Them And Us

Hello Dear Readers!

Do right. Do your best  Treat others as you want to be treated.
Lou Holtz

Do right. Do your best. Treat others as you want to be treated.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/louholtz383166.html?src=t_other

Do right. Do your best. Treat others as you want to be treated.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/others.html

Do right. Do your best. Treat others as you want to be treated.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/others.html

Some weeks it can be a struggle to come up with a worthwhile offering to you, my gentle readers. Sometimes the last seven days have been nothing but humdrum. Sometimes every day has been far too everyday to squeeze something meaningful out of.

This is not one of those weeks

7 Days

This week has, if anything, been too eventful. I’m not talking about my own unexciting existence here but more the world at large. Unless you’ve been living in a cave I’m sure you’ll know what I mean.

The week opened to the horrific news of a mass shooting in Orlando, Florida. In this single incident one man took the lives of forty nine people with a further fifty three injured. As if this wasn’t enough this Thursday also saw the senseless killing of Jo Cox MP, the member of parliament for Batley & Spen, in a spot I virtually pass ten or more times a week. This was the first murder of a sitting member of parliament in this country since the dark days of the IRA.

It would seem the world has gone mad.

A Wife and Mother
The murder of Jo Cox has made more headlines in the UK, primarily I would have thought because of its locality. Sadly I can’t say that before the tragedy I really knew all that much about her. News reports do highlight the labour MP’s work with minorities, immigrants, and in particular her work to find a resolution to the Syrian crisis. She was also a supporter of the Remain campaign in the upcoming referendum regarding Britain’s membership of the European Union. Above all she was a wife and mother.

 All in all the picture I have built up of Ms Cox is of a tireless campaigner, a defender of those who are disadvantaged and outcast in society regardless of race, colour, or creed. To a pinko commie liberal like myself she sounds like someone I would most definitely vote for. She was on her way to regular constituency surgery when a man approached her, stabbing and shooting her to death.

Orlando

The victims of the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando are not people that one can immediately bring up a bio for.  These people were not in the public eye. They were merely people, mainly young people, out for night of dancing, drinking and perhaps a little light cavorting.  A lone gunman entered, shooting a police officer on his way, and opened fire. His weapons were a semi-automatic rifle and a Glock hand gun. The attack was not quick, and before long turned into a hostage situation. Overall the ordeal lasted approximately three hours.

The Suspects

Now, on the face of it these tragedies may seem disparate. They were committed in different parts of the world by very different people for very different reasons. The suspect in the killing of Jo cox is one Thomas Nair a man reported as a loner with possible mental health problems. He allegedly also had links with right wing groups both in the UK and abroad and stated his name in court as “death to traitors, freedom for Britain".

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Omar Mateen, the suspect in the Orlando shootings had previously worked for G4S Secure Solutions and passed two psychological evaluations although concerns over these tests had been made. He had reportedly made threats of violence before and voiced hatred of minorities such as homosexuals and Jews although allegedly he had also attended Pulse (The gay nightclub in which the shooting occurred.) before and tried to pick up men both on gay dating sites and in person.

So, it would seem that both attackers were unbalanced individuals which, let’s face it, is no real surprise. What they also have in common however, which may not be immediately clear is that both attacks were targeted directly against minorities and those that support them.  I’m not in any way an apologist for perpetrators of such atrocities but, by the same token, I do think it’s important to understand the way their targets were chosen.

Questions

Could there perhaps be something within our society that might cause such damaged people to seek out these particular victims? Is there possibly something in the way that we, as that society, treat such minorities? Could the way the media portrays such groups play into this at all? 

I think questions like this are hugely important to ask. As a disabled man I am a minority member myself and am well aware of a phenomenon known as Othering.  This I where a group or individual is placed outside the centre of the social group, at the margins, where the social norms do not apply to the Other person. This can be a deliberate act or simply an unconscious bias rearing its head. Whatever the cause this exclusory behaviour causes a line to be drawn between us and them, them and us, opening up gulfs between people, leaving gaps for misunderstanding, fear, and hatred.

It is interesting that politics and religion are seemingly factors in this week’s events. Ms Cox’s activism perhaps taking the eye of a man with possible nationalistic, right wing sympathies and the religious upbringing of another damaged individual colliding with what may have been his own homosexuality to fatal effect. 

The Same Differences

I’m not saying I’m immune to such unconscious bias myself, far from it. I do try to stay vigilant however and ensure my thoughts and actions are such as I would want others to portray towards myself. I know this is not always an easy thing to do therefore and I think that this world in which we live is sometimes an obstruction to this process.

If we forget about arbitrary lines drawn between countries. If we learn to see the struggles of other nationalities as those of our own, and embrace cultural diversity. If we realise that people are more important than ideologies, that religion contains within it the ability to divide as well as bring together, and that love is love regardless of those doing the loving as long as it is requited. If we can do this as well as honestly examine our preconceptions and biases in the context of a world of tolerance and mutual respect, then maybe, just maybe we have a chance.

Still… Pinko commie liberal!

Until next time…