Storm in a tea cup, overreaction or side-issue are rapports that some people could easily throw around about one incident that is over a week old: a small icicle in comparison with the murder of 49 people that sparked. The fiasco I'm talking about, now a few weeks old was the fiasco in which Owen Jones in a discussion on Sky News walked out because his fellow presenters Julia Hartley-Brewer and Mark Longhurst. Summed up briefly the walk-out point was when the two other panellists according to Jones would predominantly not concede that the attack that had just happened was an attack on LGBT people. For sake of context and people judging for themselves the full exchange is reproduced below:
- Owen Jones: “At the end of the day, this was a homophobic hate crime as well as terrorism, and it has to be called out… It is one of the worst atrocities committed against LGBT people in the western world for generations, and it has to be called out.”
- Presenter: “Well, it’s something that’s carried out against human beings, isn’t it, no matter what their…”
- Owen Jones: “No! No… This has to be called out for what it is; this was an intentional attack on LGBT people.”
- Presenter: “On the freedom of all people to try and enjoy themselves as Bataclan was.”
- Owen Jones: “Excuse me! Can we just explain? You don’t understand this because you’re not gay, ok? So just listen…”
- Presenter: “Whether I’m gay or not has no reflection on the fact this person killed…”
- Julia Hartley-Brewer: “No, I don’t think that you have ownership of horror of this crime because you’re gay.”
- Owen Jones: “Can I just say that I find this astonishing?”
- Julia Hartley-Brewer: “I’m not Jewish, and I’m not gay, and I’m not French, but I’m still equally horrified by these crimes.”
- Pointing at headline on the Telegraph (“Isil wages war on gays in West”) Presenter: “Now, you share that view that this was deliberately targeted on one part of the community rather than the freedom to enjoy yourself, no matter what your sexual orientation is.”
- Owen Jones: “What are you talking about? This is…I’m trying to understand the point you’re making. This was a deliberate attack on LGBT people in an LGBT venue. It was a homophobic terrorist attack. Do you not understand that? It’s not some abstract kind of, he picked a club out of nowhere – he picked a club because it was full of people he regarded as deviants. That’s why he attacked the club.”
- Julia Hartley-Brewer: “I think part of the issue is, ok, this is a hate crime, this is an act of terrorism, all accepted, it was an attack on gay people, absolutely, it was horrific, however my guess is this man will probably be as horrified by me as a gobby woman as he would… genuinely, genuinely, this is the thing, we don’t know right now. We can speculate, but we don’t know how much of this is motivated by just his homophobia, whether that in any way is related to his religion…
- Owen Jones: “We heard from his own father about his revulsion. Why are we trying to deflect?”
- Presenter: “…I’m now going to quote from the Telegraph is saying: ‘Mateen’s father said his son, a US citizen of Afghan descent, may have targeted the gay community…’”
- Owen Jones: “May have? He did! Why are you saying this?”
- Julia Hartley-Brewer: “‘After seeing two men kissing in Miami some months ago. He may have been angered by many other things since then.”
- Owen Jones: “I’m sorry, I just find this the most astonishing thing I’ve ever been involved in on television. If he’d walked into a synagogue and massacred dozens of Jewish people, you wouldn’t be saying what you’re saying now. You would be talking about it as an antisemitic attack. This was a deliberate attack on LGBT people, this was a deliberate attack on the LGBT community, this bizarre attempt to deflect…”
- Presenter: “It’s not bizarre. We are trying to draw parallels in terrorist attacks on people who are being attacked whether they are enjoying rock music in Paris, whether they are gay people in Florida enjoying a night out.”
- Owen Jones: “This was an attack on LGBT people. This was a homophobic attack.”
- Owen Jones: “I’ve had enough of this; I’m not having it.” [Exits Centre Stage]
On
June 12, 2016 Omar Mateen walked into the Pulse nightclub in orlando Florida, a
LGBTQA+ venue with predominantly Latin-American regulars.
On June 12, 2016 Omar Mateen walked into the Pulse
nightclub in Orlando Florida, an LGBT nightclub with predominantly
Latin-American or Latix as it is called, regulars. He
then proceeded to massacre forty-nine people. The conversation
between Owen Jones and the other panelists above might seem frivolous
in comparison, but it is worth analysing the above words and the context
of the world in which they are uttered. Both Jones and Hartley-Brewer have
since issued their own follow-up statements on what happened: Her is here,
her article is here. In her response Hartley-Brewer
points out that she says "it was an attack on gay people, absolutely,
it was horrific, however my guess is this man will probably be
as horrified by me as a gobby woman as he would...genuinely, genuinely,
this is the thing." In her article she also claims "so which part of
those statements suggests I didn't think the crime was a homophobic crime?
