A Dark Night in Aurora: A Few Reflections

Photo of James Holmes

I have reflected on the events which happened recently in Aurora, Colorado, where James Holmes, a PhD student, opened fire on an unsuspecting audience at a local cinema as they prepared to watch the premier of the last series of the Batman trilogy. A total of 12 people died on that fateful   day on the spot or soon after.

I don’t intend to go into detail on what happened during that day when innocent people who were preparing to watch the premier of the  Batman movie “Dark Night Rises” became the target of a lone gunman, James Holmes. He appeared not to fit the stereotype of a terrorist or serial killer. Yet, while we may never learn what the young Holmes was thinking when he started his random killing spree, this doesn't mean that we shouldn't ask ourselves why this might have happened..

Indeed, there are a number of factors that have enabled Holmes to perform his acts of violence. Yet, before that, perhaps we need to acknowledge that our world today has become more violent and violence is often implicitly promoted through our continuous  consumption of news media reporting local crimes and wars abroad. In spite of the goodwill of many, our progress has not resulted in greater peace and stability.

Sadly, even the movie “Dark The Night Rising” appears to be full of violent action and terrorism. In spite of the idea of good fighting bad forces, the so-called “good guys” don’t hesitate to resort to brutality and violence themselves to win over their enemies. This reflects a certain inconsistency in our declared cultural values.

I cannot downplay the tragedy of the deaths following the Aurora shooting. They certainly left suffering amongst those they left behind and touched the American nation. Their lives were unique and irreplaceable . Some were children and had only started their lives. Yet, I am saddened that while this tragedy has rightly attracted the attention of the media - especially in the US - few have been so passionate the thousands being slaughtered today because of war and violence. Aren’t they valuable people like the people in Aurora who sadly were killed?

It was also surprising to me to learn that by possessing the arsenal of weapons, Holmes wasn’t breaking any laws. Indeed, as it stands, the American Constitution provides every American citizen the right to own a weapon in order to protect his person or property. Thus, this obviously permitted for Holmes to purchase many weapons from different US states and even over the internet. The debate on regulating the possession of arms is a hot topic in the US but episodes like that of Holmes aren’t isolated and other victims have surely perished because of unregulated arms market. Personally, I feel that the fact we have a culture that implicitly approves violence as a solution increases the risk of more tragedies like that of Aurora.

While I have identified some of the conditions which have helped to make possible for the young James Holmes to commit mass murder, I feel that I cannot ignore to consider James Holmes, the person. We risk of labelling Holmes as crazy or as someone to be hated. Some have written vengeful claims and even circulated inaccurate information. Even if the police report that Holmes dressed as Batman’s anti-hero, Joker, when committing his crime, it would be too simple for us to label Holmes as a deluded psychopath. Indeed, we may need to attempt, at least, to understand Holmes and his motivations.

Indeed, we need to ask ourselves whether Holmes’ actions were a product of a society that has become more desensitised to violence and war. Perhaps we should ask ourselves whether we are creating more isolation of particular groups of people. We need to ask ourselves whether we had neglected to listen to Holmes before he rebelled against society. We might also need to consider the possibility of whether physiological causes such as an undiagnosed brain tumour was partly responsible for Holmes’ actions. It has been documented that tumours can be responsible for reduction in areas of our brain controlling emotions.

Unfortunately, we often create monsters out of people like Holmes. In a way, we do this to disassociate ourselves from those who we deem are different than us. Yet, while I can never justify Holmes’ actions, I don’t know if given some extreme conditions of social isolation or deprivation, I wouldn’t act out like Holmes if I lose self-awareness and seek help if I need to. Indeed, Holmes may not have thought he had another option. Of course, Holmes’ family were also shocked and those those close to him saw another dark side to him they never thought existed. That too, should help us reflect on how much do we care enough for those around us to get to know them better.

Granted, mine are only reflections and we may know more with the passage of time about this tragic event. However, I believe that this sad event should be a wake up call to a darker reality that sometimes emerges when we least expect it. We may take this as an opportunity to empathise with people who because of war and violence wake up everyday to an uncertain future where they, or their loved ones, may not live after this day. 

