Booklet Hate is not my FAITH

October 2021

Special edition

Hate is not my Faith

ot my f is n a

te is not m Ha

ith Hate y fa

Hate i t ith

2021-2022

We beleive in power of youth

Training Course What is more?

Narratives to counter hate speech Counter and alternative narratives Tips and tricks Good practices Join our community WWW.PROVISIONBG.ORG

The project The project is aimed at realizing the root causes of hate speech by training and acquiring new knowledge, skills and competencies and exchanging good practice among youth workers. Main objectives: -Increasing the knowledge and competencies of youth workers in the field of anti-hate and human rights anti-hate and human rights - promoting cooperation in the youth field and encouraging the organization of more initiatives and projects in the field of human rights and anti-hate.

-to equip youth workers with methods, strategies and tools for organizing activities with young people on the topic -Promoting media literacy and knowledge of basic legal frameworks among youth workers to combat cyberbullying -introducng the Youth Workers with the No hate speech Movement and the Tools- Bookmarks, Compass, WE can handbooks -encouraging youth workers to become activists against hate speech in their countries and at European level -reducing the risk of radicalization of young people by investing in training youth workers and increasing human rights initiatives By investing in human resources of organizations and acquiring competencies and developing knowledge and skills from youth workers, the project will enhance the quality of youth work. In addition, the project will disseminate information about the NO hate speech Movement among more organizations, through measures to disseminate results, with which we expect more organizations and activists to be involved.

Bansko, Bulgaria

Narratives. Counter and Alternative narratives as a tool to respond to hate speech.

Narrative is the formal term for a story, so it implies the same meaning-to create a narrative is to have a plot and characters. This includes creating certain behaviors, developing models and sequences of events and actions. The term if we see it from personal point of view is rather simple- our life is based on stories and narratives-since we are little kids we have been told stories for the world around us, animals, people which actually form our perception of everything that surrounds us. Stories are everywheretold by our parents, books, movies, other people, teachers, etc. Narratives clearly have the power to persuade and impact the attitudes, beliefs, and actions of audiences. However, narratives as tools aren’t neutral. They can be used to persuade people for positive aims such as justice, equality, and sustainability, but they can also be used to build support for terrorism, authoritarianism, and violence.

So a good storyteller could possibly use the narratives as a tool to provoke and justify violence, extremism, hared. Narratives play a huge role how we perceive the world around us-what is right, what is wrong. Being used by wrong people, narratives can become dangerous-thy are often used by extremist groups, political parties, and even terrorists to manipulate and attract followers. Moreover, people usually assume some stories that they hear are true, especially when they come from credible sources. Furthermore, they even tend to repeat those stories as they believe are true. Stories help the human mind understand the surroundings, thus it is part of the reason why your brain loves stories. Stories are the way for our brain to put some order of understanding everything the world-we use them to explain events, examine our values and explore notions of meaning and purpose.

Narratives are defined by science as the way human form their understanding and beliefs, thus they are really powerful tool. With the digital era, narratives are used nowadays a lot online, to form certain way of thinking and beliefs or usually in short to manipulate and brainwash.

Trough narratives various political, economical and other interests by many different stakeholders and groups could be achieved. Narratives as a tools, especially used online can eventually have a huge impact on how young people perceive the world around and especially what is considered to be a norm in the society. Thus this includes groups trying to justify violence and division in the society- which make them a powerful tool. Extremist propaganda uses narratives based on violent and exclusionary ideologies by presenting polarized views of the world (“them” against “us”). By presenting negative stereotypes for ‘’the others’ ’the extremist narrative lead to acceptance and justifying any violence and violent behavior. In the past years we have witnessed how terrorist groups use religious based narratives to incite hatred and violence and create polarization in society. Young people in particular are a target of those groups. We have also observed the raise of farright movements, groups and parties in Europe as a result of the refugee crisis in the past several years. Their agenda is strongly based on using narratives to create a negative image of migrants and refugees to achieve their political goals and gain more popularity.

Moreover, the media, especially social media nowadays, has a key role in forming and spreading the narratives and stories which formulate the attitudes towards certain groups. Stories which are more visual, exact, vivid, emotional are usually the ones that has a wider effect on society and especially young people as a target group. That is why storytelling is also defined as a tool, a mixture of skills how to tell a good story that could be more effective, usually to relate to the listener`s emotions and make one believe in it, get emotional and accept the narrative.

Counter and alternative narratives

Counter and alternatives narratives are rather new tool used by activists, movements, governments, NGOs to destruct narratives that are justifying hatred, violence and discrimination. It has become a tool to fight against extremists and terrorists and if used in a right way it can be rather effective. Extremists tend to focus on a mix of ideological, political, moral, religious and social narratives, based on a range of real or imagined grievances. Delivery methods may vary, however, the main focus today is on a range of multimedia tools and techniques (pictures, video, music) in high volume and spread across a number of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Whats-app thus experts and youth workers should also master not only storytelling, counter and alternative narratives methodology but also have good digital skills.

