Pulse nigthclub shootings: The danger of reacting too soon

 Knee-jerk reactions without knowing the facts can have devastating consequences

By Bernard Thompson

When something so shocking, emotive and simply revolting as the shootings at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando occurs – it can be difficult not to rush to judgement.

After all, it is clear what happened. It must clearly be condemned and it is appropriate to express sympathy and solidarity with those attacked and affected by the attack.

So far – so good. But what is not always so clear is the full range of correct responses.

Depriving people who may commit mass murder of military-grade assault weapons seems clear enough but then we have had the dubious “benefit” of years of experience of such crimes in which to consider how to limit them.

However, the wider lessons for society are, like revenge, best taken cold.

Speculation and myth make poor thought leaders and their adherents dangerous to follow. It is from elusive facts that we can begin to draw supportable conclusions about likely motives and their implications.

Yet those who wait for them can often be accused of weakness or equivocation – even being apologists. The message of “wait and see” is routinely condemned by those understandably outraged – along with political opportunists – a response only exacerbated by 24-hour news and social media.

We now have at least three popular explanations (four, if you count the perennial False Flag theory) as to why Omar Mateen chose to murder 49 innocent people and wound another 50.

He was insane, motivated by homophobia, acting on behalf of Islam as a newly-sworn soldier of Daesh; none of which are mutually exclusive.

Shooter: Omar Mateen in New York Police Department T-shirt

It is also now widely reported that Mateen was a regular customer at Pulse, seen trying to pick up men and who had had Gay relationships with men in the past. Again, if this proves to be correct, it need not be inconsistent with any of the other theories.

People often insist that by trying to understand evil, you must somehow be justifying it. That is almost invariably a mistake.

Evil is something that can be countered, whether by strong arguments, education or creating social conditions in which it is less likely to flourish and that is not the same as seeking mitigating circumstances.

We can mock, castigate or ignore Britain First, the English Defence League or their deferential wannabes, the SDL while they remain relatively insignificant. But, when they start to gain the popularity of some of Europe's other far-right movements, then it becomes time to make a winning case, for which an informed, factual basis is required.

Gaining ground: PEGIDA in Dresden

Making sense of madness, on the other hand, is a fools errand. To seek to analyse the unfathomable in terms of normally-accepted frames of reference should be left to the psychologists and psychiatrists whose unenviable preserve such a task is.

But what we can do – if we have can control our jerk reflex – is to be very careful before interpreting tragedies as “further evidence” of supposed existential threats.

And that, means, however unpalatable it may be to some, that even acts as heinous as the shootings committed by Mateen do not now and never will be legitimate cause for attacking Muslims or Islam.

That Islam (at least in virtually every interpretation that I am aware of) is vehemently opposed to homosexual relationships is contested by few.

Nor can we gloss over the fact that LGBT people face persecution in many Muslim countries – and non-Muslim countries (Fidel Castro and the Dalai Lama are but two leaders who found it expedient to backtrack against their own condemnation of homosexuality).

However, with tolerance there is the implicit acceptance that we cannot change the mindset or values of others whose views the majority oppose, though countries can act and legislate to fight discrimination and abuse directed at minorities.

But – short of going back to the extraction of oaths under pain of death or personal ruin – any society with a pretence of freedom must tolerate others who, within the law, hold differing views.

There is a bitter irony to hearing someone saying, “I'm not a bigot but...”, before caricaturing an entire group of people according to the aberrant actions of the worst of their number.

If Mateen is eventually proven to have claimed to have been acting on behalf of Islam, he will be as representative of that faith as the Shankhill Butchers were of Protestantism or James Holmes was of Batman when he murdered 12 people in the Aurora Cinema.

And Muslims will be as guilty of his crime as, respectively, were the people who picnicked on The Mall on Sunday in honour of the same Protestant queen, in whose name the Butchers tortured and murdered innocent Catholics (as well as Protestants for other criminal reasons).

While it would have been nice to have heard, between the tea, champagne and birthday cake that those assembled to celebrate Liz's 90th admire the elderly lady but repudiate the countless heinous actions committed in her name, that was always unlikely to be forthcoming. And far less so, an apology.

Many would do well to remember that amid the sad crescendo of abuse of Muslims and Islam.

It should hardly need pointing out that Muslims being in a minority in the United States extends to their numerical representation amongst those responsible for the country's mass shootings.

Nor should anyone need to be reminded that Islam did not feature in the crimes of Thomas Hamilton, Raoul Moat, Michael Ryan or Derrick Bird.

White British men from Christian family backgrounds were unlikely to be blamed for their actions, by proxy – or suspected of sympathising with them without making public apologies and the same should apply to British and American Muslims.

It is apposite at this time to remember that the vilification of communities does not just lead to upset, injustice and strained community relations.

Occasionally, it results in the shooting of a Brazilian electrician or a Scot armed with a table leg, mistaken for an "an Irishman with a gun wrapped in a bag".

The propagation of ignorance inevitably leads to error – and careless talk really can cost lives.