speech told over and over again can escalate and, as we’ve seen in the past, result in mass murders.

Benjamin Wallace-Wells of The New Yorker hit the nail in the head when he wrote: “They are the toxic politics of the President (Donald Trump), and the racist, nationalist fervor that has been inflamed by his rise, and the success and the militancy of the gun lobby…”

“The moral inadequacy is vast. Murderous acts of hate have occurred, on a national scale, several times this week. It is a tragedy that the President is not able to see them for what they are,” Wallace-Wells concluded.

Here in the Philippines, also on Sunday, we witnessed a less dramatic but nevertheless equally reprehensible behavior from people who have sworn to protect us.

National Capital Region Police Office’s Director Guillermo Eleazar “reprimanded” Police Officer 1 Eduardo Valencia for allegedly raping a 15-year-old daughter of a couple arrested in an anti-drug operation.

Valencia responded by saying: “Sir, may pamilya po ako. Sir, hindi na po bago sa ‘ting mga operatiba ‘yung gano’n kapag may nahuhuli po tayong drug pusher, sir.”

When our President beams on stage saying: “Dapat mayor ang mauna” as a quip  to a jail rape of a foreigner in a hostage incident and the audience laugh at the morally corrupt joke (if you call it that), you can pretty much expect the police officer thought he could do it and get away with it.

What’s worse is that from Valencia’s response, raping minor children of drug suspects have been going on now since Oplan Tokhang started.

Hate speech fuels the culture of impunity. We should know better. Make no doubt about it but our President’s toxic politics will escalate into a full-on national rift between those who are in power and those whose rights have been trampled on. Sooner than later, this will happen. History has shown us that.