Waiting for the name

After the bombing or shooting there is a hiatus. A few minutes perhaps, a couple of hours maybe but not much longer during which the name or names of those that carried out whatever atrocity is smearing our TV screens is determined. And you wait. The name is going to tell us a lot — or so we think. It did not take long for a name to emerge after the Orlando shootings. Omar Mateen. And the assumption-machine went into overdrive. Muslim and terrorist. Islamic State (IS). Foreign Hands. Accomplices. The assumptions were everywhere within the hour, and as it transpires many — most — of them are wrong. Four days later and with President Obama visiting Orlando on the day this column is published we know a lot more than we did last Sunday.

Turns out that Mateen was a lone-ish wolf (his wife may have been aware of his intentions and materially assisted him in preparation) but there is no evidence of a link between himself and the IS. Nothing. He claimed a linkage in a 911 call while the incident was in train, and IS, ever the opportunists, were quick to claim him as a foot soldier. He wasn’t… at least he wasn’t outside whatever was playing on the inside of his head as he killed 49 and injured 53 over the space of four hours.

Mateen the terrorist? That is a bit of a stretch as well. The FBI on its website has two definitions of terrorist, essentially similar but basically ‘home’ or ‘away’. Given what we now know about the killer pinning him as a ‘domestic terrorist’ within the literal meaning of the FBI definition is far from easy. What has emerged in considerable and verifiable, if occasionally conflicting, detail is that Mateen was a man who from his early years displayed behaviours that ought to have given rise to interventions by child psychologists — and in adult life mental health professionals.

This was a man grappling with all manner of demons. His first wife left him because he beat her, for instance. But nobody has identified him as a ‘radical Islamist’ — indeed far from it. Just your average everyday run-of-the-mill Muslim with an average job, a second wife and a three-year-old child and the errr… demons. Some of them came to him via the internet and he is what in common parlance is called ‘self radicalising’. He switched himself on. Hello demon, come right in. What he saw and absorbed from the internet pushed the buttons of all his prejudices, stoked the fires of his hatreds and gave him the framework around which he hung both motivation and justification for the worst act of gun violence in American history.

One of the demons may — or may not — have been homophobia and that may — or may not — have been the cover for his own latent leanings. He was no stranger at the place where he committed mass murder. Known and recognised, the subject of reminiscence that goes back at least a year. Was he casing the joint? Perhaps. And perhaps not. Sightings, remembrances… all of an angry and unstable man. But not a potential terrorist, just a potentially unbalanced murderer. With a gun.

Ah yes, the guns. Both seemingly legally bought, again possibly at least in respect of procuring ammunition, with the help of his wife. He had been on an FBI watch list twice in the past, his angry rants triggering investigations that were duly made and concluded. Concluded that there was no further need for the state to have oversight of his activities. That he presented no terrorist threat. That he could go about his business unencumbered by suspicion. Buy guns and not trigger any fail-safe mechanism within the system that would ask the question why a man with no apparent interest in hunting wild animals and living quietly within a safe community mostly made up of senior citizens, would want to buy the civilianised version of a powerful military weapon. No questions at all. Never occurred to the gun vendor. All legal and above board.

And there we are. Another American shooting. Nothing is going to change gun-wise but this one may prove to be a shaper of history.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 16^th, 2016.

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