Sunday 28 April 2019

A Commentary on this Week’s World News


In an incident some time ago, dozens of people were killed by one person – not in a war zone, so this was a mass murder (as is the case for all of these incidents).
In another incident – let’s call it the second incident, for this article - some time ago, more than a score people were killed by one person.
In another incident – let’s call it the third incident, for this article - some time ago, dozens of people were killed and hundreds wounded by one person.
In the fourth incident for this article, a mass murder of nine people in a place of religion was committed.
The fifth incident was a mass murder by gun of dozens of members of a minority group.
The sixth incident was another mass murder by gun of dozens of people in a religious place, committed fairly recent, but with an outstanding response.
The seventh incident was another mass murder of people in a religious place  more than 200, and allegedly in response to the sixth incident.
So, going back to the first incident, let me give you a clue: it let to changes to an entire nation’s gun laws. That makes it one of two possibilities, so I’ll add that the main person driving those changes showed, by his actions, that he was biased against people who fit under the “word also means happy” label – yes, that incident is the mass murder at Port Arthur in 1996 [1] , where 35 people were murdered and 23 wounded, which led to John Howard pushing through our revised gun control laws.
It led to quite a bit of debate, debate that is still continuing, on the separate but overlapping topics of violence and weapons, and how controlling one may hinder the application of the other [2] . That last semi-cryptic comment is obviously that weapons were controlled in order to limit the expression of violence, but there was - arguably - limited debate about the underlying problem of violence.
(Notably, however, the foundation started in the name of two of the girls murdered there, the Alannah and Madeline Foundation [3] , supports child victims of violence and runs a national anti-bullying programme.)
In my opinion, that was fairly typical of the shortcomings of John Howard, about whom I have often read comments that he wanted to go back to the “white picket fence” era of the 1950s, which was racism, sexism / misogyny / domestic violence, homophobia / transphobia / bi-invisibility, abuse of intersex kids / etc was endemic, and hushed up – leading to the idyllic little façade of th white picket fences, and the despair, violence and tragedy behind them. The action on gun laws, however, was a memorable and admirable deed, and, in my opinion, should be remembered as such – and maintained.
The second incident was the mass murder of 20 children and seven adults by someone who then committed suicide – the Sandy Hook mass murders, in 2016. From outside the USA, the impression I gained from media reports was that this incident quite rightly caused massive, widespread pain, horror and outrage – across the entire world, not only in the USA . . . but no changes. That’s not, however, quite correct [4] : there were some regulations enacted by President Obama by executive order, and some US states started implementing some restrictions, but nothing like those implemented in Australia in the late 90s.
There was some debate, with the US gun lobby taking its usual pro-gun positions, including that guns make schools safer. I consider that wrong for the following reasons:
Firstly, having more guns in circulation generally makes the occurrence of gun crimes (including thefts) and accidents more likely [5] ;
Secondly, the facts are – despite the lies perpetrated by some in the USA – gun control does reduce gun crimes;
Thirdly, someone simply having a gun does not mean they can shoot someone. This has been a problem for many militaries [6] , where often only around 2% of trained soldiers actually do most of the killing in conflict –the problem was illustrated by a recent attempted murder [7] in my home state using a gun where, despite shooting from a close range, the assailant missed. Of course, simply having a weapon may cause an ordinary criminal to back off, but I doubt that would change the mental state of someone determined to commit a mass shooting - and who possibly plans to die anyway. [8]
(I’m fairly sure I’ve read of innocent people being injured by attempts to use guns for defence, but I can’t find any links on that so may be wrong.)
Perhaps more notably, the debate after this event included the “hypothesised” link between gratuitously violent video games and real world violence [9] . I know from real world, lived experience that words have power – demeaning terms lead to desensitisation, and thus discrimination. That’s part of the genocide sequence [10] , and is well known as a factor with regard to sexism (including the risk of subsequently committing rape). It is absurd, to me, to suggest that some effect does not happen – as an example, there is some (contested, and not as strong or clearcut as many people believe [11] ) evidence animal cruelty is a predictor of other forms of violence [12] . Personally, I have trouble feeling safe around, or trusting, someone who likes gratuitously violent video games – which is not necessarily a problem around people who like guns, such as a work colleague several decades ago who was a collector with an interest in the history and technology of guns (he had an old muzzle loading musket, for instance), and had no hesitation storing his collection in accordance with the new laws after 1996. (I also don’t trust or feel safe around people who use sexist, racist, homophobic or transphobic language.)
In the case of the third incident, which was the mass murder of 58 people and the wounding of 422 in Las Vegas in 2017 [13] , one accessory for weapons, which effectively turned semi-automatic weapons into fully automatic weapons, was banned. For the USA, I consider that to be major progress.