Anyone Anyone at all?" Going back a little, Owen Jones whether
it was in this exchange or in his follow-up article
has never specifically accused her or Mark Longhurst of homophobia:
what he has written about which is not much better is that 'On Sky News last
night, I realised how far some will go to ignore homophobia.'
Some distinction here, not much but it doesn't bode well in someones
favour if there response is fundamentally inaccurate. Returning to the above script it is worthwhile going through the list of
statements that prompted Owen to walk out. Without the responses:
- “Well, it’s something that’s carried out against human beings, isn’t it, no matter what their…”
- “On the freedom of all people to try and enjoy themselves as Bataclan was.”“Whether I’m gay or not has no reflection on the fact this person killed…”
- “I think part of the issue is, ok, this is a hate crime, this is an act of terrorism, all accepted, it was an attack on gay people, absolutely, it was horrific, however my guess is this man will probably be as horrified by me as a gobby woman as he would… genuinely, genuinely, this is the thing, we don’t know right now. We can speculate, but we don’t know how much of this is motivated by just his homophobia, whether that in any way is related to his religion…
- “No, I don’t think that you have ownership of horror of this crime because you’re gay.”
- “I’m not Jewish, and I’m not gay, and I’m not French, but I’m still equally horrified by these crimes.”
- “…I’m now going to quote from the Telegraph is saying: ‘Mateen’s father said his son, a US citizen of Afghan descent, may have targeted the gay community…’”
- “‘After seeing two men kissing in Miami some months ago. He may have been angered by many other things since then.”
- “It’s not bizarre. We are trying to draw parallels in terrorist attacks on people who are being attacked whether they are enjoying rock music in Paris, whether they are gay people in Florida enjoying a night out.”
With the omission of Owen Jones'
responses, I will now deal with each one of them. Most of which say
something about the extent to which people will 'go to ignore homophobia' but they also say something about the nature of the media and it's own very narrow narratives:
- Human beings: To my knowledge no one in the room had brought up the idea they were not human beings. It was also not why they were murdered.
- This is simply bizarre: the contention point was simply intention. Omar Mateen could have easily targeted another club in an imitation of what took place in the Bataclan club. If Omar Marteen had wanted to imitate that, he could have picked numerous heterosexual bars in Florida to carry out his killings: he did not he chose a specifically LGBT one.
- Mark appears here not to understand what Owen Jones has just said. This response came to the statement "you don't understand this because your not gay, ok? So just listen...." The point being that is easier to ignore the toile of homophobia if you happen to be heterosexual. Not that it renders you incapable of compassion for any human beings that don't your kind of sexuality. How Mark's heterosexuality has anything to do with why Omar Mateen did what he did, you'd have to ask Mark. More likely the statement was promptly by the need to get the conversation back to a discussion of one-dimensional terrrorism not something specific, which is what it was. Again why not simply murder any other group of people somewhere else?
- This Julia's sticking point, that she adamantly clings to in her article that she clings to in her article has many colours. It is correct she says it was a 'homophobic attack' it is the following words where the denial starts to creep in. Omar Mateen had been revealed to be a misogynist and a man who routinely was violent towards towards his wife. But that was not being refuted, and it was not int his instance a group of women who he had murdered. Drawing on a list of hypotheticals of people he might want to equally kill or that he equally hated was about distancing the reporting from the fact it was a homophobic hate crime. That it can be other things too wasn't being denied It also worth bearing in mind Owen Jones doesn't believe there can't be multiple reasons to as he puts it was 'both a terrorist attack and a homophobic attack on LGBT people' or 'it is possible for an atrocity to be more than one thing at the same time.'
- Ownership: Again a change of subject. He hadn't mentioned it. Or in the words of Owen Jones: 'This is not about lGBT people taking ownership of the pain and anguish. People of all sexual orientations have wept over the is massacre, and all communities should unite unite in grief. It is highly likely that straight people died in the atrocity. When the neo-Nazi terrorist David Copeland detonated a nail bomb in the Admiral Duncan gay pub in 1999, one of the fatalities was a straight pregnant woman, having a drink with her husband and her gay friends. LGBT people are part of the winner community, and LGBT people and their straight friends party in LGBT venues. But this was a deliberate attack on a LGBT venue and LGBT people. According to Omar Mateen's father, the reportedly Islamic State-supported terrorist had expressed revulsion at the sight of two men kissing. His co-workers have described his anti-gay comments. Omar Mateen could have chosen many clubs, full of people laughing and living, but he chose a LGBT venue. This was homophobia as well as terrorism. It is not enough to simply condemn violence: we have to understand what it is and why it happened.'
