The news of yet another mass shooting in Connecticut woke me up. As the news channels were engaging in a race to update the world population about this great tragedy, I was shocked. This is the second news in this year coming from the U.S. Had it been coming from some battle torn, poor African country, the world wouldn’t have been shocked this much. We would have sat back on our couches and talked about Capitalism, Neo-liberalization and the Arab Spring! When it comes from one of the foremost countries of the world with a high development rate in most of the fields, I admit, it comes as a shock. The visuals were quite distressing and when repeated enough, numbing.
The only question that came to my mind was ‘Who’d think of shooting innocent children?’
I could pose myself as a third-world- easy chair- intellectual and condemn America’s ‘gun culture’ and gun-totting deranged horde of young men for terrible crimes like this but this is not the time for such mud-slinging. This is a time of loss… this is a time for mourning because we (as humanity) lost 18 little kids. This is also a time to ask ourselves why this terrible tragedy happened.
As humans, we all (despite the fact that we are divided into numerous races and nationalities) have to learn much from young children and old people. Innocence and easy way of thinking from children and wisdom, empathy and goodwill from old people! I am sad to say that we are not doing great at that. For someone to have the strength to shoot young children he has to be a really disturbed mind; disturbed enough to have the element of good evicted from him or replaced by evil. Society has everything to do with it and we are all responsible for this heinous act in one way or the other. Even me, who has never been to U.S… who is sitting comfortably on my couch and listening to news channels in the farthest corner of an unknown (probably, unimportant for many) Asian country! It might be an easy job to condemn someone for this act. I have done it before and I feel ashamed about it. If someone amongst us has done such a barbaric act, how can we be such great critics and stone him or her to death. Don’t we all have some responsibility in it? Aren’t all of us capable enough to give it a thought and do something about it so that our children will be safe in future? Or are we all quite dumb and too much in love with our own pathetic lives and will leave everything to the government and mourn for today and go back to what we are generally good at; discussing this at a dinner party or office lunch-break!
Adam Lanza has surely done something very barbaric by killing 18 children and his own mother. Psychiatrists (both on T.V and print) are analyzing his tortured childhood and social life etc. Their answers are quite analytical of the diseases that one’s mind could have succumbed to. I think they are very valuable points but what is the point of discussing the same things after every such shootout? I am sure these must be the reasons why the shootout happens… ‘Loss of empathy’ ‘destructive nature’ ‘sociopaths’ ‘being schizophrenic’ ‘dependency on drugs’ etc. etc… I like to believe that we are all in a way responsible for whatever forced a 20 year old kid to wield a weapon and shoot 18 little kids and his own mother to death. Being miles away or ideologically different or peaceful and non-violent cannot make anyone escape this reality because whether you believe in artificial or natural boundaries or race or color, when it comes to reality we are all part of this one big society and we make the bad things happen as well as the good things.
My prayers for the souls we lost today… the little lives who would not have known what was happening and the Mother who died with a terrible feeling that her own son was doing it. May peace be upon the families of the deceased. I also pray for those who survived to have strength to overcome this experience.
- Manu
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- 2.13. Tragedy Is Our Reality (kissthemuse.wordpress.com)
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/12/18/kaitlin-roig-heroine-john-lott-moron/
Thanks Sreejith for the link
you are welcome Manu
Manu, what a kind and heartfelt post. It is indeed a time of mourning for the globe. What would the world be like if we all felt the kind of empathy that you do here? Peace to you.
Peace to you too, Alarna.
You spoke the truth.
Such an important, valuable piece. I wish everyone would read it. You can see in other posts, that lots of people immediately jump into the blame game, and you are so right, we are all responsible. “Do not ask for whom the bells toll, they toll for me……For I am involved in mankind.”
Thank you for this post.
No, thank you, for this comment Cindy.
Especially the quote.
Hi Manu, I know I haven’t been to your blog for so long. Really sorry about that. But I was drawn to this post because I read about this incident today morning in the online news. I was completely shocked. I didn’t know how to react…because I couldn’t figure out who to blame for something like this. And like with every new incident, this will also fade off very soon. All it will take is another celebrity marriage, a new movie or something as trivial as that to get our minds off this. But what has been lost to the parents of those 20 or so kids has been lost forever. I loved your sentence – “too much in love with our own pathetic lives and will leave everything to the government and mourn for today and go back to what we are generally good at; discussing this at a dinner party or office lunch-break!” I’m so glad you wrote about this and I got to read it. Well-written…leaves me with even more questions and confusions in my head, though!
The entire incident is leaving us with a lot of questions, Roshni. True that we are all capable of forgetting things too easily but some things remain in the collective memory because of its sheer magnitude.
I hope this will make at least some of us do something to stop it from happening again.:)
Thanks for visiting, Roshni. Glad that you enjoyed the post.
this is disturbing and the psychology behind this even if analysed wnt bring back the lives ..neither if we get a result of the conclusions are there going to be any change sin the sysytenm of upbringing nor in the society,everything remains the same! what can be changed instantly is the atmosphere thati s give n at home…which we have in our own hands..to rear and nurture a childhood which develops a compassioante human being
True. The incident is truly shocking and it leaves us with even more fears.
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I really appreciate that you keep bring instances from various corners of the world to our eyes with your words. Keep them coming Manu! That is one of the few reasons why I love visiting your blog. Maybe someday Ill be able to evolve into a better writer like yourself.
-Asha
You are already a better writer than me, Asha.
I love reading your posts because they are things I wish I could write. I wish I could read like you.
That is one reason why I like WP. We look for better in others and appreciate it not getting envious! You make me smile. Happy you be!
-Asha
Same to you.
Very thoughtful post, condolences to the affected!
Thanks Mridula.
I don’t know what to say except thank you for posting this Manu.
Thank you.
and you are most welcome. 