“Haven’t we had enough hate?” “I don’t even have words.” “What terrible news to wake up to.” “So devastated by the shooting in Florida.” These statements flooded Twitter in the wake of news that a gunman had killed 50 people in a crowded gay nightclub in Orlando early Sunday — the deadliest attack on American soil since 9/11.
But, as is the case every time someone slaughters people, the events prompted many to back into their camps. “Barack Obama cares more about defending the image of Islam than the lives of the American people,” one person wrote. Another: “Look at all the ‘Christians’ celebrating this tragedy & claiming its ‘Gods work.’”
Then these: “How about we talk abt how EASILY they get guns”; “The media blames guns instead of Islamic Fundamentalist Mentality”; “Only @HillaryClinton is brave enough to stand up to NRA”; and “I can think of another 50 reasons this morning as to why the US needs #DonaldTrump as #POTUS … #BanIslam #MuslimScum.”
They go on. In fact, they get much worse, turning the dead into a tug-of-war rope for political show. It was the deadliest mass shooting in American history. It was the worst attack on a specifically gay setting. And it was committed by an American, on Americans. This is not the time to make the victims’ deaths about everyone else, nor the time to point fingers or lay down blame. It is time for unity.
The gunman, Omar Mateen, who lived in Florida, called 911 to report his allegiance to the Islamic State before the massacre; the terrorist group’s news agency later said the attack was “carried out by an Islamic State fighter.” The Islamic State has encouraged “lone wolf” attacks here — the phrase itself indicating an underlying root of the problem. It has recruited people, one by one, through social media by keeping in regular touch and sympathizing with their loneliness.
“All of us have a natural firewall in our brain that keeps us from bad ideas,” Nasser Weddady, a Middle East expert, told The New York Times. “They look for weaknesses in the wall, and then they attack.”
Mateen’s father, Seddique Mateen, however, said his son had no ties to radical Islam. Instead, the father said, his son became enraged after seeing two men kissing.
Across the country, police in Santa Monica, California, arrested an Indiana man sitting in a car Sunday with three assault rifles and a bucket of chemicals that could be used to make an explosive device. He said he was on his way to a gay pride parade in Los Angeles.
As law enforcement officials unravel the reasons behind the deadly rampage in Orlando, instead of bringing one another down, people should be building up one another. We know, for instance, how much the presence of a single caring person can mean to someone who feels isolated and disconnected. In the wake of the Orlando shooting, let’s not divide and ostracize but connect.
One tweet summed up the point exactly. It was from the Drama Book Shop, a famous speciality theater bookstore in New York City. Fittingly, it found the right words: “Fill the world with love to block out the hate.”