Lastly, this is an opportunity to forgive and put true effort in cultivating compassion and promote peace amongst ourselves. It’s also our chance to value the life and dignity of every human being. For, In truth, we all depend on each other to make life worth it!

10 Years of Fear

There is already a lot of commentary and opinions trying to analyze where we are today following 10 years since the September 11, 2001 attacks. However, as we prepare to honour the many people who lost their lives on that tragic day, I feel it it’s important to ask ourselves whether the world has moved on. In other words, can we say that the planet has become a safer and more peaceful place for us to live in?

Putting aside any political interests, can we truly say that the so-called “war on terror” was real and justified? Undoubtedly, 9/11 caused great loss of life and, indeed, we must remember all those who were killed in the name of an ideology feeding on hate and revenge. But have we thought of the thousands more of equally innocent people whom have been killed in a war against an unknown target?

Don’t we care that much because they don’t belong to our culture, don’t have our values, don’t believe in the same God as we do? Perhaps, we fear, that these people we now label “Arabs” or “Muslims” are a threat to Western civilization which we believe is based on the values of democracy, respect and justice? Does this explain the rise of Islamophobia in the West and the growing popularity of far-right extremism?

Can we reconcile our supposed respect of human rights with the emerging evidence that innocent people might have been tortured and bullied to reveal dubious information about events that took place on 9/11 and to investigate whether there may be new plans to attack? Can we we pride ourselves with the good values we hold while we inflict pain and suffering on the world we never bothered to understand, let alone care for?

Are we comfortable with the fact that some multinational companies are exploiting parts of the world for their rich natural resources to gain profit while the inhabitants are living in a state of hunger and unimaginable poverty and disease? Are we ready keep watching scenes of conflict and violence on our media thinking that this doesn’t affect me? Yet, you meet someone who is different than you, perhaps a Muslim, do you become fearful and suspicious?

Yes, Osama bin Laden was killed. However, it would be naïve to think that this solved the problems that gave rise to 9/11. For horrible as the actions of Al Qaeda may have been, there are still people who have come to the conclusion that terror and violence are the only ways to stop a West, that they perceive is exploiting their lands, killing their people and impoverishing their lives. We who don’t have to deal with a situation where you have to worry about whether you’re going to eat today or how far you need to go in order to get safe drinking water, don’t appreciate that out there people are living a harsh life.

We may avoid thinking about these realities. Indeed, we may not care enough to realize that killing bin Laden, for example, only removed one symptom of a far greater disease. A disease that cannot be cured by medicine and antibiotics. The disease is fear. A malady that is sometimes so strong that it forces us to keep away from anyone or anything which we perceive as a threat. In the name of fear, we close our mind and heart to others who are different while they become mere objects where we project our darker sides. They become the targets of our hate, resentment, insults and violence. As we feed our fears, our victims lose their humanity.

Sadly, unless we don’t recognize that we can no longer go on with our life thinking what happens in other parts of the world isn’t our concern, we will be easy victims for fear and its afflictions. By closing ourselves to the suffering of others, we fail to appreciate the dire situation other people living in the world are living in. Without recognizing that, to some extent, we may have contributed to this situation, we would have learned little from 9/11. If we believe what our fears tell us, we will miss seeing that our similarities with ‘those people’ are much greater than our differences.

Unless we do all that and more, we will remain trapped in an age of fear. An age which doesn’t exist in time but in our minds.

Facing the Enemy Within

Who is the enemy? We all have people in our life that we feel we can never get along with. We may deny it, but as we grow older, we start distinguishing between those we consider friends, those who we don’t have any feelings towards and enemies. However, thinking of these three types of people in terms of closed groups is simplistic for friends can, at one point in the future, become enemies or vice versa.

Undeniably, the relations we have with other people and the way we perceive them in our world is important as it provides us with an identity and a feeling of control and choice. This is because, unlike our family, we tend to choose who are friends and enemies are.thinking these of these three groups of people as if life was that simple would be naïve for no individual is fixed in his/her position in our world view. Even if it doesn’t happen everyday, friends can become enemies and vice versa. People who we didn’t know or care for before may suddenly become our best friend or worse enemy. Yet, unlike our family, it is up to us to choose who gets to be  our friend or enemy.  

