Hate

With the end of the forty-five years of the Cold War (1945–1991), the major powers that were left standing dismantled their empires, leaving in their wake a bevy of new states and nations striving to establish their sovereignty. Another legacy of the colonial period is the abiding hatred and bitter resentment of former colonies, many of which are mired in tribalism, warlordism, and an unremitting fear of "others."

In the new world of the twenty-first century the phenomenon of hate crimes is a cultural artifact of a particular kind, however etiolated by social and psychological theories. To understand hate crimes in this context of new and swarming states, it is essential to consider how they have come into historical being, in what ways their meanings have changed over time, and why, today, they command emotional legitimacy. It appears that hate crimes are the distillation of complex racial, ethnic, and political-historical forces. These elements are further defined and formulated into legal and/or criminal categories, and concomitantly into statutory law, becoming "modular." Hence, they are capable of being transplanted, with varying degrees of applicability, to a variety of social terrains, and to merge and be merged with a correspondingly broad class of legal and criminal codes.

A forerunner of modern hate crime legislation was the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, which brought about profound changes in American jurisprudence concerned with hate-related violations of individual rights. The movement's ethical and legal courage bequeathed to the world new standards of decency in behavior and attitude expressed in hate crime law.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and subsequent terrorist actions around the globe have made it clear that, despite the significant advances societies have attained in humane treatment of their members, there still lurks a world-view as treacherous as the Nazi insanity of the twentieth century. Unbridled terrorist violence, with its conjoining fanaticisms, steps across moral thresholds accepted by most of the world. Simply put, there are groups who are skilled in the use of chemical weapons, ballistic devices, and biological weapons that can correctly be classified as weapons of mass destruction, who are prepared to kill randomly. In viewing these two notions, terrorism and hate, as folded into each other, it is quickly sensed that more than a political point is being made. Gratuitous hatred is painfully evident.

These terrorists make no effort to justify the bloodshed beyond perfunctory claims of imperialist colonialism, Zionist repressions, and American-led interventions into non-Christian societies.

Hate crimes will probably continue to occur because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in every country, the state/nation itself, at any point in time, is ultimately conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. It is this fraternity that makes criminal behavior driven by hate possible.