On Hate and Fear

It is pretty clear that racism exists, and no matter what scientific knowledge says about the existence of race, humans keep dividing themselves on accounts of it. Our movement is fighting this trend of society with our own intellectual artillery and unsurpassed bravery. However, now I ask you my comrades in battle, are you really brave? There is none among you, I suspect, that thinks otherwise. In fact, you may think that the only reason why you are involved in this social outcry is because you are brave. Nevertheless, cowards go into battle, not because they don’t feel afraid at their enemy, but because they hate so much the thing they are attacking.

You hate racism, but as a consequence you also hate the racist. And by hating the racist, you are also proving that you are afraid of it because we tend to ignore the things for which we feel brave about, but we either attack or avoid the things that we fear. Out of fear comes hate. We cannot hate things that we feel brave about, and we cannot love the things that make us shiver. Hate, however, does not always lead to violence. You hate racists, but you have decided to carry on this fight without producing harm to the subjects of your hate. However, this cannot continue.

In the same way it is illogical to hurt a person we love, it is illogical to act with courtesy in front of those people we hate. Nevertheless, strange cases like this happen, with horrible consequences for the perpetrators. Lovers full of rage have brutally murdered the very person they loved. Then, they realized what they had done and there was nothing more than emptiness, sadness, desperation, and anguish. Acting peacefully in front of those we hate will eventually pollute us, lead us to madness, despair and our movement will fall due to its own hate. This dilemma leads us to two ways of responding to racism. One is an old way, and though effective, it many times leads to the destruction of the societies in which it was applied. The other is slow, and probably a new concept for our minds used to the old way of acting.

The old way is hate with violence. In this way we will canalize our fear (turned into hate) through the length of our weapons. Glory and power come when this method is applied because those who fight are viewed by the rest as heroes because it is thought they are bravely advancing toward the enemy. However, as noted before, these so called brave heroes are acting out of fear for their enemy and not out of real bravery. This method is effective because it seeks the destruction of the thing subject of our hate. We fight and we destroy it. We then impose our law and our way of thinking. Depending on how even is the struggle, this method can be a very quick way of changing our present condition as well.

The second method is slow and rather than destroying the enemy, we try to convert him to our side. However, many people would say that the method goes against common sense. This method is love and peace. It is not enough with acting peacefully toward the enemies; it is also about loving them. We will never win the peaceful battle against racism if we keep hating racists. In the same way a fire cannot put off a fire, hate cannot overcome hate. It takes its opposite to neutralize what is harmful and it takes truly brave people to volunteer to love their enemy. If we keep fighting, pushing against something, we will never advance. But if instead, we aim toward something and move toward that objective, we will not meet opposition nor enemy. This should not be a movement against racism; it should be movement for a future where justice prevails.

The racist is afraid of the subject of his hate. The racist hate because that is their human response to fear. Evidently, our enemy fears us and that is the reason why we cannot afford to hate them. Hating them would mean fearing them, and a movement cannot base itself out of fear because those who shiver will eventually fall.

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