The Orlando Tragedy: Some Reflections

The Orlando Tragedy: Some Reflections
Fecha de publicación: 
21 June 2016
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The Orlando incident was a hatred crime, example of the tragic contradictions in the very core of a system which yet wants to be seen as a universal example…  

The snake biting its tail: after the massacre, the United States presidential candidate Donald Trump hurries to claim that events prove him right, that we must fight strongly against Islamic terrorism… but he forgets the terrorist bought the weapon very easily, despite he had been investigated by the FBI more than once. Now (and just now) Trump believes in the need of somehow regulating the acquisition of weapons; but that is not clearly the opinion of the powerful Rifle Association that has been a close ally of the magnate. Anyways, Trump defends the possibility of buying a revolver with the same strength with which anyone would defend the possibility of buying a TV set. Americans are entitled to defend themselves from the shots of criminals who attack them since almost everybody (just and sinners) are entitled to buying a gun… so easily. A never-ending story.

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That is the country of freedom – some defend. Included the freedom to buy guns and shoot down half a hundred people. It is extreme, it sounds harsh, but it’s the reality.

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The U.S. government has dedicated some resources to the promotion of the rights for the LGBTI community in Cuba. Agree: there’s a lot to do in this country regarding the rights of homosexual, lesbians, bisexual, transsexual and intersexual… homophobic manifestations still remain in certain environments. There is a debate in that sense and some progress has been made, although some people (like this columnist) considers that it’s a slow pace. But something is evident: in Cuba there has never been a massacre of homosexuals. And the hatred crimes don’t make the everyday news. The U.S. government better watch its own backyard.

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The sacred writings may say whatever they say, but no religious man from any religion has the right of attempting against the greatest gift of men: life itself. And no morality should be built on the discrimination of the different ones… for the mere fact of being, of being born, of assuming to be different.

* * *

The murderer's father "explained" his son's reaction somehow: he saw two men kissing each other before him and that bothered him. It is the same annoyance felt by those who saw a black man kiss a white woman a few decades ago in the United States and they considered it was fair to burn the black man. For blacks things have changed there: even the current president is black. But paradoxically the police keep abusing Afro-descendants. For homosexuals the panorama has also changed, at least it is politically incorrect to discriminate against them… but there are people who keep mistreating them regardless. It is not a problem not only from the United States, it happens all over the world, regrettably… but the U.S. government feels morally compelled to judge others (although his "justice" is not blind, it imposes too many double standards).

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Some say: we should not care that most of the victims were gays, we must care that they were human beings. But I say that we must care about the fact that they were homosexual, because in fact they died because they were homosexual. Does anyone believe that it was a chance the election of the place of the massacre?

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I heard this and I could not be quiet: "If homosexuals were more discreet, if they didn't meet in those night clubs, nobody would feel the necessity to attack them. You can have a defect, but there’s no need to shout it out aloud". In the middle of the XXI century somebody (white, heterosexual, "normal") speaks like that, it shows the great challenge we have ahead of us.

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The extremisms are not endemic. History proves the decisive influence of power. The big empires have raised many storms.

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We are hurt by the dead in Orlando (and it is natural we hurt), but we sometimes forget the hundreds of homosexuals who die killed every year in the Middle East conflicts. The Islamic State has been declared a mortal enemy of homosexuals, "Because God has commanded so". But not only the Islamic State.

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