A Critical Discourse Analysis of Hate Speech

Online communication on social networks has become a never-givenup way of expressing and sharing views and opinions within the realm of all topics on earth, and that is that! A basis essential in this is the limits at which "freedom of expression" should not be trespassed so as not to fall into the expression of "hate speech". These two ends make a base in the UN regulations pertaining to human rights: One is free to express, but not to hate by expression. Hereunder, a Critical Discourse Analysis in terms of Fairclough's dialectical-relational approach (2001) is made of Facebook posts (being made by common people, and not of official nature) targeting Islam and Muslims. This is made so as to recognize these instances of "speech" as pertaining to freedom of expression or to hate speech. It is concluded that the language of the posts and their semiotic details signify that the texts therein represent hate speech which may amount sometimes to call for genocide, and not a mere freedom of expression.


Introduction
Indeed, the Internet has the non-negative feature of allowing people to communicate at all levels, a state of affairs which is growing remarkably fast. This sort of communication, however, may be either negatively-or positively-directed towards others (Back et al., 2010). That is, communication may be controlled so as to enhance or support good relations with others; or, it goes on to appeal for the expression of hate against others, i.e., by gathering thoseself-favoured views and beliefs and creating a front of war against the "Others" who do not share these same viewsand interests. This type of negative use of communication is judged to be a sort of crime known as cyber-bullyingor cyber hate (seeJaishankar, 2008).
Amidst these two ends of expression springs up the nationally-andinternationally-well-recognised right of all individuals for freedom of expression, which is an essential outcome of the idea of equality among people. As a concept, freedom of expression is an essential internationallyguaranteed right for humans. The expression of opinions and informationsharing both make an indicator of the level of democracy exercised within societies. And so, tolerating others' thoughts and others' contrasting interests will add support to the level of co-existence in modern communities where multicultural co-living is predominant (Mihajlova, et al. 2013, 5). But, the abuse of freedoms is a characteristic feature of some humans, due to an array of reasons whose investigation is beyond the limits of the present paper. Thus, freedom of expression may anyhow be abused, and results in unexpected phenomena. Groups or individuals can hold themselves superior to others, by race, ethnicity, religion, nation, or else, and consequently, they will humiliate or ridicule any "others" not belonging to their groups, who are beheld inferior to them (ibid); hatred herein comes naturally of any instance of confrontation. Online media and social networking will help facilitate such behavior due to the ease, unlimited access, and "freedom" with which individuals deal with online communication. Such a state of affairs resulted in making messages, whose producers would for the most part stay unknown, spread at a remarkably short time, and so the crime goes unnoticed andun-regulated (Awan 2016, 2).
In this paper, those "texts", which are distributed in online media and directed towards Islam and Muslims, and which include feelings of intolerance and rejection against them, are tackled qualitatively by the tools of Fairclough's approach to Critical Discourse Analysis(CDA) so as to answer the following:

Nature of Online Media of Communication
As it is, the Internet does make the platform for all media of online communication, and any attempt to look into the nature of such communication will have to step into the realm of the Internet. The Internet is still viewed as a theatre for opinion exchange which goes beyond regulation. This is son since "anyone, anywhere, who has a computer and a connection, can express themselves freely (italics mine)" Staar 2004, 7). Naturally, the Internet is there as a lazy place for discussing and reflecting upon social problems. Whenever and wherever, people are able to log in and find all types of truths and facts that they are desirous for. Because of such unregulated "freedoms", it makes itself a tool for a controversial representation of social realities (ibid.). The controversy is triggered because all views, true and untrue, extremist and moderate, documented and non-documented, are displayed for free!(ibid.) In this way, irresponsible individuals will take the lead to explain their own beliefs as well as feel free to express contempt of others' beliefs!!!

