They are brazen, feral, anthropoids that de- mand pay without work and collect sickness ben- efits without being sick. US / THEM They receive child benefits for chil- dren Hate Speech at the Service of Politics that play with pigs on the street, and for women that have the instincts of stray dogs * / edited by Miłosz Hodun LGBT migrants Roma Muslims Jews refugees national minorities asylum seekers ethnic minorities foreign workers black communities feminists NGOs women Africans church human rights activists journalists leftists liberals linguistic minorities politicians religious communities Travelers US / THEM European Liberal Forum Projekt: Polska US / THEM Hate Speech at the Service of Politics edited by Miłosz Hodun 132 Travelers 72 Africans migrants asylum seekers religious communities women 176 Muslims migrants 30 Map of foreign workers migrants Jews 162 Hatred refugees frontier workers LGBT 108 refugees pro-refugee activists 96 Jews Muslims migrants 140 Muslims 194 LGBT black communities Roma 238 Muslims Roma LGBT feminists 88 national minorities women 78 Russian speakers migrants 246 liberals migrants 8 Us & Them black communities 148 feminists ethnic Russians 20 Austria ethnic Latvians 30 Belgium LGBT 38 Bulgaria 156 46 Croatia LGBT leftists 54 Cyprus Jews 64 Czech Republic 72 Denmark 186 78 Estonia LGBT 88 Finland Muslims Jews 96 France 64 108 Germany migrants 118 Greece Roma 218 Muslims 126 Hungary 20 Roma 132 Ireland refugees LGBT migrants asylum seekers 126 140 Italy migrants refugees 148 Latvia human rights refugees 156 Lithuania 230 activists ethnic 204 NGOs 162 Luxembourg minorities Roma journalists LGBT 168 Malta Hungarian minority 46 176 The Netherlands Serbs 186 Poland Roma LGBT 194 Portugal 38 204 Romania Roma LGBT 218 Slovakia NGOs 230 Slovenia 238 Spain 118 246 Sweden politicians church LGBT 168 54 migrants Turkish Cypriots LGBT prounification activists Jews asylum seekers Europe Us & Them Miłosz Hodun We are now handing over to you another publication of the Euro- PhD. President of the pean Liberal Forum and Project: Poland, devoted to hate speech Projekt: Polska Founda- and populism. In 2014 we jointly published “Liberal Agenda Against tion and legal expert Online Hate Speech”, an analysis of the current situation of online at HejtStop programme. Second Vice-President hate speech in Europe in 2018. “The European Atlas of Democratic of the European Liberal Deficit”, in which the authors identified hate speech as one of the Forum. Author and editor most difficult challenges for the modern European democracy. of various publications Our “Liberal Agenda” started with ‘hate speech is everywhere: on hate speech. on the walls of our cities, in the mainstream and online media as well. It is impossible to avoid. It’s impossible to run away from it’. Unfortunately, nothing has changed in this respect. None of the observers of social life has any doubt that it is only worse. According to a 2018 Eurobarometer survey, hate speech is the type of online illegal content that Europeans encounter very often, it was most mentioned by respondents in 10 countries 1. Eurostat, in the report “Being young in Europe today — digital world” shows concerns about the behaviours of children and young people 2. Ac- cording to the study, they may be exposed to potentially harmful content, which may create dependency, anxiety or aggression. A bit older results, 2016 Eurobarometer, show that three-quarters of EU citizens have already experienced hate speech on social media 3. More detailed data from individual Member States are even more frightening. The COVID-19 pandemic and its adverse consequences will only, like any other socio-economic crisis, make this situation worse. After many years, hate speech has finally become the subject of political debate. At the European level, the best example of this was seen in the recent State of the Union Address by Ursula von der Leyen at the European Parliament Plenary session 4. The President of the European Commission said: Miłosz Hodun Us & Them 8 – 9 I am proud to live in Europe, in this open society of values and diversity. But even here in this Union — these stories are a daily reality for so many people. And this reminds us that progress on fighting racism and hate is fragile — it is hard won but very easily lost. So now is the moment to make the change. To build a truly anti-racist Union — that goes from condemnation to action. And the Commission is putting forward an action plan to start making that happen. As part of this, we will propose to extend the list of EU crimes to all forms of hate crime and hate speech — whether because of race, religion, gender or sexuality. Hate is hate — and no one should have to put up with it. This problem can no longer be ignored because it is like a virus that attacks liberal democracy, an open society and the rights and freedoms of European citizens organically linked to it. This virus has already entered the central nervous system of modern democracy, of politics, from where it sends destructive impulses in every direc- tion. The hate speech in politics is associated by many of us with Donald Trump and the new standards of American politics, which are mercilessly and consistently introduced overseas. Trump set the precedent of normalising hate speech as President of the United States. Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric, echoed by his staff, harms im- migrants, Latinos, African-Americans, Muslim-American, and other minority and marginalised groups. A prominent US civil rights group the Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC) have reported hundreds of cases of attacks against minorities — including instances of violence and intimidation — as a direct effect of Trump’s speech and called him to “take responsibility for what’s occurring, forcefully reject hate and bigotry” 5. In 2019, Democrats in the House of Representatives, and even some Republicans, passed a “nonbinding resolution” denouncing Trump’s “racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of colour” 6. But if anyone in Europe wants to feel at ease thinking ‘oh, those awful Americans’, it is high time to face the truth and look around in their backyard. For years now, hate speech has been devastating public space and mercilessly invading the private sphere, even at that side of the Atlantic that often sees itself as better, more civilised and more culturally developed. Looking from above, laugh- ing at others only prevents us from seeing our problems, analysing them, understanding the seriousness of the situation and taking the necessary measures. That is why we decided to prepare this publi- cation. We wanted to check, country by country, what is the status Europe of hate speech in the European Union. In particular, how it affects politics and politicians. Also, how and via which channels it returns from politicians to society. And what havoc it wreaks. Together with the authors, we have visited the 27 EU Member States. We travelled from Helsinki to Lisbon, listened to the parliamentary debates in The Hague, Prague and Valetta, looked at the codes written in Hungarian and Greek, listened to the television news in Slovak and Finnish. All this to provide readers with possibly the most complete picture of the situation in Europe, where no corner has been overlooked because at first glance it might seem irrelevant or free of weaknesses. In addition to the geographical cross-section, our subsequent atlas offers a variety of authors and perspectives. On the following pages, the voices of politicians at various levels, academics, experts from recognised think-tanks and activists will be heard. The voice of a former Minister for European Affairs and the voice of the youngest councillor in the country. The voice of the victim of hate crimes and the voice of a person who has devoted her professional life to combating this phenomenon. This multiplicity of experiences is also reflected in the multiplicity of styles. From academic articles from Berlin or Ljubljana to a metaphorical essay sent from the Dutch Bergen op Zoom, in which the Hague turns into the Ancient Troy. We aimed to give the authors the initiative and show the national context through their eyes and their words. The starting point was the same for all authors: hate speech in politics. However, I soon realised that the understanding of this subject could be extremely different. Of course, the very concept of hate speech is vague. There is no single definition. Moreover, there is the problem of a multitude of definitions, which many authors are facing. Some people give up, even without trying to enter the field of theoretical deliberations on this topic by focusing on more specific and/or practical issues. Others authoritatively point to a definition that will apply, at least within their article. There is nothing wrong with any of these approaches because, on the one hand, the discus- sion about the definition of hate speech is an indispensable part of the discussion about the phenomenon itself and, on the other hand, any non-theoretical considerations also help to clarify the concept. However, it is not the case that everyone adopts the legal definition which I have been using for years as the most complete, namely: the term ‘hate speech’ shall be understood as covering all forms of expression which is used to spread, incite, promote or justify racial hatred, xenophobia, anti-Semitism or other forms Miłosz Hodun Us & Them 10 —11 of hatred based on intolerance, including intolerance expressed by aggressive nationalism and ethnocentrism, discrimination and hostility against minorities, migrants and people of immigrant origin 7. What is more, in the publication many authors go far be- yond legal definitions, resorting to a more common, much broader, understanding of the term.