The Virginia Tech shootings shocked the world with their savageness and they were totally unexpected. Now the entire world is asking questions about the tragedy and guessing how it could have been averted. They don’t realize the following basic fact: Hindsight is perfect. Now that we look back we know that the guy is a killer and we are re-evaluating all his information taking that into account and this gives us a totally different picture of the person as a deranged killer. Before the killings we would have painted an entirely different portrait of him.
The shootings made Cho into a instant celebrity, his works are now plastered all over the web with people commenting on them. His manifesto was broadcast on TV and is now available on the web for download. Guess what? Thats what he wanted… He wanted to be famous. Now the media gave him his wish. All for the all mighty ratings. Not saying that they shouldn’t have reported the crime. They should, with all the details. But publishing his plays was not required, neither should they have broadcast his manifesto. That didn’t achieve anything other than increase their ratings.
People worldwide are condemning the Virginia Tech officials and the cops for not reacting fast enough. Guess what its really easy for us to point out mistakes. We weren’t there. We didn’t have to make the decision based on limited info. The arm chair analysts all over the world are jumping over each other pointing out the failure’s in the system.
Let me tell you a bit of personal experience with terrorism. I was in Newark, NJ on Sep 11 2001. I was in class after just having landed in the US on the 10th. The WTC was attacked, the first tower fell followed by the second tower. I only found out after I got out of class and even then it took me over an hour to figure out what was going on because so many rumors were going around. We finally got to know the truth from watching the news and talking to Public safety officials. The first reaction of everyone was disbelief, followed by horror and panic. Thats the killer. If NJIT had been attacked after WTC it would have had been bad because no one had the entire story inspite of the best efforts of the administration.
In the Vtech shootings a lot of people initially thought that he was playing a practical joke when he walked in with the guns. Think about it, what would you have thought when you saw a friend/acquaintance walk in with something that looks like a gun? Would you have thought he was joking or that he was about to shoot you?
Reading online about the tragedy we find out that he was bullied in school, was depressed, was acoustic. That doesn’t excuse what he did. If he was bullied/picked on in school he should have dealt with it like a million other kids do. These are just excuses. We are trying to justify what he did. Guess what? Nothing can justify what he did. There are a million ways he could have dealt with his issues, he didn’t have to shootup innocent people to make his point.
As far as I am concerned people who chose violence against the helpless as his means of protest deserves the same label: barbarian. They are not the oppressed, anti-hero’s or fighting the establishment. They are barbarians. Period.
But for every Cho we have a hundred people like Liviu Librescu. Liviu died trying to protect his students from the mad man attacking them. He is the hero in this tale not Cho. However I only read about him in one paper ONE!. Everyone else is busy posting the body count, the blood bath photos and talking about Cho ’cause thats what sells the papers. The media should give people like Liviu more coverage. It shows that the world is not all bad and gives people hope.
My condolences to all the people who lost someone at this senseless killing. I hope you find some peace in the coming days.
– Suramya