- It wasn't Jewish or French people who were attacked. People having the capacity to be equally appalled by all atrocities is a wonderful thing, what has this that got to do with the conversation?
- "I'm now going to quote from the Telegraph.. is saying: 'Mateen's father said his son, a US citizen of Afghan descent may have targeted the gay community..." Unless Mark was to go onto to say something else how is that not homophobia-denial? May have? Was there still some ambiguity.......
- Omar Mateen may have been angered by many things in his life but he had just killed forty-nine people in an LGBTQ bar because it was an LGBTQ bar. It was first and foremost that reason why he did what he did. It was that and only that Owen Jones was trying to get them to understand.
- The final caveat says other things that are not exclusively to with the denial of homophobia: “It’s not bizarre. We are trying to draw parallels in terrorist attacks on people who are being attacked whether they are enjoying rock music in Paris, whether they are gay people in Florida enjoying a night out.” In one respect some respect this is not bizarre at all. In the world of the media it is not bizarre to draw parallels but they must remain within tight margins. As well as the need to obfuscate homophobia another need had by this point emerged: In the media since 911 terrorism has become a one-dimensional story where it is Muslims and muslims in the monolithic sense Vs the West, or rather us, where neither side of the equation is allowed any nuance. The detail of homophobia was a nuisance to this storyline and got in the way of the mythology that everyone is equal; the this is war against us all argument is not some token humanistic or equalitarian gesture, it is about feeling the need to avoid to seeing any inequalities that exist in our society, in this case the reality that LGBTQ still have less rights than straight people. Looking in the mirror and seeing if you have something that someone else doesn't is always a lot harder than whether you hate someone or not.
So what is it that can be taken from something that is so tiny for so many people and is fast fading from the memory? The liberal and politer means of cancelling out the central reality of a tragedy after it has nearly happened can arguably be more insidious than words that people now deep horrific like 'faggot' or 'queer' or 'pervert', they settle more gently in peoples minds but do the damage of denying the reality of a communities grief, the community who is more likely likely to be the victim of similar attacks. Julie Hartley-Brewer jokes in her article about people checking their privilege but it was precisely this that for her and Mark Longhurst was on predominantly on display on the television: Well-meaning or otherwise. The liberal universality of 'human beings' being equal wasn't brought up to clarify what people already knew it was brought up to push away the biggest motivators of why Omar Marteen had done what he did. Inverting reality and making her the victim she then has this to say:
It's proof that there are now thousands - if not
millions - of people in Britain who regard the taking of offence as not just
their hobby but their full time job. They seek out offence and hidden
insults wherever they may be, and even where (as in this case) there are
none and then they shout long and hard until their designated target gives in
and agrees to be shut down.
Well, sorry to disappoint you but no one is
shutting me down or silencing my voice. I don't claim to speak for anyone but
myself so I get to choose the words I want to use, not Owen Jones or random
people on Twitter or anyone else. That's how this whole "free speech"
thing works.
If you don't like what I have to say then either
don't listen or debate with me using the facts rather resorting to abuse
and lies. And don't ever presume to tell me what I can and cannot say. This is,
last time I looked, a free country where I am entitled as anyone else to give
my opinion.
If Owen Jones wants to live in a world where
people can only say what is on the officially approved list of platitudes,
then perhaps he has more in common with Islamic State than he
thinks.
Despite the two-day barrage of of insults on
twitter Julia has not had her voice shut down and still continues to be
published in the mainstream media, that does not seem to qualify as censorship
or even bordering on censorship. Whereby people are forcibly stopped from
communicating, if the word has any meaning at al. The regrettable barrage is
over and her entitled opinion has been completely left untarnished. Owen Jones
also and only walked out of a discussion, not something I know of him ever
doing before and not yet a pattern in his behavior. A walk-off whatever one
thinks of it does not stop anyone expressing does not stop anyone expressing
anything.
The in-complete ability to recognize the major
reason why these people were murdered and injured was repeated and so he left,
and maybe he shouldn't have, but it is hardly surprising. Something so tiny,
but not disavowing homophobia was not in her or Mark Longhurst's canon. Instead
making sure the usual news-propaganda was continued was, the one of monochrome-Muslims
vs the rest of us. That simple acknowledgement apparently is too much to ask?
49 people were killed: they were foremost
murdered to put it bluntly because they were queer. Just recognizing that and
saying it does not take even a paragraph, Julia's brief disclaimer aside. The
attacks were other things but they were this. A frivolous point for some, an
added insult to many others. In particular, if they happen to be the people who
have to live with the consequences, and now as well have to put up with the
reasons for these people being murdered rubbed out of the reporting.