What is CDA?
CDA is multidisciplinary in origin. Its roots are there in critical linguistics as well as in sociolinguistics, text linguistics, and applied linguistics. Also, its essence might be discerned in classical rhetoric, and pragmatics as well (Weiss and Wodak 2003, 11). Of these terms, Critical Linguistics and CDA are substitutable, as is noted by Wodak and Meyer (2009, 121). The CDA beginnings are located within the late 1960s and 1970s of the previous century. It was then some sort of a social trend having the aim of analyzing socio-political discourse employing a plethora of methods for accomplishing the above-mentioned aim (van Dijk, 2010, 621). The full form of CDA however is the product of the very late 1980s and the early 1990s. As such, CDA proves to have had no systematic method of analysis, nor a specific toolkit was there to carry out such an analysis objectively, and so biasness is never fully out! No matter how, the main aim of CDA is the explanation of how relationships of dominance and inequality are maintained and reproduced in discourse. The basis therein is the belief that language is not powerful by itself, but it is powerful when made use of by powerful people (Weiss and Wodak 2003, 14). Upon such a broad conception, CDA may be defined generally as the study of discourse in its social context (Wodak 2001 We always experience the society and the various social institutions within which we operate as divided up and demarcated, structured into different spheres of action, different types of situation, each of which has its associated type of practice.
To Fairclough then, orders of discourse are always different and independent, but they are related to each other by the type of discourse and the way they are interwoven into the structure of discourse. In these orders, power relations greatly matter to him, specifically when the 'orders' to be peaceful, are far away from being as such! Empty chairs means that the supposition is but a claim, not a fact. They say they want and call for peace, but this is hypothetical, because even if they were to demonstrate for peace, it would be just an act of body and a word of tongue. It would be empty of spirit and a way from mind and soul. This is meant by the empty chairs. Or, it means that they would never do such a demonstration, not even in body; or, it means, if they were absent from here, i.e., the place for demonstrating for peace, they would be present there, i.e., the place where to call for war and instability. If these strange people lived where they do not belong, they would domineer the scene. This is the symbolic end which is shown in the horizontal representation of the rhetorical question. Taken together, the two parts of the texts will be as follows: if we, the west, allow strange non-belonging people to live among us, they, the others, will control the scene in our country, and so, they should be kicked out. We should not permit them to transfer their own tradition of personal freedom-restrain into our communities because they are bad and unknown to us. They have covered identities. We are open to others, and others should be open to us.

2-Post
If not, they have to leave our country. prohibited, and then Muslims should never allowed to come into our country, and those inside it should be kicked out".

5-Post five is a circle with its circumference represented as wide black.
The centre of the image has two men, one standing and lifting up a pig to hit the Other, and the "Other" is thrown to the ground and begging not to be hit with the pig. On the wide black circumference, there is written:

Conclusions
Out of the analysis above, a number of points may be taken as a conclusive statement.
i-Islam is represented by the westerners in these Facebook posts as an unwanted unity that should be terminated.
ii-Islamic traditions, such as headscarf or veil, and Halal products, are rejected and should never be allowed in the West.
iii-The practices targeting Muslims are readily recognized as a very serious level of hate speech which may upon many occasions amount to genocide.
iv-Hatred may be perceived as a form of fear from Islam, i.e., westerners feel Islamophobic, and so they do not want Islam spread in their own countries.
v-Hatred is expressed against Islam because it is thought to be as rejecting personal freedoms, and so it does not allow women to uncover their heads. Consequently, it is seen as unbelonging to west. Its cultural norms are totally different.
vi-Also, Islam is perceived of unwelcoming change; it may never be influenced by modern culture and openness.

Recommendations
In so far as we are relating a delicate issue of difference, it is important to make clear some points in due position. As has been announced from the very beginning that the posts are made by common people and not pertaining to official opinions, it is recommended that, in order to help change the extremist views against Islam among the common people, forums and social meetings along with pages on Facebook, targeting both the educated and the common people, need to be held so as help tell the very sense of Islamic belief in peaceful co-existence with all other non-Muslims, and not to be misled bythe evil deeds of the extremist Islamists who would never reflect the reality of the religion of mercy. And, a mindful call for all people on earth is put forward: Never to judge a belief by the deeds of only dozen of its believers. By so, extremists will not be able to reach their goals!