Council of Europe as institution dealing with human rights, has deepen its work on using counter and alternative narratives by NGOs and activists as a way to counter hate speech and has developed various tools that help youth workers and educators to tackle the problem. One of their last toolkits is called We can-manual for taking actions against hate speech trough counter and Alternative narratives. The manual is very useful and has a lot of in depth description, easy to understand- what narratives are, how they are related to stereotype, prejudice and discrimination and defines counter and alternative narratives. It helps educators to understand the role of counter and alternative narratives for deconstructing common stories and better build and develop social campaigns and actions against. By understanding the role of narratives in forming young people`s beliefs and opinions and mostly building their stereotypes and prejudice that leads to later discriminatory behavior towards various groups and learning how to use counter and alternative narratives as a tool youth workers can be adequately prepared to act against hate speech.

Differences between counter and alternative narratives Counter narratives-directly confronting the oppressive narrative while trough the alternative narrative you create an alternative vision to confront the existing one Counter narratives aims to deconstruct the myths, thus underline what is the negative in the narrative, while the alternative narrative show alternative positive side of the certain grou for example/it is rather what we are for then what we are against/ Counter narratives are usually used for short term campaigns and aim, while the alternative ones are usually used for long term goals and wider campaigns Differences between counter and alternative narratives Counter narratives-directly confronting the oppressive narrative while trough the alternative narrative you create an alternative vision to confront the existing one Counter narratives aims to deconstruct the myths, thus underline what is the negative in the narrative, while the alternative narrative show alternative positive side of the certain grou for example/it is rather what we are for then what we are against/

Using counter and alternative narratives as a tool is not easy-it takes a lot of knowledge, skills, and competences in various fields, including social media, digital knowledge.

Building effective counter and alternative campaigns is a long term project and needs a clear strategy. The primary objective of counter narratives should be to sow seeds of doubt among at risk communities who are exposed to influences of extremists groups and parties, and to highlight viable alternative approaches and behaviours.

For youth workers it is rather essential to understand the terms narratives, counter and alternative narratives but most of all the understand the most common narratives/stories/plots used by nowadays extremist movements or parties for fabricating fake news and aiming to manipulate the public for any economical, political or other aims.For example we can build counter and narrative challenging stereotypes or prejudice towards certain minority group by changing the scenario which will make people see this group with other perspective. For example, the counter narrative can portray refugees not only as invaders or rapists as in narratives used by extremist groups but portrays them as all other people with their professions-doctors, teachers, etc. So counter and alternative narratives could be a essential and helpful towards fighting against discrimination and hate speech, challenging stereotypes and prejudice often used by terrorist groups for radicalizing young people. Usually spreading false and misleading information and fake news about refugees lead to spreading hatred and fear among Europeans towards migrants and refugees, thus can lead to capsulation of the European society and raise of far-right movements, nationalism and violence towards migrants and refugees.

Tips for building a successful campaign, based on using counter and alternative narrative as a tool.

Being clear about campaign objectives is essential. Each campaign should be specific – there is no “one-size-fits-all”. It means you can not include more than one narrative at a time or more than one target group. Be as specific as possible, have a clear concept with straign message.

Choose one or maximum two target groups of your campaign-knowing your audience is a key to the successful campaign, which includes choosing the right message and the perfect ways to deliver it. It is essential when campaigns and actions are targeting young people to make it as youth friendly as possible-use appropriate language, avoid complicated terminology, be clear, put some color, work on the visual part and add effects.

Combine online and offline actions-for counter narrative campaign to be effective and successful, it is important to combine on and offline activities- most successful campaigns are a judicious blend of the two. This technique will gurantee you wider public and stronger and long term effect.

Choosing the right messenger to deliver your campaign-remember, when a narrative comes from a credible source, people are most likely to get engaged and follow.

Choose wisely the person/people who will deliver your message to the desired audience-choose one known and liked by your audience, a credible one who`s word will be listened to and valued and will inspire and engage our audience. A personal story of a person with some experience is also a great technique-personal stories are effective and engaging!

Cross-sectoral cooperation- NGO and communities engaged in counter narrative campaigns should seek to work with private sector companiesand governmental authorities as well as involve media – both digital and traditional media. Thus there will be same message from different sources which will make it more credible with wider effect and more engaging.

Using humor/satire/comics-especially when working with young people, building your counter/alternative narrative campaign in a funny way, using humor , is quite engaging and effective-it triggers emotion thus it is more likely to get the desired effect and level of engagement. However, humor and satire are quite sensitive and very individual for each person-for different people, different things might or might not be perceived as funny in a good way. Moreover, when countering stereotypes and narratives trough counter/alternative narrative campaign, be aware of the

cultural/religious differences and be culturally sensitive. This is quite essential, asit might turn out you create a new, or worst version of the already existing narrative you actually were trying to counter trough your campaign.

