Albert Einstein said “it is harder to crack prejudice than an atom”. The Antirumours Strategy is precisely about that, a combination of public policy and social movement aimed at dismantle stereotypes, prejudices and rumours. And what for? Because they hinder coexistence, facilitate discrimination and prevent to get the diversity advantage, all key objectives of the intercultural approach promoted by the Council of Europe.

Launched in Barcelona in 2010 and promoted by the Intercultural Cities Programme, the Antirumours Strategy is nowadays implemented in more tan 20 European cities and has awaken interest in countries such as Japan, Canada, Jordan or Morocco.

After these years we have identified lessons learnt and the key elements of the strategy:

• the relevance of political commitment and the civil society participation, generating collaborative work spaces; the creativity and flexibility with the methodology to be able to adapt the strategy to different contexts (from education, sport or cultural centres to prisons);
• training “Antirumours agents” to guarantee the rigour and impact of the activities;
• the integration of the emotional dimension, avoiding the simple and ineffective dissemination of objective data to refute rumours;
• and an evaluation system allowing the improvement and sustainability of antirumours campaigns.

At this current stage we should take a step forward to improve and strengthen the impact of the Strategy. This requires the creation of stable collaboration networks between different actors, as it is the case of the recently created “Antirumours Basque Network”, with a variety of municipalities, social organisations, the regional government and the University of the Basque country. In addition, we should create alliances with key actors in areas such as education, communication and also businesses. A good example of this type of alliance is the collaboration between Antirumours Global and Facebook.

Undoubtedly, one the main premises of the antirumour approach is that everyone has prejudices and participates in the dissemination of rumours, although it is often difficult to recognise it. The problem is that we are not aware about the negative consequences these rumours could have. As a consequence, the Strategy targets the majority of the society, which has a more ambiguous attitude towards diversity instead of the openly racist minority.

The Antirumours Strategy does not consist in blaming the citizens for their prejudices but in listening and promoting critical thinking, reflection, dialogue, curiosity and positive interaction. It is also about identifying those who promote prejudices in a selfish way and make us more impervious to populist discourses based on the fears, anxiety and stigmatization of the “other” and “different”, which could result in hate speech. The idea is to work on a daily basis from every corner of the society on this fundamental issue affecting all of us: Governments, institutions, organisations, media, businesses, citizens... The Strategy offers useful tools to challenge preconceived ideas and to substitute uncomfortable smiles and knowing silences by critical reflections and respectful debates. In short, it is about building inclusive societies based on the fundamental respect of Human Rights and, at the same time, societies able to make the most of diversity, the main resource of our society. Don’t rumour be open my friend.

Daniel de Torres
Leader of the “Anti Rumours Global” project