What Orlando Could Really Mean

What Orlando Could Really Mean

By: Erreh Svaia

“Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.”

 Mahatma Gandhi

A couple of months ago, I wrote about the architects of fear working against democracy and freedom, I even dared to use Star Wars and the Phantom Menace as an analogy for a danger created artificially in order to distract or manipulate people to give up on their most precious gift, their freedom; People say life imitates art, Woody Allen says life imitates bad TV, and although I agree with Allen, in this case, it could be, but I prefer to compare it with that cult movie called Idiocracy; John Cale, the legendary multi-instrumentalist from the Velvet Underground has this song called Fear is a Man's Best Friend, and I'm sure fear must be the best friend of someone, but not of all of us, at a time when reasoning the best way we can is primordial, amazingly I saw the with my kids the hit movie Inside Out, and I was thinking what a great movie! But at the same time I was considering that it was about being totally dominated by emotions, ruling over our intelligence, almost completely obscuring our reasoning capabilities, again in a kids movie Zootopia I was blown away at a movie that depicted so amazingly how people radicalize minorities in order to make them look dangerous and work against their freedoms, honestly it was more an adult movies, I don’t think the kids got the message at all, but this is happening everywhere, and it is not a kid movie, its pure Orwellian logic.

The Orlando and its consequences on our time and space are enormous, is not only about more than a 100 individuals whose life will never be the same, it’s about humanity, a shooting that is a consequence of intolerance, ignorance, fear and bigotry, it could be either intolerance against sexual diversity, it could be religious intolerance, it could be ignorance on all of these, but the hate speech has been getting more and more relevant in our Northern neighbor, that, and the ridiculous thought that in order to prevent tragedies like this, you need to put more and more guns in the hands of the population, in the end, the only benefit goes to the weapon industry, to the architects of fear and to those who want to weaken minorities in a country that supposedly stands for freedom and diversity, now Donald Trump, on the road to the presidential elections, gets “congratulated” as he affirms, on being right about the dangers of Muslims, but he doesn’t seem to understand, for him is about banning the Muslims from entering the USA, but both the San Bernardino shooting and the Orlando massacre were perpetrated by U.S. born citizens, not immigrants, and for the government, is enough to ban suspicious people form taking a plan, but it’s not about forbidding suspicious people form buying guns, it could prevented this new tragedy, it could prevent the 30,000 lives lost each year in the USA because of guns. 

50 dead people, 53 injured at a night club in the USA; An homophobic and abusive private security industry employee, supposedly being watched closely by the FBI, who suspiciously managed to buy, without much trouble, weapons for the assault, he is the protagonist of the deadliest shooting in the history of the North American country (sadly another one in too many, like the Virginia Tech, with 32 victims and Newton, with 20 people killed), with apparently close relation with what happened in San Bernardino, and also  the biggest terrorist attack since September-11, with a large number of Hispanic victims, and with the shooter now claimed by ISIS as one of its “soldiers of the caliphate”, something is just not right here, first, we have a highly dangerous man with a volatile mind, expert in weapons, closely watched by the FBI, so how does this happened? Why was the Pulse, a gay bar in Orlando, Florida, with its mainly Hispanic clients, targeted for this bloody crime? We know that ISIS is highly brutal against gay individuals, we have seen the videos of ruthless executions, people thrown from tall rooftops, but why in America? And why within the Hispanic community? Casualty or not, the club was hosting its weekly Latin Night, which to me is basically targeting Latin people, Why would ISIS target Latin people? It makes no sense, but I know a guy who would be happy if Latins are full of fear and look up for some bully to defend them from “outside attacks”.

Just as ISIS would be happy to welcome any allegation from a "lone wolf" more sanctifying the action, rather than admitting it´s coordination (even if in this specific case, the shooter is an homophobic guy, who visited regularly that club and was suspected to be a closet gay, I guess ISIS would better omitting this fact), in order to create massive waves of fear in America, another characters are getting top benefits here, obviously Trump, in France, Marine Le Pen and her xenophobic party The National Front, and even those guys in the UK who are pushing for the Brexit from the EU, Trump, who was intriguingly almost the first known figure to make an statement on the unfortunate events happened on Sunday, immediately blamed the government and "radical Islam" for the lack of security in the country, claiming he was right on his accusations against Muslims, interestingly enough, Trump didn't blame homophobia, intolerance, ignorance or lack of adequate gun control within the country, he blamed the government for not acting hard and fast enough against terrorism and radical Islam, but he didn’t mention anything about why the guy was in possession of such weapons? perhaps the fact that his campaign is backed by the National Rifle Association has something to do with it, as an AR-15 assault rifle, used by the attacker, seems to be the favorite weapon by mass murders these days, why hasn't the USA government done something about it? Just like in the case of September-11, it looks as if someone knew about these, and let it happen.

Omar Amir Siddiq Mateen, a USA citizen of Afghan origins, was identified as the shooter, later killed by the special forces, a man working for the private security industry in a Israeli company, identified as an abusive husband, homophobic, unstable, ill minded and not interested at all in religion, as described by his ex-wife, Mateen apparently expressed his hatred of gays weeks ago according to his father, the night of the attack he mentioned his sympathy for ISIS in a call he made during the attack to 911, but it still hasn't been confirmed his membership of that terrorist group, in a way, the attack recalls a little bit the Paris attack, as it was done in a night club, bringing to mind, a similar modus operandi, or perhaps the act of a not so original copycat, who tried to emulate the Paris events, making me think that Mateen was trying to look like those radical terrorists, rather than really being a part of them.   

What still doesn’t seems to make sense to me, is the target of the Latin and LGBT community connection, it seems that the attack was carefully planned by a troubled mind man, who was deliberately left to archive his goal, but in benefit of who? It remains to be seen, like in the case of the Paris attack, the xenophobic far right wing seems to be the one getting the main benefits, this time, those, also xenophobic forces would get the benefit too, being too skeptic, it looks like a premeditated move to instill fear within the Latin community, one of the main counter forces against the rise of Trump, looking more like a rehearsal of something even bigger to come, as the architects of fear could be replicating events like this in order to increase fear in the population on the way to USA elections.

The Orlando shooting should be looked as mainly a hate crime, religious motifs are remain to be confirmed, but considering the precise target, it hurts mainly the LGBT community, next the Hispanic community and then the whole USA, as it would be remembered as the most deadly USA attack after September-11, and precisely here, is where the scariest allegations can be made, as the USA presidential race is just about to start, an a confirmed terrorist attack by a radical Islam influenced individual could turn the winds in favor of republican candidate Donald Trump (whom with these type of comments could help to radicalize Muslim citizens in the USA, ironically), how ironic that a man whose hate speech and intolerance have been used as one of the main drivers of his campaign, now he is positioning himself as the man to protect the USA from…intolerance and hate…This is not about ISIS and the “radical Islam” attacking USA civilians, this is about a troubled man, who might get even more disturbed reading online about the Islamic State, this is about a man who was supposedly under surveillance and however managed to buy guns, which by the way are cheaper than an iPhone, and no one did anything about it, and on top of that, guys like the awful Trump using that to generate even more fear and hate within the population.

My father used to tell me that it was okay to be afraid, that we all are experimented fear at one point or another, and the trick here was to dominate fear, which precisely, was the ultimate goal, to come out of the cave no matter what, and keep evolving! That's our nature, and in times like in present times, is the moment to dominate fear and to think clearly, fear is their only weapon, but it can't beat a clear mind.