Ways to present the message Once the message is complete, consider how you want to package it. A counter narrative campaign could be made up of one or more mediums. Research can help you understand which types of content receive the best engagement among your audience. Content- creators should be creative and draw insights from other areas such as advertising or marketing. Extremist groups are constantly producing attractive and interesting content, so campaigners and content-creators should do the same.

You’re not just competing with extremist content but also everything else out there for the attention of your audience.

Elements to be considered: • Videos: short films or animations.

• Text: slogans, hashtags or open letters.

• Images: photos or memes.

• Online literature: brochures or informative posters.

Good practices of counter narratives campaigns and platforms to report and combat hate speech Average Mohammed Average Mohammed is an animated video campaign created by Mohamed Amin Ahmed, a Somali-American living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The short cartoons are targeted to young Muslims in order to build resilience early and counteract the narratives of Islamic extremism.

The videos cover a wide range of topics including violent extremism, identity, religious tolerance, and being Muslim in the West The campaign is headquartered at its own website, but also maintains a consistent presence on social media. This is vital for bringing in new viewers and staying active in online discussions. The campaign is an example of the power of in-group communication that is vital for grassroots movements. As Mohamed himself says, it takes an average guy to reach average people.

The key points of the campaign are-it is youth friendly about complex topics, videos made are short thus easy to share, animation is used which is also very engaging tool.

The organisation hoped to instil the critical thinking needed to build resilience among youth and prevent violent-radicalisation in future.

Organisation Goals and Campaign Objectives GOALS • Create messages using Islamic principles that promote peace and encourage democracy • Empower young Muslims through counter ideology messages and discourage them from joining Islamist-extremist groups OBJECTIVES • Promote five videos to young SomaliMuslims living in the US, each with a distinct theme, in a bid to educate youth and discredit extremist thinking • Established Average Mohamed as an online voice of counterextremism and prodemocracy.

The target audience for the Average Mohamed campaigns was primarily young SomaliAmericans aged 14-25 in communities with high Somali Muslim populations in Minneapolis, San Diego, Seattle and Washington, but also including a broader US reach.

The organisation also wanted to go beyond a US audience, which led to experimental targeting in the UK. The counternarrative content is educational and preventative, which allowed for broader targeting.

Average Mohamed’s page likes on Facebook increased by sevenfold, while the campaign doubled its number of Twitter followers and subscribers on YouTube. Average Mohamed’s videos inspired young Muslims to debate the role of gender in Islam and the struggle of having multiple identities. Most importantly, the campaigns demonstrated that people going through the process of personal deradicalisation are willing to reach out and contact an organisation on social media in response to a counter-narrative campaign.

Stop Hate UK is one of the leading national organisations working to challenge all forms of Hate Crime and discrimination, based on any aspect of an individual’s identity. Stop Hate UK provides independent, confidential and accessible reporting and support for victims, witnesses and third parties. The organization was started as a movement in 1995 - as a service for victims of racial harassment. The project was established in direct response to the murder of Stephen Lawrence. Stop Hate UK works alongside local strategic partnerships to tackle Hate Crime and discrimination, encourage reporting and support the individuals and communities it affects. The organization provides numerous services and various kinds of support-helplines, educational materials, coaching, training, etc. They also provide a toolkit to help improve local responses to Hate Crime and an alternative for people who do not wish to report Hate Crime to the police or other statutory agencies. Moreover, the organization launched national helpline-to enable people to access independent support and information, 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

In 2013 they launched the Stop Learning Disability Hate Crime Line, a service for England and Wales, which was funded by the Ministry of Justice. The Stop Learning Disability Hate Crime Line provides support to people affected by Learning Disability Hate Crime, whether as a victim, a witness or third party within the areas where we are commissioned. In January 2015, the Stop Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Hate Crime Line, funded by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, was launched across England, Scotland and Wales.

The platform is easy to use. There is a direct button REPORT HATE SPEECH. What is more, the user can follow up ones report by using the helpline or BSL. They offer range of other services including training, education and consultancy. Stop Hate UK’s core activities also include awareness-raising, campaigning and delivering projects on a variety of issues relevant to Hate Crime and equality. Thus it is not a single platform to report online, but the user can engage even more-by engaging in educational activities, online campaign, becoming a volunteer or activist himself. Starting from the name itself easy to be found in google, to the user friendly web design, to the functions of the webpage, trough the 24/7 helpline offered, online coaching, educational activities, raising awareness events, online campaigns, cross-sectoral cooperation and the coverage of the platform, all those make is a rather useful tool for combating hate speech and hate crimes.

October 2021

Special edition

Hate is not my Faith

The European Commission's support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.