Blacksburg or Baghdad? Grieve Equally
By Matthew Scott on 01 May 2007
"The quality of mercy is not strain'd.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath.
It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes."
Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare
Evil came to visit Blacksburg, Virginia last month. Our brains struggle to comprehend the madness that could result in so much death in such a short time. Our hearts struggle to hold back the tears of compassion. Yet without such struggle we will not understand this horrible shooting. If we cannot use intelligence and compassion to unlock the evil perpetrated against 32 innocent people on an American university campus, we cannot hope to combat evil and terror around the world.
Barely two weeks since the tragedy, within a few weeks of the eighth anniversary of the shootings at Columbine High School, compassion fatigue has begun to set in. Though television shows, magazine covers and web-specials were dedicated to understanding this tragedy, interest is waning.
After interviewing hundreds of VT students on air, Fox News has retired its stylized VT graphic. Perhaps Court TV will air an hour-long special a few months from now investigating the killer’s childhood, looking for signs of his impending insanity. Perhaps a year from now Newsweek and Time will dedicated commemorative cover stories to the healing of the Hokie Nation. Eventually, MySpace’s Virginia Tech Family site will be replaced by a more modest memorial.
Even in its waning phase, the intense coverage of America’s worst gun massacre is helpful, to a point. In as much as the public scrutiny probes Seung-Hui Cho’s psychiatric history and family life for meaningful warning signs of his murderous premeditations, it should be welcomed. Much ink and air time has been expended already on the lethal ingredients that came together to create this human time bomb: exposure to violent movies and video games; mental illness compounded by extreme social isolation and a speech defect; awkwardness with the opposite sex that mutated into stalking; lax gun laws; and more. Besides identifying genetic and environmental factors that could help prevent other similar attacks, such investigations over time may also help the healing process for the victims and even for us, the traumatized spectators.
At some point rational explanations fail us. The waste of innocent lives reeks of evil; it is a darkness that defies diagnosis. Our hearts struggle to grasp the tears, heartache, and sorrow. As we try to embrace grieving classmates, parents, brothers and sisters, boyfriends and girlfriends, we find that explanations by themselves are wholly and utterly inadequate. When words fall short, only practical compassion – home-cooked meals, a shoulder to cry on, exams cancelled - can soothe the pain.
Many took solace in celebrating the heroes of that day, like the Romanian engineering professor Liviu Librescu. The septuagenarian Holocaust survivor was gunned down while blocking the door to his classroom so that his students could jump to freedom. Others, like Virginia governor Tim Kaine, have channeled their anger at the loss of innocent life into prevention efforts. Kaine acted quickly to tighten gun laws and ordered a formal investigation into Virginia Tech’s handling of Cho’s previous problems as well as the emergency response on April 16.
But people of faith who are concerned with global affairs must probe deeper than the scientific explanations and emotional gestures, asking: in the light of the VT killings, what is the right response to the innocent around the world who are affected by similar or worse violence than that of April 16?
Evil comes to visit Baghdad daily. In April it visited Casablanca and Algiers. Evil makes regular stops in Darfur, Kandahar, Ituri, and dozens of other places every day. Evil visited London, Bombay, and Madrid in the last year in the form of bombs placed on trains. Many of these victims never have the closure even of identifying their killers, let alone seeing their mugshots on television or having psychiatric interpretations of their motives. Those victims usually do not receive visits from their head of state the next day. These places do not have armies of counselors caring for the grieving or providing nutritious home-cooked meals to traumatized survivors. But what if they did?
No one would begrudge the solidarity, love and support directed to Virginia Tech and the community of Blacksburg since the horrific killings. It is precisely that same raw and passionate sympathy that we must muster for the victims of the same kind of senseless and random violence that people face all over the world. We must summon the same intellectual determination to identify root causes and prevent reoccurrences.
Many of us accept the fact that our globalized ‘flat’ world is headed toward an even playing field or at least an equal opportunity economy. But does our flat world include equal opportunity compassion or equal opportunity diplomacy? Some of us will call on God to help us practice compassion. But we must all find the room in our hearts not only to grieve with the survivors and families of the victims of one enraged rampage, but with the victims of violence wherever they live. “Loving your neighbor” – a moral tradition shared by people of faith and those with none – requires nothing less than mercy and compassion given equally.
Last updated 12 January 2009