Hate Spin Information Policy Series Edited by Sandra Braman The Information Policy Series publishes research on and analysis of significant prob- lems in the field of information policy, including decisions and practices that enable or constrain information, communication, and culture irrespective of the legal siloes in which they have traditionally been located as well as state-law-society interac- tions. Defining information policy as all laws, regulations, and decision-making prin- ciples that affect any form of information creation, processing, flows, and use, the series includes attention to the formal decisions, decision-making processes, and en- tities of government; the formal and informal decisions, decision-making processes, and entities of private and public sector agents capable of constitutive effects on the nature of society; and the cultural habits and predispositions of governmentality that support and sustain government and governance. The parametric functions of infor- mation policy at the boundaries of social, informational, and technological systems are of global importance because they provide the context for all communications, interactions, and social processes. Virtual Economies: Design and Analysis, Vili Lehdonvirta and Edward Castronova Traversing Digital Babel: Information, e-Government, and Exchange, Alon Peled Chasing the Tape: Information Law and Policy in Capital Markets, Onnig H. Dombalagian Regulating the Cloud: Policy for Computing Infrastructure, edited by Christopher S. Yoo and Jean-François Blanchette Privacy on the Ground: Driving Corporate Behavior in the United States and Europe, Ken- neth A. Bamberger and Deirdre K. Mulligan How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet, Benjamin Peters Hate Spin: The Manufacture of Religious Offense and Its Threat to Democracy, Cherian George Big Data Is Not a Monolith, edited by Cassidy R. Sugimoto, Hamid R. Ekbia, and Mi- chael Mattioli Hate Spin The Manufacture of Religious Offense and Its Threat to Democracy Cherian George The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England © 2016 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. This book was set in Stone Sans and Stone Serif by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: George, Cherian, author. Title: Hate spin : the manufacture of religious offense and its threat to democracy / Cherian George. Description: Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, 2016. | Series: Information policy | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016014335 | ISBN 9780262035309 (hardcover : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Offenses against religion—Law and legislation. | Offenses against religion—Political aspects. | Freedom of speech. | Political persecution. | Hate speech—Law and legislation Classification: LCC K5305 .G46 2016 | DDC 345/.0288—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016014335 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To the memory of Ibrahim Haji Kader Mustan (1925–1976) Contents Series Editor’s Introduction ix Preface xiii Acknowledgments xvii 1 Hate Spin as Politics by Other Means 1 2 By What Rules? Human Rights and Religious Authority 25 3 God, Google, and the Globalization of Offendedness 57 4 India: Narendra Modi and the Harnessing of Hate 83 5 Indonesia: Democracy Tested amid Rising Intolerance 111 6 United States: Exceptional Freedoms, Fabricated Fears 139 7 Pushing Back, Through Media and Civil Society 165 8 Assertive Pluralism for a World of Irreducible Diversity 191 Notes 219 References 267 Index 293 Series Editor’s Introduction Sandra Braman Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, in her influential and still important work The Spiral of Silence, asked just how it is that extreme positions of hate against entire populations—hate speech—can come to dominate politically. Her question was inspired by the Nazis, but her insights into the psychology of public speech, from what may begin as very small and highly deviant groups expressing extreme views, have helped us understand humanitar- ian disasters such as the genocidal war between the Hutus and the Tutsis, so clearly driven by a deliberate radio campaign. Jacob Shamir and Michal Shamir, in The Anatomy of Public Opinion, explores ways in which differ- ences in knowledge base prior to exposure to extreme speech can affect how individuals engage with or are affected by these processes, and others who study public opinion have added to our understanding of individual- level dynamics that lead to mass mobilization via extreme speech. Mark Granovetter’s sociological work on “Threshold Models of Collective Behav- ior” valuably extends the argument to decisions made by individuals in groups that turn from speech to extreme behavior, as when violence erupts during a political demonstration. In these public opinion and sociology literatures, researchers and theorists are concerned with the effects of extreme speech on individual expression and action. The focus is on what has happened in historical hate speech campaigns and their consequences—the figure in the figure/ field configuration that always characterizes our research subjects. By con- trast, in Hate Spin, Cherian George starts by looking at the field, noting that there must be additional dynamics in play because there have been myriad instances in which expressions of hate speech have generated no social consequences at all. His in-depth research in three of the world’s largest democracies clearly explains that what makes the difference—what triggers hate speech campaigns and their genocidal effects—are choices made by political entrepreneurs to deliberately use opportunities to take offense to x Series Editor’s Introduction achieve other political goals. His focus is not on the effects of hate speech, but its use as a political tool. The analyses provided here identify specific individuals, historic moments, and decisions of these kinds in qualititively different social, economic, political, and legal environments—as well as examples of opportunities to use this political tool that were not taken, either because there was no immediate political advantage to be gained or because there was no appropriately positioned political entrepreneur in place to take advantage of the moment. George’s theory of hate spin provides an original, persuasive, and valu- able framework for thinking about these phenomena and the processes they unleash. He peels back the big and often overly simple narratives char- acterizing much of what is said publicly about matters such as responses to Danish publication of cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed. What he makes visible are the very specific political motives and decisions of individual actors in particular contexts that led to social explosions when and where they took place. Developments in each of the three countries studied are contextualized within the long histories of the pertinent societ- ies, with acute observations into historical events and contemporary forces that create the contexts within which hate spin has come to be seen as such a useful political tool. This author’s insights into the dynamics in play provide a foundation for a critique of existing laws and regulations intended to deal with the deliberate giving of offense (hate speech) and the deliberate taking of offense, which together comprise “hate spin.” George argues that the law is not only, in many places, inadequate for contemporary social dynam- ics, but it also can provide affordances for conflict. The book builds upon its theory, analysis of the social processes underway, and significant case studies to offer an exploration of what the media, civil society, and the law are—and could be—doing. All three are important to each of us as individuals and to society as a whole. From the perspective of the Information Policy series, the analyses of the history, development, and current status of laws and regulations that can facilitate or impede the ability to engage in hate spin are of particular value. For those in the information policy / law and society domains, this book identifies a research agenda of great significance and urgent immedi- ate need. The subject of information policy and the refugees and displaced persons who are on the move precisely because of successful uses of hate spin is also of interest to the series. Series Editor’s Introduction xi This is important work. We are riven, today, with violence unexpected and projected, immediate and far away, singly and in multiples, small chil- dren and large populations, all too often justified by claims that it is the legitimate and only response to hate speech. In Hate Spin, Cherian George removes the veil from one of the most powerful political dynamics of our times, tells us how it works in its specifics in the world’s major democracies, and makes concrete and operationalizable recommendations about what we might do as next steps in an effort to reverse the trends. Preface Several years ago in Malaysia, a large crowd assembled by hard-line Mus- lim activists disrupted a forum on religious freedom. The police arrived to restore order—by instructing the organizers of the dialogue to abandon their meeting so as not to provoke the protesters further.1 When I heard about this incident occurring in a country