Omar Mateen's ghost breathing inside Donald Trump?

Lets start with this absurd disclaimer that no identification with actual persons portrayed in this hypothesis is intended or should be inferred. Then let's ask what would have happened if Omar Mateen, the Orlando killer, and Donald Trump, the Republican Party candidate for the US presidential race, had decided to trade places? How would a young-faced property mogul with close-cropped hair have stacked up against an aging maniac whose hair looks like a bird's nest? The hatred, anger and extreme views of the world common between them would have still put us in this abiding dilemma: Which is better between new label on an old bottle and old label on a new bottle?

Of course, Mateen has already crossed the line. He masterminded the worst mass shooting in American history, throwing the families of these victims into a terrible void. It's one thing to hate people, but another thing to hurt them, although both are insanely wrong.

Donald Trump, whose harangue is fuelled by raw hatred, has so far restricted himself to the first half of that perilous journey. He hasn't picked up a gun but the public opinion, the most sophisticated weapon in a working democracy, to target everything he hates in this world. The Mexicans are bad, the Muslims are even worse, and he is asking the American people to give him the power to isolate their country from the rest of the world. 

There can be no comparison between a cold-blooded murderer of Afghan descent and a crackpot demagogue of German ancestry, except for the calibre of their weapons, gun in the first instance and mouth in the second. But, both somehow appear to be unassimilated elements in the great American melting pot, which has for centuries welcomed millions of terrified souls fleeing from tyranny, war, poverty and pestilence. How could these two men reject anybody in a country that gave shelter to their ancestors, who, in the words of Emma Lazarus, were "yearning to breathe free"? 

In a perverse way, Mateen and Trump are two extreme examples of an extreme world that leaves no room for middle ground. Both of them failed to understand that it takes all kinds to make a world. Mateen proved that ineptitude in the bang of guns and whistle of bullets that killed unarmed people, before he was gunned down in shootout with the police. Trump, on his campaign trail, is proving it again and again by insulting people, as if politics is carpentry, where shaving off thin slices of wood can make doors swing smoothly. 

If you think of it, Donald Trump's election promise hinges on his eclectic premise. He wants to shave off the immigrants, trade accords, and military alliances, as if that's the only way to stop America's door jamming. And his madness is uncannily reminiscent of a yesteryear lunatic. Adolph Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany's defeat in World War I and the economic crisis that followed. Historians believe these were nothing but Hitler's pretext to create an enemy.

Although Omar Mateen was born in New York, it's possible that the genetic memory of his parents' disturbing experience of the war in their old country also disturbed him. He had perhaps found his enemy in the LGBT people, made more interesting by the speculations that he might have been in the closet himself. It's possible that he resolved his contradictions in the burst of gunfire that at once rid the world of him and him of the world.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump continues to cultivate his contradictions. Last week, he repeated his plan to ban the Muslims as if that's the silver bullet to kill the beast. It's amusing that he doesn't prescribe similarly strong measures when most of the mass shooters are white Christian males, none of whom ever had anything to do with the Muslim mind or the Mexican motive. 

If we consider the calculus of cruelty, the biggest mass shooting in the American history is a daily occurrence in some Muslim countries. Dozens get blown up every time car bombs explode, militants open fire in crowded places, and the American drones pound innocent targets. Not to speak of the millions of refugees who are fleeing their countries, reeling under the oppressive burden of half-baked US policies!

An aspiring leader of the free world should have told us how he planned to put out the fire instead of fanning it. Donald Trump is trying hard to divide and rule, pathetically ruled by his passion for senseless divisions. On June 12, the Donald Trump breathing inside Omar Mateen was silenced in Orlando. Next month, the Republican Party will decide if the Omar Mateen breathing inside Donald Trump is nominated. It will be a long wait until November 6 to know if he is also elected. 

The writer is the editor of weekly First News and an opinion writer for The Daily Star. 

Email: badrul151@yahoo.com.