However, we tend to be unaware that the greatest enemy mis not on the outside but rather inside of us.  if we think about it, our greatest enemy may be within us. For, destructive and malicious as they may be, we have the choice of how to react to our enemies and, many times, we tend to get wound up in resentment and hate if we are challenged by an external enemy. In the process of letting the external enemy’s words and action, we trigger an inner conflict. On the one hand, we attempt to justify ourselves and cultivate our anger against the enemy, and on the other, all the negative self-images of our past return to haunt us.

Once this happens, it means that the external enemy, with the complicity of our inner enemy, has managed to invade our heart and mind. Whether we resort to pride and self-righteousness, or sulk away in self-pity and seeking   consolation from others, the enemy has won the battle if not the war. Don’t get me wrong - I am not saying that one shouldn’t defend ourselves if someone goes around telling lies about us or in some way harming us. I’m saying that the moment we fixate on the pain inflicted upon us is the one we have have given up our freedom to choose. Indeed, we become hostage to a  negative thought process that changes us in ugly ways.

We may attempt to disassociate from the outer threat. We may get caught up in a stream of anger, resentment, and hate. We may go as far as murdering our external threat in our mind by dehumanizing this person. In so many ways, we become the enemy - not just to our human enemy on the outside but an enemy to our own selves. The good news is that we can choose to be victims and surrender to our enemy or learn from our experience. We might even try to understand why our external enemy has attacked us.

In this sense, an enemy can be of help in becoming aware of our own weaknesses - of how easily we can be conditioned by other people. It can make us more conscious of our tendencies to distance ourselves from our enemy, but at the same time, defining ourselves in a negative relation to our enemy. It should be an experience where we learn how much we are absorbed in a belief that we, together with those we regard to be part of our group, are the ‘good’, the ‘right’ and the ‘just] - judging all those who don’t meet our standards as outsiders. In clutching to our convictions that we have got nothing to do with ‘these other people’ who may come from different race, religious tradition or ethnic background, etc., we miss out on our human heritage.

For, unlike the enemy outside, the inner enemy can generate a legion of enemies that are not real or rational. We may have never met these people, these ‘others’ but as long as our minds perceives them as a threat, then we can be as hateful and resentful as if they really were acquaintances. 

our adversaries may be, we have a choice of whether to give in to our destructive impulses characterized by emotions fueled by a growing hate and resentment. An enemy is stronger when s/he has managed to cast us in a fight or flight mode where we are caught up in an internal battle torn between defending ourselves and attacking our enemy. At least in my experience, getting caught up in the conflict within only serves to inflame the anger and resuscitate the multitude of negative images of ourselves we have grown to believe without really knowing.

In our attempts to protect our own self-image, we suddenly turn our enemy into an ‘other’ by which we disassociate ourselves from the person we perceive as a threat to the point of dehumanizing them. But, in robbing our opponent from a humanity, aren’t we becoming less human? When we tell ourselves that we are the good people and the ones in the right and insisting that we are different, better and just people and our enemy is not part of us, aren’t we denying ourselves an opportunity to learn? For once we are absorbed in an attempt to protect our self-imposed identity, we become hostage to our own thoughts and emotions. At that point, the have unintentionally chosen to be conditioned by another person. 

On the other hand, we can take the opportunity to observe our reactions as our mind battles in a conflict between our self-doubt and pride, between our instincts of defense and attack. But what is there to learn when we’re feeling pain inside and we feel hurt so much that we cannot control  our emotions? This is not easy, I admit, but we have to admit to ourselves that we are angered because something out there has challenged our world view. It has shaken the foundations of our beliefs and robbed up of any peace of mind. Yet, as we realise that we have been thrown into this state of apparent chaos because we have consented to an enemy to let the seeds of malice grow in our heart and mind. This should make us more aware of how easily we can we be conditioned into a thought process  that is, for the most part, our own making.

