So a few weeks back after the Orlando shootings I was having a discussion with someone over social media about Orlando.
I've often found it strange how much some celebrities get when they die because of the fact that all artists die physically. But they do live on forever through their art. It's a very happy philosophy to hold and it does tend to minimizes the grief felt after their death in a way that is frowned upon by our society.
The killings in Orlando were horrific and I believe it was the "biggest" mass shooting to happen in America.
Calling it that and commemorating it as such disturbs me in a way because it a) makes it seem like a competition and b) diminishes the significance of prior mass shootings.
But this wasn't the crux of the issue for me. The crux of it was all of the people who said that the shooter wasn't a Muslim fundamentalist and thus Muslim fundamentalism shouldn't be addressed.
This stems from a notion that "if someone doesn't die to it, it isn't worth acting on". We have so many injustices in the world. But we only start talking about them when something like this happens.
I agree that it shouldn't start us debating scepticisms or certain off-topic philosophies but it made me consider a very silent genocide that streams of Islam in other parts of the world does commit.
In many Muslim countries homosexuality is seen as criminal or worse.
I thought about all of the people who were at that gay bar when the Orlando shooting happened. And how they were all expressing themselves and perhaps, after the event, some of them stopped going to bars or even tried to conceal their own feelings.
In the aforementioned countries. Syria and Saudi Arabia being 2 examples. There aren't gay bars. If one was to be created, it would be a hot spot for murderers and nobody would go there anymore.
We've fought for years in the West to allow these people to be seen as normal (which of course they are), acceptable and perfectly functionable people.
Was the eventual triumph not worth 50 lives? How many lives is the triumph worth? And how can we consider then that all of the people in Saudi Arabia and Syria aren't at least a little bit dead inside. For if it'd worth the lives of 100 people for an entire nation's homosexual population to be liberated. Then how many are being cost in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Indonesia and any other country where their rights aren't fully revealed. Imagine the sheer mass of suffering, despair and hopelessness present there and tell me how 50 lives lost to a shooting wherein which countless people have expressed themselves over the years.
Is it really better that people not have gay bars and stay alive than people having gay bars and 50 or so of them dying to a fanatic on one freak occasion?
The bloodbath that would occur if every homosexual here was splattered with red paint and revealed to be so wouldn't be half as bad as what it is there. Until their identities are liberated truly and allowed to live. I don't think the killing of 50 people really weighs up to the suppression of thousands.
It really is time we stopped ironing all the microscopic cracks in our own society and focused on those with gaping wounds.
I've often found it strange how much some celebrities get when they die because of the fact that all artists die physically. But they do live on forever through their art. It's a very happy philosophy to hold and it does tend to minimizes the grief felt after their death in a way that is frowned upon by our society.
The killings in Orlando were horrific and I believe it was the "biggest" mass shooting to happen in America.
Calling it that and commemorating it as such disturbs me in a way because it a) makes it seem like a competition and b) diminishes the significance of prior mass shootings.
But this wasn't the crux of the issue for me. The crux of it was all of the people who said that the shooter wasn't a Muslim fundamentalist and thus Muslim fundamentalism shouldn't be addressed.
This stems from a notion that "if someone doesn't die to it, it isn't worth acting on". We have so many injustices in the world. But we only start talking about them when something like this happens.
I agree that it shouldn't start us debating scepticisms or certain off-topic philosophies but it made me consider a very silent genocide that streams of Islam in other parts of the world does commit.
In many Muslim countries homosexuality is seen as criminal or worse.
I thought about all of the people who were at that gay bar when the Orlando shooting happened. And how they were all expressing themselves and perhaps, after the event, some of them stopped going to bars or even tried to conceal their own feelings.
In the aforementioned countries. Syria and Saudi Arabia being 2 examples. There aren't gay bars. If one was to be created, it would be a hot spot for murderers and nobody would go there anymore.
We've fought for years in the West to allow these people to be seen as normal (which of course they are), acceptable and perfectly functionable people.
Was the eventual triumph not worth 50 lives? How many lives is the triumph worth? And how can we consider then that all of the people in Saudi Arabia and Syria aren't at least a little bit dead inside. For if it'd worth the lives of 100 people for an entire nation's homosexual population to be liberated. Then how many are being cost in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Indonesia and any other country where their rights aren't fully revealed. Imagine the sheer mass of suffering, despair and hopelessness present there and tell me how 50 lives lost to a shooting wherein which countless people have expressed themselves over the years.
Is it really better that people not have gay bars and stay alive than people having gay bars and 50 or so of them dying to a fanatic on one freak occasion?
The bloodbath that would occur if every homosexual here was splattered with red paint and revealed to be so wouldn't be half as bad as what it is there. Until their identities are liberated truly and allowed to live. I don't think the killing of 50 people really weighs up to the suppression of thousands.
It really is time we stopped ironing all the microscopic cracks in our own society and focused on those with gaping wounds.
