Orlando:
Pulse
Nightclub Massacre
Lessons
To Learn?
Many
decades ago I said to some friends that it's impossible to protect
everywhere. You can't protect every nursery, every exclusive school,
every university, every shop, restaurant, hospital, clinic, church,
synagogue, mosque, candy shop, ice cream parlors, every retirement
village, supermarket, mall, school party out on a study or field
trip, from someone demented and determined enough to do harm.
You
can put 'Gorillas' who look like 'King Kong' patrolling malls,
nightclubs, schools and colleges, but where an individual or group is
or are determined to create carnage, the 'visual' (psychological)
effect of seeing 'King Kong' is immaterial.
You
can create sophisticated layers of security and passive encirclement
but again, where someone is determined enough, they will (eventually)
find a way (flaw) to breach even the best of what is on offer through
the private sector.
There
is, for most of us, always a sadness where 'totally innocent' victims
are the subject of carnage. The 'crime' of being Gay, or Black, or
an Israeli, WASP,
or an Arab, is enough to convince the perpetrator(s) that such
indiviuals are not 'totally innocent victims' - but part of 'the
problem.'
Part
of the problem, as I see it, is that we have not paid any 'real'
attention to racism, tribalism, slavery, cannibalism (Africa and
Albinos) and homophobia in Africa nor in Muslim lands.
The
only time we ever do is when the West is eager to achieve a political
or economic objective which the target entity is opposing.
Besides,
they are not very 'sexy' subjects to disinter where so much money
can be made in oil and mineral rich regions of the Middle East,
Africa and the Caucasuses.
Similar
thinking meant that the entire Christian and Jewish communities in
Iraq and Iran, have now disappeared (murdered or fled) because money
and wars were 'sexier' than any thought to the consequences of
Western military and economic interests. (Besides, who ever let a
few Jews or Christians or 'cannibalised' African Albinos stand in the
way of making 'lovely' money?)
You
see over millennia, we ignored all such fundamental principles in
favor of Mammon – so Muslims, Africans, and Asiatics, as
individuals and as nations, naturally assume that all our Western
'Christian' politicians are bought and sold in the market – all
that requires negotiating is their price – through their respective
lobby interest groups.
As
far as many Muslims perceive it, our Christian bible is a worthless
piece of trash which has been 'updated' so much (and so many times)
that its messages are meaningless – and their 'proof' is given in
the fact that even (most) Christians do not live by the tenets of
their own 'holy' book.
Having
an appreciation for the 'books' of several faiths, it is absolutely
no surprise to me that some individuals simply 'flip' (or develop
mental illness related to the contrast between what their own holy
book is telling them and what they are seeing around them in their
Western 'liberal' communities) and they never 'return' to
'normality'.
As
a devoted Muslim, Christian, or Orthodox Jew, to have to accommodate
the tenets of your faith with the 'immorality' and 'excesses' of
everyday life, is a great challenge.
Where
there are almost no 'role' models to espouse your 'cause' and
'represent' your 'platform' leaves little to do but to recourse to
'opting out' or creating your own microcosmic world populated with
like-minded believers.
Where
a book written for devotees some thousand(s) of years ago is held up
as the only way of life in the 21st century, and it can
never be 'revised' because the person who wrote it is dead – and he
(or she) was 'infallible' – such is, in itself, a recipe for
ultimate disaster. Another topic conveniently ignored by the
'pundits'.
Psychologists,
psychiatrists and the like will, like pulling rabbits out of a
conjurors hat, bring out terminologies to pigeon-hole this deranged
individual. Politicians will grasp at whatever 'capital' can be
garnished from the event. After reflection will come anger - and
the desire for revenge or lynch-mob 'justice'. Anti-gun lobby groups
will see this as yet another vindication for their cause – failing
to appreciate that even in the absence of ease of availability, a way
would have been found by some determined deranged individual, sooner
or later, to exact carnage, regardless.
What
happened at the Pulse Nightclub is a cornucopia of opportunism for
every spectrum of hate.
All
of the above brings us full circle back to the entry door of the
Pulse Nightclub, Orlando, in the early hours of a Sunday morning,
where someone, who had clearly 'snapped', decided he was going to
bring God's 'wrath' on 'sinners', regardless of consequences. (What
is the experience of a brief moment of death in exchange for
everlasting eternity – in the process of doing the Lord's or
Allah's or Adonai's work?)
And
if you cannot see all this, then you too, also, need to step back
from the canvas to get a better perspective.
©Patrick
Emek, June 2016
*Addendum
As further information becomes available about this individual who carried out the horrific crime in the early hours of Sunday morning at Pulse in Orlando, Florida, it vindicates my initial belief that this had nothing to do with ISIS/ISIL/Daesh - who would like to take credit for every massacre and all acts of extreme barbarity, inhumanity and violence within our Western societies.
I was particularly interested in the pychosexual analysis of this demented and confused individual and how his behavior was inconsistent at many different times.
If there is a silver lining it is that this tragedy has brought the 'Gay' and supportive 'Straight' communities worldwide more together than ever in recent times and has highlighted the need by all minority communities to be more alert - appreciating that 100% security 100% of the time is an impossibility - but being vigilant has never cost lives.
References
Mammon:
'Mammon is one of the seven princes of Hell. He is the Demon of wealth, greed and avarice.' ''Mammon is one of The Fallen, an angel who refused to fight during the battle with Hell. As a punishment for this God cast him and others like him from Heaven and exiled them to the pits of Hell. There he assumed great power and soon became one of the most powerful demons within the pits.''
the above quote has been taken from
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Mammon&biw=1280&bih=895&tbm=isch&imgil=iK7duWISma-vqM%253A%253BZjKHYW1G6iVnMM%253Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fen.wikipedia.org%25252Fwiki%25252FMammon&source=iu&pf=m&fir=iK7duWISma-vqM%253A%252CZjKHYW1G6iVnMM%252C_&usg=__RBKrqDt7t-Q1_P4jwQe6rinW6cM%3D&ved=0ahUKEwjQ9fGsxqTNAhUjB8AKHcaSAWoQyjcIRA&ei=C2peV5DEGKOOgAbGpYbQBg#imgrc=tspWx5bRwNS3CM%3A
and a further interesting alternative article on the subject can be found at:
http://www.cfcindia.com/article/god-and-mammon
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/gay-south-florida/article83301677.html
http://www.daily-chronicle.com/2016/06/13/orlando-club-scene-another-night-of-drinking-dancing-until-shots-began/a92ous6/
http://www.vox.com/2016/6/12/11911616/pulse-gay-nightclub-shooting-in-orlando-what-we-know
http://www.papermag.com/pulse-vigils-planned-at-stonewall-inn-union-square-christopher-park-1855216965.html
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2016/06/12/orlando-nightclub-shooting-nyc/