OMAR Mateen attacked a bar in Orlando, Florida on June 12, 2016 and many people around the world were hurt—worse, even more could be harmed depending on our response to the crime. That might sound a bit exaggerated in the reading, but it is not farfetched when human rights are violated in a world where issues are complex.
Mateen was responsible for the deaths of 49 individuals and wounding of 53 others, but many others were hurt by the nature and implication of the crime which was viewed as an attack on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual (LGBTQIA) people. It has triggered fears of encouraging more assaults against LGBTQIA elsewhere, and also causing backlash against Muslims, and the furthering of the bigoted mindset that Islam is an intolerant and violent religion.
Many are grappling with the question, aside from expressing outrage and honoring the victims what ought we do to respond to the violence that happened in Orlando? How ought we deal with the consequences without triggering more othering and aggression?
Although associated with work related to gross human rights violations and societies transitioning from violence, the Dealing with the Past (DwP) framework espoused by the Swiss Government, swisspeace, and other organizations provides inspiration for crafting a response to the carnage in Orlando.
The DwP approach has potential to forge sustainable, inclusive peace in the wake of violence by comprehensively and inclusively addressing conflict, as well as its causes and effects. DwP has four pillars, the rights to know, justice, reparation, and the guarantee of non-recurrence, all embedded in a context of conflict transformation, citizenship, rule of law, no impunity and the pursuit of healing and reconciliation. These elements could be helpful in dealing with the violence generated by the Orlando shooting.
In the DwP framework, the right to know incorporates the right of victims to know, and the duty of governments to remember and preserve memory. This goes beyond the investigation of the details of a crime and the profiling of a criminal to fulfill a consumerist need to devour trivia.
In the context of Orlando, it would also mean an open and frank discussion of the issues involved. There can be no looking away from the facts that the victims had been in a club frequented by gays, and that Mateen had previously displayed intolerant behavior.
Homophobia is not imagined, including the internalized homophobia from which Mateen, who allegedly grappled with his sexuality, suffered. The violence that comes from such extreme prejudice, irrational fear and hatred, such as what happened in Orlando, is a hate crime, and cannot be simply charged to acts of terrorism. But Orlando was not only a crime against the LGBTQIA.
It was fundamentally an attack on humans and should enrage everyone who values life regardless of their own sexual and political orientations. Thus the view that the Orlando shooting was a “crime against humanity” is not incorrect. But one cannot honestly make that point without acknowledging that the victims were targeted by an aggressor who was hostile to those who deviated from the heterosexual norm.
The right to justice entails the victim’s right to fair remedy, and the duty of governments to investigate, prosecute and punish perpetrators.
Mateen was killed in the shootout with enforcers, and the reckoning of what will constitute justice for the victims might not be as straightforward as those crimes where the perpetrators were apprehended and apropriately penalized. But for sure, glossing over Mateen’s American nationality, emphasizing his declaration of allegiance to the Islamic State, and highlighting that he was of Afghan descent to make a compelling case for terrorism will not give justice to the victims and their families.
Conservative media and churches, and other institutions that are using the Orlando crime to fortify their tirade against homosexuality, or their campaign to characterize Islam and Muslims as intolerant and extremist are doing a huge injustice to the victims.
Admittedly, not knowing what form justice would take for the victims reinforces a sense of helplessness—even the call to not deny the victims their identity and individuality is problematic as there are those whose family members refuse to be named.
The right to reparation recognizes that redress is necessary to address wrongdoing, and that governments have the duty to make reparation possible, and to provide satisfaction to the victims. This is a challenging undertaking because similar to other cases where human lives have been lost, there is no real and satisfactory compensation for the tragic and senseless loss of life.
However, solidarity and symbolic gestures can contribute to the long road towards healing and reconciliation. Viewed in this light, the Muslims who gathered at the breaking of the fast on June 13 in Orlando and New York to pray for and express solidarity with the victims of Mateen are helping make amends.
On the one hand, the rights to know, justice and reparation specifically involve the victims, their families and communities, and are about the past. The right to be guaranteed non-recurrence of violations has a societal nature, and is future-oriented, on the other hand.
Governments have the main duty to guarantee that the violations will not happen again in the future. But this invariably means reforming institutions and transforming relationships, and thus necessarily concerns other stakeholders. In the aftermath of Orlando, this is a huge undertaking that will include but go beyond revisiting American gun laws, and should be the concern of non-Americans. Societies around the world will have to revisit their own belief systems and social institutions to examine how those are creating and reinforcing discrimination and violence.
Language is one of the systems and institutions that have to be reexamined in the aftermath of violence. The role of language in shaping, manifesting and strengthening cultures that promote respect and tolerance, and celebrate diversity cannot be overemphasized. As has been pointed out before, words have power and can harm or heal, depending on how they are used, who uses them, and to what ends.
This is of particular significance to women and LGBTQIA people because words are among the ways with which we experience violence every day.
Words do more than describe or articulate realities, in their expressing words also build realities. Using the term “bakla” to label, attack and belittle an opponent reinforces a society where to be bakla is to be weak, unreliable, and ineffective, and thus fundamentally unfit to be a leader. From there, it is not a huge stretch for this “unfitness” to become basis to demean and eventually dehumanize individuals, thus making them vulnerable to attack.
To justify by saying “they’re just words” (salita lang ‘yan) and thus excuse violent language is dismissive and ultimately not acceptable. We should instead seek to promote “just words”—language that is just and does justice. In the concrete, what I hope would come about in the coming days is better alignment and consistency between the declared policies and programs concerning women and LGBTQIA of our leaders, and their own personal pronouncements and conduct—one aspect cannot be used to offset poor performance in the other.
It truly is difficult to deal with heinous crimes and their effects. But pursuing the rights to know, justice and reparation, and seeking to transform conditions so that the violence does not return increase the possibility that the violence and pains of the past remain there, and do not continue on to further damage our present and future.
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