Most of us know about the tragedy at Northern Illinois University last week in which five people were killed by a gunman who then killed himself. There will be much debate and discussion in the coming weeks about campus security, gun control and student violence, just as there was after the shootings at Virginia Tech last spring (in a damning twist of fate, both gunmen bought either ammunition or supplies from the same online retailer). But there is more to this story than institutional policies and American culture, and it is bigger than the innocent five people who died that day. There is a personal side to the story that extends to the furthest reaches of the world. 

As an exchange student in England, I found myself very much detached from the situation until I found out that a friend of mine, one of the Americans here, lost his best friend to the violence Thursday, February 14th at NIU. We held a candlelight vigil on the back lawn of our house in Leicester, England, four thousand miles away from Illinois. Prayers were said, candles were lit in the shape of N-I-U, and we did our best to comfort our friend who could not be with his family or hometown friends or even attend his friend’s funeral to grieve properly.

Don’t let this happen again, he said. Love everybody and keep them close. Don’t let anything go unsaid, because it could lead to something like this.

It is an all-around tragic situation, one that has become relatively common in the United States educational system, and still we are shocked every time that it happens. From Columbine, Colorado, to Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, to NIU, America searches for answers as to why violence would strike so randomly at innocent students, coworkers and passers-by. (For a list of school shootings since 1996, including Europe, go here.) People are genuinely surprised that this could happen to them and then CNN theorizes about it for weeks, never coming up with a definitive answer.

But what world are we living in, if we are astonished and distressed beyond all measure at six people killed by a gunman? With all respect to the victims of this senseless act, do we not remember that there’s a war going on? That extreme poverty and AIDS continue to make Africa and Southeast Asia a virtual death-zone for anyone and everyone living there? There have actually been five school shootings since February 7th in the America, our own backyard.

While we are all shocked and deeply appalled by the recent school violence, we, as a culture, also seem to have forgotten that many more people are dying around the world everyday in equally senseless violence. Six people died last Thursday. It is awful. But thousands more died in violence and other preventable atrocities around the world on the same day. A death toll of only six would be considered a good day in Iraq. A great day. It is sad but all too true.

Every day, ordinary people just like you and me, whose only crime was to have the rotten luck to be born in Gaza, Darfur or Sadr City, deal with death on a daily basis. We seem to have grown accustomed to statistics like these. To date, over 300,000 Africans have been killed in Darfur (no one quite knows the exact number). 82,000 Iraqis have been killed in the war. 30,000 children die every day around the world from extreme poverty. 4,000 U.S. soldiers have already been killed in Iraq, most of them our age. On the day of the NIU shooting, child soldiers slung AK-47s in the Congo, civil war raged in Somalia and Darfur, about 150 people were murdered in Brazil, and over 5,700 men and women died as a result of being infected by AIDS.  

Think about those numbers. They are not just statistics. Every single one of those people had a mother, a father, friends, sisters and brothers. Every one had infinite potential, just as much as our friends and neighbors and the innocent victims at Northern Illinois. None of them had to die. We could have done something about it. But we didn’t.

Some were killed by bullets; most were killed by the greed of a civilization that absolutely has the resources to counter the AIDS epidemic and battle extreme poverty, but fails to do so. By some estimates, $720 million dollars are spent every day by our government fighting a war that is, at best, questionable. And that’s only one day. $720 million could give 423,529 kids health insurance for an entire year. $720 million is enough to sponsor 720 million children through a charity like World Vision, giving them food, shelter, and basic education. This is a modern holocaust based not on race, but on class.

The victims of school shootings are innocent. That is why we mourn them. But why, then, is there not a vigil every day for the thousands of equally innocent children who die from starvation and easily preventable diseases? We don’t hear about it on the evening news; we don’t read about it except perhaps in a blurb on the back page of the The New York Times. And that is truly tragic as well.

So do something about it. Call your congressman, write letters to the UN, tell your parents to stop spending money on Lexus cages and give the money away to someone who really needs it. Let it be a memorial to our friends who have died in senseless acts of school violence and an elegy to the ones we love for the benefit of those halfway across the world who deserve dignity just as much as our peers on campuses across our country.

—— 

Further reading:

www.afsc.org/cost/

www.One.org

www.Savedarfur.org

1 Comments

flitcrma Feb 21, 08 Votes: +0

Unfortunately, these kinds of tragedies will happen all over the globe - I thank my lucky stars every morning that I'm an American. That being said, before we focus on international affairs, we need to take care of ourselves. Our public educational system is a joke (I had almost no college prep out of high school). We have thousands of unemployed on the streets, people milking and abusing medicare, medicade, social security, food stamps, and so much more. As a society, we let somebody with 20 arrest records for violent acts out on the street after another violent assault (because we feel sorry for their rough childhood), and allow people with multiple DUI convictions to still be on the road with a license (only to be 'shocked' that they drove under the influence again). Like Mr. Patterson said, it's a shame that people die. Thousands die worldwide from hundreds of different causes; murder, starvation, war, local drug lords, etc. (although I strongly disagree with his tally on how many Iraqi citizens have died). That's a shame too, but it is not a higher priority than taking care of our own citizens and country. As a country, we've got some screwed up priorities. Our media counts the murderers at VT and NIU in the death toll (imagine newspapers reporting dead Japanese pilots during Pearl Harbor - the same logic applies). We're giving these pieces of scum that final wish they want before the take their own lives; the feeling of having absolute power over somebody else, and being able to end anything with a pull of your index finger, and then being famous for a loooong tome afterwards. It's time for that to stop fellow Americans. The people that murdered others are simply that - they are murderers. They are NOT victims, and it is an insult to everybody when the mass media counts them in the same category as those slain. It's time we stop worry about sending millions of pounds of free rice and corn overseas, we could use that here to help our unemployed homeless get back on their feet, and use it to create biodiesel for our trucking industry (a barrel of oil is going for $100 now, for those that think biodiesel is a sad waste of resources - I remember in 2003 when it was under $30 a barrel). Frankly, there is nothing we can do to keep another person from murdering you or me while we sit in class - regardless the security your school has or how many police officers it has. In 1966 in Texas, and in 2003 in Virginia, the response given to a sociopath was to fight back and eliminate the threat - not hide in the corner of the room and wait to be slaughtered. Students in both cases retrieved their own firearms and took out the dirt ball that was shooting others like an arcade game. The only way to stop a murderer with a gun, is another person with a gun reacting immediately to the threat on their life (find me one law enforcement officer that will use a tazer or can of mace when staring down the barrel of a gun). Get up off your butt - get active. No, not running for a mile every morning (but if that's your cup of tea, feel free). Get active politically, and help change these kinds of situation. I know that these sorts of things don't happen at public universities in Utah, nor do they happen at NRA conventions or gun shows - so stop blaming an inanimate object for the actions of a human. Make that person fully responsible for their actions. And let the rest of us have an option to live. report abuse vote down vote up

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