Advocating for refugees in the age of hate speech
Can human stories cut through the corrosive rhetoric—and help build a global community of welcomers?
It’s tempting, in this age of misinformation, to try to set the record straight on every misstatement, distortion and lie. When the subject is refugees, there are plenty of untruths floating around.
But a lot of thoughtful people argue that we shouldn’t respond explicitly to xenophobic rhetoric and fake news and hate speech. Doing so only reinforces what the linguist George Lakoff calls “the frame”, the overarching narrative that shapes public debate.
Instead we should establish and reinforce our own frame with positive, constructive messages. We should show that fear and hate are not universal, that there are other views (often shared by a majority) and that there are solutions within our reach.
So how do we build this frame? One way might be …
Storytelling
As head of content production at UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, I lead a team that produces and shares hundreds of multimedia stories each year. Our aim is to cut through the numbers and the fear and help to humanize refugees. We present them as unique individuals whose lives have been overturned by conflict or persecution. People who are inherently vulnerable but still have dignity. People who are in great need and have a well established right to international protection.
We show that refugees are fleeing terror.
We show that they are often extremely vulnerable, in need of protection, urgent medical care, food, shelter, education and livelihoods.
We show that most of them are fleeing to neighbouring countries that need more support from the international community.
We show that they bring talent and skills.
We also show that they need to be greeted, not with closed minds and closed borders, but with open arms and open hearts. That they need to arrive among …
The Welcomers
With public sentiment turning more negative, we have showcased acts of compassion and generosity in the countries where refugees are seeking protection. Our hope is that these true-life examples will spark empathy and inspire others to take action. It’s hard to measure whether they are, but a lot of people are certainly paying attention:
Our story of the Greek grandmother taking in refugees racked up millions of views on our Facebook channel. Then we shared it with Now This, where it got 10 million more.
Our No Stranger Place series, with photographer Aubrey Wade, showcases Europeans who have taken refugees into their own homes. People such as the Jellineks, a Jewish family in Berlin who are hosting a young Syrian man. Our story was picked up by AJ+, reaching millions of viewers. The series, which also features Austrian and Swedish hosts, has been exhibited in train stations in Vienna and Berlin. A related set of stories from the UK is now in the works.
In Canada, our From Far and Wide series profiles Canadians in several provinces who are supporting resettled refugees. AJ+ adapted our video story about a Hutterite colony who welcomed a Syrian family, again reaching millions of viewers.
Comments on our social media accounts have been overwhelmingly positive. The bigger challenge has been reaching new audiences, particularly those sometimes described as the persuadables or the anxious middle—people who are not haters, but who have legitimate concerns about security or the economy or culture—and worry about whether integration can work.
We are partnering with Facebook, Google, YouTube, Vice, AJ+ and others to produce and place content and engage key audiences in Europe and around the world.
Building a Community
For the 2016 Olympics, we launched a new set of social media accounts called Team Refugees, featuring the 10 refugees competing in Rio as well as other refugees participating in sport around the world. We built a highly engaged and very positive-minded community, demographically distinct from our core audience. For more than a month, it outperformed our much larger UNHCR accounts.
Now we are relaunching Team Refugees as a wider community, with sport at the centre but using team as a broader metaphor for inclusion and voluntarism. This joins up with our #WithRefugees campaign, guiding people to our petition and providing a space for inspiration and dialogue among those standing with refugees.
More broadly, we are working to align ourselves with other communities committed to human rights, inclusion and opportunity for all. Although our mandate is to protect people displaced by violence and persecution, plus those who are stateless, we know that their fate is closely tied to the fate of all those who are being cast as “the other”.
Please join us.
This post is adapted from my presentation at the EU Conference on Online Hate Speech, held on 7 April 2017 in Malta.
