Unholy death

The continuing shooting spree in the land of the free throw back the Munich massacre in the 1972 Olympics in Germany, the most tragic sports murder of all time. Looking like it was culled straight from a movie plot, Palestinian terrorists in ski masks barged into the Olympic village that sheltered Israeli athletes, instantly killing two of them and hostaged nine others in exchange for immediate release of over 230 Arab prisoners jailed in Israel. The ensuing shootout at the Munich airport ended the way a hostage drama does, killing nine Israeli hostages and five terrorists. Just like the movies, just like real life.

Unfortunately, it took away the lives of innocent athletes whose only fault was to carry their flag and country, the one thing they devoted their life to. But the terrorists struck where it hurt most, at the grand sports spectacle against athletes burdened with a whole country’s expectation while the world watches.

After a day of memorial for the fallen athletes, the games continued to show the world terrorism failed. Whichever way terrorism is motivated, be it political, social, religious or otherwise, it is terrorism just the same, sown by masked cowards, except state-defined terrorism to mask legitimate dissent.

But now more than ever, the motive for multiple killing mutated faster than corona, a bad day kills instantly than a bad virus, murdering several people who only wanted to be pampered at a spa but instead peppered with bullets. It was not a bad day that killed them, but a bad guy who didn’t like how they look.

In a place they claim democracy is perfected, he who does not look like the murderer is unsafe, or if he does not come from the same place that created a monster for whom appearance and origin justify killing, both of which are not a matter of choice but by historical produce.

Racial supremacy and arrogance conceived discrimination and gave birth to hate crimes. If you don’t look, speak and act like them, you cannot be them, or even be with them. More so if their former leader enabled them, he whose words empowered the dumb and the stupid. Exactly why leaders should at all times choose appropriate words to say with utmost circumspect, their utterances are gospel truth to their blind followers who cannot tell serious from joke, much less serious joke.

Thankfully, the trial started for the white cop who knelt on the neck of a black man for nine minutes even if he was unarmed and unresponsive towards the end. The witnesses narrate how the arrogant murderer used excessive and unreasonable force that killed the man pinned to the ground while pleading he couldn’t breathe. But as they recall what they saw with sordid details, they also flash back the crime drowned by many other similar crimes that followed, reminding us to remind ourselves of each and every unjustified assault to human life and dignity. For if it slips our memory, it will repeat in future history. Especially us Filipinos, too short to play some sports but whose memory is shorter.