Irish Examiner view: A lesson from the Highlands on hate crime laws

The experience of Scotland in the week since it introduced its new laws is insightful

Within a week, Police Scotland received 4,000 complaints, fulfilling predictions that there would be a wave of vexatious litigants, and people prepared to provoke disputes under the new rules. In that category, we can place the best-selling author and Edinburgh resident JK Rowling.

Anyone curious about the application of any putative hate crime legislation in Ireland will be studying the experience of Scotland in the week since it introduced its new laws.

We have populations of similar size. Both countries operate distinctive legal jurisdictions. Both have their own independent police forces. Scotland likes to think of itself as the home of the Enlightenment. We like to consider ourselves enlightened and progressive.

Scotland’s Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act consolidates existing laws and bolts on a new offence, “threatening or abusive behaviour which is intended to stir up hatred” based on disability, religion, age, sexual orientation, transgender identity, and variations in sex characteristics.

It was pioneered by the first minister, Humza Yousaf, when he was justice secretary and it underwent a turbulent passage through Holyrood in 2021.

Within a week, Police Scotland received 4,000 complaints, fulfilling predictions that there would be a wave of vexatious litigants, and people prepared to provoke disputes under the new rules. In that category, we can place the best-selling author and Edinburgh resident JK Rowling.

While the transgender component in the template of new regulations has been widely and eloquently discussed, including within the columns of the Irish Examiner, there are highly controversial facets in the way the Scots have gone about their business. We would be well advised to avoid them when, and if (it increasingly looks like the latter), Ireland’s Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences Bill 2022 makes its way through the Dáil.

Scotland has established a structure of “third-party reporting centres” which allow complainants to level their accusations without any need to interact with the police. Police Scotland has pledged to investigate every report.

While it is easy to represent these procedures as the natural province of snitches or, at its most florid, the creation of a Brigadoon version of the Stasi, they do run counter to a principle that many people hold dear: That everyone has the right to know by whom they are accused.

Attempts to strengthen freedom-of-speech provisions — after protests by religious and arts groups — look feeble and are overwhelmed by clamour at the removal of what was known as the dwelling defence. This means that the new law can be applied to private residences as well as public spaces and online.

Many of the conclusions about the growing antipathy to the ill-defined provisions concerning ‘hate think’ are represented as a revolt against ‘woke’, with the recent referenda results in Ireland adduced in support.

But there are other plausible reasons, including a mounting resistance to over-reach by states and assorted agencies, a movement that has its roots in rising resentment of the consequences of lockdown.

In a recent interview, the Chinese author of the moment, Cixin Liu, stepped aside from discussing the success of The Three-Body Problem to observe that there is a yearning for status quo.

“More and more people are getting to the point where they’re happy with what they’ve got,” he said. “They’re comfortable. They don’t want to make any more progress. They don’t want to push any harder.” 

Governments and their agents pushing on, in ill-defined ways with shiny ideas, should take note.

King of the bookshelves

Stephen King is credited with revitalising the now all-conquering gothic horror genre. Picture: Bertrand Langlois/AFP via Getty Images

In his primer for aspiring novelists, On Writing, Stephen King — you may have heard of him — said: “The scariest moment is just before you start.”

For someone who has delivered more scary moments than anyone else in literary history, the man from Portland, Maine, now 76, is well qualified to offer an opinion.

Quite how frightened he was 50 years ago this week when his first manuscript Carrie — about a bullied teenager with formidable telekinetic powers — had been rejected by 29 publishers we can only hazard a guess. But it was five decades ago on Friday that it finally reached print.

Happily, Doubleday signed the author with a $2,500 advance (about €14,500 today). The initial print run was 30,000 copies. The paperback version sold 4m.

More than 70 books and 60 screen adaptations later, King is not only the world’s most prolific author, but is credited with revitalising the now all-conquering gothic horror genre. It is notable that some of his most terrifying plotlines and characters, from Jack Torrance in The Shining to Paul Sheldon and his “number one fan” Annie Wilkes in Misery centre on writers’ block, something of which King could never be accused.

Six months of war have achieved deadlock

It will be six months on Sunday since the October terrorist attacks started the war between Israel and Hamas.

By conservative estimates more than 30,000 Palestinians have died. People in Gaza cry out for aid, food, and medical assistance. Hospitals and health centres are decimated. Many dozens of Israeli hostages are still being held. Some 1,200 of its citizens were killed. Last autumn we wrote that there was “no swift point of settlement”.

“Peril already attends upon the world in Ukraine, and we now have a new front being renewed in Palestine. Every step moves us closer towards the void,” we said.

Deadlock continues. Israel, where internal divisions and opposition against the government of Benjamin Netanyahu are increasing, is determined that Hamas will not be allowed to reconsolidate during any temporary truce. Its war objective is to render that organisation invalid in any future territorial discussions. Its plans to invade Rafah are on hold while it attempts an increasingly hopeless task of rallying international support for its military actions.

While domestic discontent with Israel’s prime minister is making itself visible on the streets of Tel Aviv, any further attack sponsored by Iran or client states would almost certainly cement Israeli determination to see this conflict out.

While the impasse continues, and the shadow of famine hangs over Gaza, international opinions against the IDF are slowly hardening while falling short of decisive action required to break the stasis.

For US president Joe Biden, whether he wishes it or not, the war in the Middle East has become one of the defining issues of his term of office as he moves inexorably towards a battle for the White House with Donald Trump.

In a call to his opposite number Mr Biden said future US support “will be determined” by how Israel treated civilians in Gaza.

This will need to go far beyond the opening-up of one or two new paths for assistance to build any credibility with the rest of the world, or even discontented Democrat voters. In his sharpest rebuke so far, Mr Biden, according to an official communique, “emphasised that the strikes on humanitarian workers and the overall humanitarian situation are unacceptable”.

“He made clear the need for Israel to announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers.” 

Visiting Nato headquarters in Brussels, US secretary of state Anthony Blinken said: “If we lose that reverence for human life, we risk becoming indistinguishable from those we confront. The results on the ground are woefully insufficient and unacceptable.”

While the death of workers attached to World Central Kitchen in Gaza marked a step change in the narrative this week, global opinion must be aware of the determination, even among ordinary Israeli citizens, to resist aggression from Hamas, Hezbollah, and, behind them, Iran. Attacks on their state will add momentum to unity created by being on a war footing and will pull the rug from any attempts to limit provision of US munitions. We are at an impasse.

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