The latest news regarding the online racist abuse aimed at certain Netherlands players, following the team’s premature exit from the world cup, probably comes as no surprise to most and feels like it is no longer all that extraordinary.  Sadly, it is almost normalised.  We’ve seen this online abuse multiple times before aimed at different players, be they Black or women or any other section of society that fits the perverse pervading ideology of the time.  Social media seems to have given bigots of all persuasions a voice.   What was restricted to being voiced within groups, perhaps in pubs or other such settings, is now not only being voiced, but in a controlled and targeted way, a way designed to cause hurt and harm, a vindictive, personalised way targeting individuals, whilst also having a far wider reach.   As with most crimes the causes and motives behind such hatred are often unclear.  There is however a perceived logic behind the hatred.  The Black footballers failed the nation the rest just didn’t do very well. The logic of hatred isn’t just aimed at sports stars; it is a cancer in every walk of life.  The Israeli actions in the middle east fuelling hatred of Jews.  The actions of individuals within the Asian community in parts of the UK involved in the grooming of children fuelling islamophobia and hatred of Asians.  The actions of some of the travelling community involved in unauthorised encampments and crime fuelling the hatred of Travellers and Gypsies.  The actions of Black asylum seekers involved in sexual offences fuelling the hatred of Black people and immigrants (a double hit there). And so, the list goes on, historical and contemporary evidence for why we should hate.  There is a logic to the hatred, there is evidence that can be pointed to, and there are politicians, here and abroad, and the news media, that happily point to and provide that evidence, seeing the fruitfulness of stirring up the so-called indigenous masses to their advantage.  Further evidence when those in authority tell us how it is. Of course, the hatred of these groups of people is not new, it can be seen in generations before us across the world, in some guise or another.  But that hatred, is reinforced by the contemporary evidence selectively presented and voiced by institutions that have a vested interest in doing so.  That’s the so-called logic of hatred.

And yet the people that display this hatred would happily support their football club/ nation if it is successful. The hatred is held in obeyance as the Black footballer thumps the ball into the opponent’s net.  The same people that hate might happily, without thought, accept medical treatment from the Jewish doctor, the Muslim dental surgeon, the Black Immigrant nurse. They are the first in the queue at the kebab shop buying a donner kebab from the settled asylum seeker originating from the Middle East.  Happy to consume an Indian or Chinese (food that is, not the person) served up by someone from Asia. They eat the vegetables and fruit picked by foreign labourers; nothing is shunned if it is to their personal advantage.  That’s the illogical schizophrenia.  There is for some an inbuilt underlying hatred of others, which defies logic.  There is for many a convenient scapegoat for the ills that may have befallen them.  It is the fault of the ‘other’, the Black, the Jew, the Muslim, the asylum seeker, not decades of social decline or governmental policy failure.  The failure that has led to low living standards, or the housing crisis or the collapse of NHS or social care or manufacturing or unemployment or education.  It is the fault of the ‘other’ and where else can that frustration be vented.  There is some perverse logic in hating the ‘other’ albeit that logic is somewhat illogical.

Images

L-R George Orwell’s ‘Two Minute Hate’ and the Stand Up To Racism March in London on 17/03/2018