On the Orlando shooting: Owen Jones has said that the shooter will not in any way divide communities, speaking of Muslims and LGBT members. The attempt by killers like him to turn communities against each other, ‘will fail’.
Here is his full script from the talk Owen Jones gave:
The Terrorists in Orlando fail. And I will tell you how I know that. Just behind me there is the Admiral Duncan Pub. It is a gay pub, right in the heart of London’s LGBT community.
And 17 years ago that pub, one a Friday night, was full of people. Full of laughter and love.
And a Neo-Nazi terrorist detonated a nail bomb and it killed three people and maimed dozens of others.
And Yeah, he extinguished the laughter for a long time. But he didnt extniguish the love.In the 17 years since that attack, this street, Old Compton street, LGBT people from all over the world have walked up and down this street, continuing to be full of laughter, of love, friendship.
He lost! And he didn’t just lose, he lost calamitously. And whilest they continue to walk up and down this street, full of laughter, full of love, he rots in a prison cell.
In Orlando, that thug, that dreg of humanity – and any dreg of humanity can pick up a gun and murder people – and he might have extinguished that laughter.
But even though he hates LGBT people as much as we love each other, he will lose. Because the love that exists in communities like this will always overcome the hatred, however great, of people like him.
And in the years to come, just in the years since this place was bombed, in Orlando, one again, people will walk those streets of love, full of laughter, the rights and the freedoms they have today will continue to grow and expand because we are on the right side of history and however violent these people are, they will lose.
LGBT people throughout history, for centuries, have been persecuted, spat at, ridiculed, humiliated, abused both verbally and physically, tortured, murdered and we faced systematic persecution.
And still today – yes, including in streets round this community here – people are scared to hold hands with people they love, they are scared to be the people that they are because of a society that still judges them.
And all over the world LGBT people are persecuted and demonised and killed. But we are going to win.
The attempt of people like him to turn communities against each other, that will fail as well.
I stand as a proud, gay man in the centre of this great city, London, a capital city with a Muslim mayor who faced death threats for fighting for the rights, freedoms and equality of people like me.
People like him are the future. So yeah, we will mourn and cry, and we should rage as well as mourn.
But just as they lost here 17 years ago, these murderers are going to lose all over again.
The determination and the love of LGBT people all over this planet will burn even brighter because of he did. And that will be his final and eternal legacy.
Watch the video here:
Source: Owen Jones
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