In addition, as we seek to justify our belief that we are the better ones, we build an image of the other that is inhuman and even worthless. Ironically, by defining ourselves in terms of our enemy makes us not only psychologically dependent on our enemy in defining ourselves, but also robs us of any clains to a free will. We are confined to a state of mind where we are tuck in fear. The tragic thing is that, many times, we create our own cell and surrender to the enemy within, which makes us believe we are the best as we intoxicate ourselves in calling ourselves names that elevate us to a godlike status. In short, we have created an enemy that is even more dangerous because we’re unaware of. The fact is that we can ultimately give power to those who want to harm us.

However, there are other groups of people who our mind may perceive as enemies, especially if we are prone to being attached to an image of ourselves that is exclusive and is set against ‘other’ people we deem, consciously or unconsciously, inferior and less worthy than we are and the group we associate ourselves with. Our ‘enemy’ here is not real in the sense that we may have never met these persons. But we can still harbour a certain hate and resentment if we even hear their name mentioned. It sounds irrational and it is irrational. But, that does not stop people from holding on to preconceived notions of people depending on their race, religious tradition, or ethnic group. 

Our justification in conceiving those different than us as enemies emerges out of a fear that these people will threaten our social order. A national identity that prides itself in respect of diversity and freedom of expression is used to delineate between those who are worthy of rights and those who are not. Our cultures which were only possible because of our interest in discovering how other people live slowly becomes an instrument to oppress and exclude what can actually enrich it. A faith or religion which preaches that we are equal in the eyes of God, can implicitly resist those who belong to different faith. In forming our mental image of the enemy, we fail to be aware that much of what we believe is but a delusion. Worse still, by building barriers between ‘us’ and ‘them’, we risk to forget that we share our humanity and face the joys and pains of birth, love, friendship, disease and death.

This brings us back full circle to the initial question: Who is the enemy? The answer is not straightforwardIndeed, as we have seen an enemy can be really out there to harm us and our perception of them as threats may be legitimate and advised. On the other hand, enemies can be produced through our own preconceptions and world views. We can also find enemies hidden in our past memories and experiences. Yet, if we had to identify a common characteristic that defines enemies that we create from real or past  experience and imaginary enemies we form out of mere prejudice is that we are the ones who consent in letting these enemies take control over us. True, manny times it’s due to habit and our tendency to look at our world without consideration to those who fall outside of our rigid world view. 

This is why it’s important to find a time in our busy schedule to reach within and face our enemy. Even if we may feel uncomfortable with facing our enemy, the inner critic, which lifts us up only to enjoy seeing us taking  a great fall. While may be unable to help feeling resentment and hate in certain situations, we should take this opportunity to learn about ourselves and perhaps slowly changing our inner enemy to an inner ally. If we succeed in that, our human enemy has no more power over us and, indeed, if we make that extra effort, we can start to understand why your enemy has chosen you as a target. Indeed, you sometimes cannot choose your enemies either if you think about it because an enemy may hold feelings of hate and resentment based on a wong view. Then it’s even more important to be more aware of yourself and more open to others.  

Yet, what all these enemies have in common is that we can usually decide to what extent do we give power to them to condition our lives and, indirectly, control our thoughts and emotions. While we think of our daily enemies as persons who we would do without, they can also help us reflect more deeply on who we are and on what we can be like in difficult circumstances. Our enemies can also help us make an effort to understand that, malicious as they may be, our enemies still share our humanity and are not immune to their own inner enemy. 

I know that it’s easy to write all this and putting into practice is another matter altogether. Indeed, I’ve made many mistakes in the past and will surely do more along the way. But, as I grow in self-awareness thanks to my daily meditation, the more I come to realize how destructive we can be by giving up to someone else or to an imaginary threat our minds. How easy it is to persist in believing lies about your world that contradict experience.

The danger of avoiding to face our inner enemy is that, in persisting in protecting ourselves and our self-image, we close our heart and mind to others with the result of losing part of our humanity and of an opportunity for real growth.