Defusing Hate: A guide

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum publishes a guidebook on countering dangerous speech.

The 160-page guide, entitled “Defusing Hate: A Strategic Communication Guide to Counteract Dangerous Speech,” was written by Rachel Hilary Borwn who helped quell intertribal conflict in Kenya during its 2013 elections. The publication gives local leaders ways to understand the environment that gives rise to hate speech, and to develop plans to defuse it.

“Unfortunately, I think this guide is more relevant than it was when we started this project,” said Rachel Hilary Brown who began work on the guide two years ago, as a fellow at the museum’s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide.

The nonprofit Brown co-founded in Kenya when she was 22 — Sisi ni Amani, or “We Are Peace” in Swahili — organized a 2013 campaign that disseminated peace-affirming text messages to counter provocative rumors spread by mobile phones in the nation. In the 2007-2008 election cycle, more than 1,000 Kenyans died after allegations that the vote was rigged.

Brown and the Holocaust museum hope “Defusing Hate,” which is available free online, will help local activists elsewhere design campaigns that will resonate with carefully targeted audiences. The book offers strategies for defining that audience, crafting a message, choosing the medium by which to spread it and avoiding common pitfalls — such as trying to debate with people using dangerous speech.

Annie Bird of the Department of State’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations said that the guidebook has already been used to train foreign service officers and that it should be relied on as the department begins to spend new funds allocated to prevent atrocities.

“Now we have a robust guide to help us figure out how to design a program,” she said to Brown at the guidebook’s launch. “I would love to see us actually pilot some work using your guide in countries at risk.”

The guidebook draws on the work of American University Professor Susan Benesch, who coined the term “dangerous speech” to mean speech that increases the risk for violence for a group of people.

Brown also uses the term “dangerous speech” as opposed to “hate speech.” As Benesch has argued, hate speech is not always dangerous — a person yelling ethnic slurs within earshot of no one, for example, is guilty of hate speech but likely not dangerous speech.

The guide and further activities are available here.