WHY?

By Ketsela

The world has come to close for comfort. War is not a heroic deed anymore except when it involves decision taken unilaterally by one country over the other. But when colleges and universities experience brutal murder, then and there the underlying reason for the cause is hard to find. I remember a professor who used to say “after the fact even fools have give reason as to why it happened. I feel sad and dismayed to the recent event at V-tech. Certainly I am not in any position to blame neither the university administration nor the young man who caused this anguish to the deceased. University campuses must be free of all the evils of the world and should remain academically free of exercising freedom of speech and the freedom to be what one wanted to be. Assertiveness is what is taught as a prerequisite to being a university student. In the current situation it should be a time to mourn, not to point fingers at the sole young man Mr. Cho Seung-hui. The court system alone gives room to the accused of his/her status of being temporarily insane. That is the greatness of the American law. Then again the same court upholds the right to bear arms to the citizens. The later was written over 200 years ago during the British rule. It is old and need to be amended by all means. The right to bear arms; give me a break! A tank is also considered to be an arm. Should I then buy one and put it in front of my apartment. No! Of all the places in the world there should be two places where there should not be a law but must be accepted by all involved that guns, rifles or any tools that endanger another human must not be carried are school and house of prayers.

A reader to Star Tribune wrote:

Here we go again! Back on the couch, Nation, for our next mass analysis session. Just as we were getting up from the Don Imus situation comes the Virginia Tech shootings! As long as most of the analysis will be “smoke blowing,” here is some more; America’s history is replete with shooting people __ from wild west to wars _ as a problem solving method. For the latest example, see Iraq ___where we are shooting people in order to free them.  Check out your own children’s games, watch an evening of main stream TV or go to a popular movie. Which dots can you connect?

Technology and culture are two things that are dynamics. They come and go. I am not going to compare my college days to the today ones. I remember students used to call bomb threat merely because they might have one too many beers. But the current Ipod student populations in many ways are far better but seemed to be loneliest to their surroundings. Maybe I embarked into the wrong conclusion but it is my feeling. The young man had on many occasions directly or indirectly showed who was but human nature can not make determination if anything was wrong with him. America has so many cultures and traditions and one can never whole-heartedly say Mr. X is nuts. Lawyers and advocates will raise their voices against such statement. The end result of this incident will most likely take part of the academic freedom of the student population. Maybe, I rather prefer the old Haile Selassie University Academic policy “Students have academic right to discuss and practice except religion and politics.”