A motive was not determined – did he want to become notorious, as other such criminals have wanted? Did he want to see what killing was like? He had a large collection of weapons – did he “want to try them out” – in a sense far removed from that of the collector friend of mine I mentioned?
We’ll never know.
We do know for the fourth incident, however, which was the mass murder in Charleston, in 2015, of nine African-Americans in a church by a white supremacist who wanted to create a race war [14] .
Following that terrible event, there was discussion of the problems of racism, and the start of move towards stopping use of the Confederate flag, which now has racist overtones. There was also considerable discussion about forgiveness.
As an outsider, it seems to me that the majority of white US residents have been living with both active and legacy racism for so long, and have been so BRAINWASHED by mantras around individual freedom at any price, that they have become inured to anyone trying to point out exactly what it is they’re tolerating.
They want their guns / gratuitously violent video games / sexist, racist or otherwise demeaning language and jokes / etc, and refuse to consider possibly restricting their personal “pleasure” no matter how much harm it causes others.
That problem – refusing to change - occurs elsewhere as well (including my nation), and is the theme of an article I am working on the resistance to allowing human rights.
The fifth incident was the mass murder of 49 people and wounding of 53 others by gun in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, USA, in 2016 [15] . The murderer had scouted several locations, and allegedly didn’t know that this was a gay night club (really??? Every gay club I’ve been to is obvious!), but some people have stated they see this as a hate crime. I do, and consider what seems to be an apparent reluctance and excuse seeking concerning – rather than logic or objectivity, it indicates unconscious bias.
The sixth incident was the mass murder of 50 people and injuring of 50 others at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, by a religious zealot / white supremacist, which is when the media seemed to finally get on board with recommendations to stop focusing on the perpetrator after such events, and where Jacinda Ardern’s outstanding, love-focused response has set the example for world. I’ve written about this here [16] . There have already been changes to New Zealand’s gun laws, there will probably be other actions in response to current investigations (e.g., on security), there has been considerable action already to prevent access to live-streaming of videos of such events (interesting in terms of the previous discussion on gratuitously violent videos), but, in my opinion, the most outstanding feature of all is a leader [17] who is unafraid of referring to love, and is clearly quite comfortable, sincere and genuine in doing so [18] .
The seventh incident is the mass murder of – at the time I am writing this - 253 people and the injuring of at least 500 in Sri Lanka, in a series of coordinated suicide bombings [19] . Allegedly, this was in response to the Christchurch mass murders: if so, whether intended or not, and despite the response, the Christchurch mass murders have resulted in one step towards a religious war.
Sri Lanka is a nation still trying to recover from a violent civil war that was notorious for human rights abuses: its stability is, in some ways, perhaps still fragile, so those who chose that nation as a target knew what they were doing.
So let’s recap. We have:
a mass murder by gun in 1996 that changed an entire nation’s thinking on guns in the late 90s;
a mass murder by gun of children in 2016 that led to limited changes to gun laws, and some debate over indicators / causes of violence;
a mass murder - and mass wounding of hundreds - by gun in 2017 that led to limited change to one gun accessory;
a racially motivated mass murder by gun in a religious place in 2015 that le to moves to remove use of a racially charged symbol (a flag), and discussions around racism and – religiously motivated - forgiveness;
a homophobic mass murder by gun that has, in my opinion, shown the problems that people have admitting to their prejudices;
a religiously motivated mass murder by gun in 2019 that led to a nation changing gun laws and the world discussing violence and its motivation, and countering that with love; and
a religiously motivated mass murder of hundreds as revenge for the previous attack.
That last attack has threatened the stability and social cohesion of Sri Lanka. Will someone rise to the challenge of overcoming that threat – does Sri Lanka have their version of a Jacinda Ardern, or a Nelson Mandela, or a Mohandas K Gandhi?
But it should also be noted that the response leapt across international borders. Do other trouble places in the world have their version of a Jacinda Ardern, or a Nelson Mandela, or a Mohandas K Gandhi? Can the international community rise above their normal political focuses and, using whatever lessons and techniques and tools are needed from the “Cure Violence” [20] model for preventing the spread of violence, stop the violence?
What will we, the everyday people do? Will we follow the examples of forgiveness and love and do our bit to stop the spread of hate and violence? Will we learn and perhaps be prepared to change, maybe even give something up we like, in order to help humanity at this crucial time?
The world waits with bated breath.

[2] The mass murderer’s motivation may have been a quest for “fame”, spurred by a recent mass murder in the UK (i.e., a “copycat”) – see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australia)&oldid=894151730#Motivation, and https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Copycat_crime&oldid=894013413.
[6] As an example of considerations on this issue, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zViyZGmBhvs
[11] The best I could find on this actually dealt with a slightly different theory, but it will do to suggest caution: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/witness/201205/homicidal-triad-predictor-violence-or-urban-myth.
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