HATE AS A POLITICAL OUTCAST

Abstract

This article is about hate as an outcast of current European politics. More precisely, it is about the uses of the term “hate” amongst European politicians, policy makers, NGOs and intergovernmental organizations as a mobilizing signifier in the ongoing work against a particular area of crime, namely crimes motivated by various forms of prejudice. The article builds on participant observation in anti-hate crime meetings and conferences in Denmark and at the European level as well as published speeches and policy documents. The current anti-hate crime mobilization is, as I will elaborate below, part of a much broader field of anti-discrimination, anti-racist and pro-human rights work in which a range of attitudes and practices is increasingly subsumed under the term “hate” and portrayed as a fundamental problem for a pluralist democracy (Jenness & Grattet 2001; Brown 2006; also Yanay 2013). In reading reports, campaigns and political statements about hate crimes, one may thus encounter statements such as the following: