Words matter and have immense power. They can please or anger, hurt or heal. They have the ability to uplift or depress, build or destroy. And so they must be used judiciously, not recklessly, especially by those in positions of power and influence. Actions, too, have consequences. Everyone knows that. It is a lesson learnt from childhood and continues throughout life. Yet, sometimes it is forgotten and only remembered when some are directly affected. This simple fact that words matter and actions have consequences has become a familiar refrain in the wake of a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters storming the Capitol last Wednesday, January 6. The words are on everyone’s lips. Their eyes seem to have suddenly opened to the realisation of the truth of something that is well-known. They now realise how dangerous President Trump’s utterances have been. For the last five years, he had worked them to such a rage against conventional politicians and national institutions that what they did on Wednesday was the inevitable outcome. His refusal to utter the few words – go home - to his supporters that would have averted the danger to life and American institutions showed him to be not only the instigator but also complicit in their actions. Spoken, words have power; unsaid, they still do. And so even Trump’s supporters and enablers among the political class now denounce him and condemn his utterances and actions. Twitter, the very effective vehicle of his utterances, went even farther and banned him from its platform. They, of course, had to find a good reason for this unthinkable decision. You see we’ve been made to believe that free speech is sacred and cannot be curtailed. The reason was that there was the risk of further incitement and violence with his continued use of Twitter. More specifically, Trump’s tweet calling the Capitol rioters patriots and another saying he would not attend President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration were “likely to encourage and inspire people to replicate the criminal acts that took place at the Capitol on January 6”. So, we made a new discovery. There are limits to the exercise of freedom of speech after all, even in the United States of America. If there is a threat, actual or likely, to the heart of the American political system, that right can be withdrawn. It would be a grave failing if the system that they have attempted to export to the rest of the world, sometimes forcefully or by other devious means, and at other times in subtler ways, were to unravel. That is today in the United States of America. Twenty-six years ago in Rwanda a worse situation was unfolding where free speech was called into question. Words were used to dehumanise a section of Rwandans and to then incite their extermination. The extremist RTLM radio was openly urging the Interahamwe and ordinary Rwandans to kill their Tutsi neighbours, relatives, colleagues at work, or business partners. Pleas were made to block or disable the radio and prevent it from spreading its hate campaign and incitement to massacre. Only powerful countries like the United States could do that. The pleas were ignored. The killing continued. In the space of ninety days, more than a million Tutsi were killed in the fastest and most ferocious genocide in history. Reason for rejection of all those pleas? Right to free speech. The meaning of words, the intention they carried and their impact did not matter then. Their consequences were discounted. Only the right to free speech did. Yet in Rwanda in 1994 there was a real threat, not the risk of it. Genocide was being committed, not the likelihood of violence. But the right to free speech was so sacred it had to be upheld, even for those openly calling for the extermination of a people. It was more valuable than the lives of millions of Rwandans and the very existence of the nation. Reactions to Rwanda in April 1994 and Washington in January 2021 were different in other aspects as well. In the United States storming the Capitol and the violence that followed was seen as desecration of hallowed institutions. It caused strong revulsion and led to swift condemnation of the rioters and their instigators. Twitter, too, was swift to ban Trump in order to ward off potential danger to the country’s institutions. In Rwanda, they could not even agree to call what was happening by its right name – genocide. They debated what to call it while people continued to be killed. Ironically, it was because words matter and have consequences that there was that reluctance. This difference should not surprise anyone. While there are certain universal values that should apply to all equally, the determination of how they apply or if they do at all is reserved by some. It is an unequal world.
