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End of innocence by Asa Butcher 2007-11-08 11:02:38 |
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Numb, simply numb, is the only word I can use to sum up the reaction of the citizens of Finland yesterday when they became the latest member of a growing list of countries who have undergone high school shootings. A layer of innocence was cruelly ripped away from Finnish society as they realised that even their relatively safe haven is capable of unthinkable horrors committed by its youth.
There will be knee-jerk reactions, emotional outrage and full inquiries, but today Finland is just trying to reconnect, trying to find a way to internally deal with the actions of one 18-year-old boy. The Finnish media have never had to cover a story of this magnitude and it was painful to watch some of the news outlets stumble through their coverage, unable to give the waiting nation any scrap of information, primarily the answer to the biggest question: why?
The victims included the school's principal and the school nurse, as well as five male students and one female student. This morning the families and friends of the eight cruelly murdered individuals will desperately be looking for answers, some consolation, and I truly hope they find something to ease the pain.
My greatest sympathy, however, is for the parents and family of the shooter, who eventually died after a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. They must be the loneliest people in the world today, as they realise that the son they had raised for 18 years has just committed Finland's most brutal act in the 21st century. What do they do? Where do they go? Like so many smaller Finnish communities everybody knows one another and I can only hope that they are not ostracised by friends for an act well out of their control.
It is only seven months since the tragedy at Virginia Tech and, as saddening as that was, you come to expect it from a nation of 300 million people, where guns are a part of society. However, when a country of five million manages to produce an individual that is capable of justifying his act through "natural selection & survival of the fittest" you have to stop and think. How does natural selection equate to killing a nurse, a teacher and six fellow students?
That is where we come back to the why. Answers may explain some aspects, but it will never recover the loss of innocence, it will never make the children of Finland's schools feel as safe as they once did and it will never bring back any of the nine victims – nine, not eight, because the boy with the gun was just as much a victim of his own world view.
high-school-shooting Ovi_magazine Society Finland |
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