Taixing Central Day Care after the attack on April 29. On the colorful stone at the gate, three Chinese words read: sunshine, future, hope.Nothing is more horrifying and evil than purposefully slaying children in groups. Yet in China, five such incidents occurred across the country in less than two months.
On Mar.23, eight elementary school students were killed by a man just outside the gate of their school in Nanping, Fujian. On April 12, several elementary school students were injured in front of their school in Hepu, Guangxi. On April 28, another man injured 16 students and school teachers in Leizhou, Guangdong. The next day, one man attacked 32 people in a day care center in Taixing, Jiangsu, seriously injuring several small toddlers. The following day, in Weifang, Shandong, yet another man attacked students and teachers in an elementary school.
State media only confirmed eight deaths of children so far, but bloggers in China claim the actual number is much higher. These children were not killed by gun, since fire arm is strictly controlled in China. They were killed, and others injured, by knives and in one case, a hammer.
A blog post by someone who appears to work in a day care not far from the one attacked in Taixing, provided a graphic account of how four men, instead of just one as reported by state media, slaughtered toddlers with knives. While the state media were reluctant to confirm any death in the Taixing incident, the blogger claimed at least five small children were brutally murdered at the scene and more were fatally injured.
The entire country was shocked, public outraged, parents terrified, while the media, including the blog sphere, lashed out at the crime—it was cruel, cold-blooded, evil, and totally insane!
Scholar Yu Jianrong warned that the Chinese society is in a psychological crisis, as people living on the edge of the society are seeking revenge not just against society, but against humanity. Writer Zheng Yuanjie wrote a song that reads: “Dear daddy and mommy, I am going to school. I hope I will be safe, and come home alive”…
There were speculations that the attacked schools are elite schools, and the attackers intended to harm children of powerful and affluent families. But soon there were others claiming most of the children in those schools are from ordinary families.
For some pundits and bloggers, the crime is rooted in social injustice, as income gap and disparity in social status continue to widen in China. But for others, blaming the society is misleading, and those who committed the crime should be condemned and punished as the most iniquitous murderers, and can never be excused as victims of social injustice.
Any one of these killings would be shocking and tragic enough for a country with 1.3 billion people—seeing such brutal violence deliberately targeting children: the most vulnerable and innocent members of our society. Yet China had five in a roll in slightly more than a month!
Forget about the extravagance of the World Expo in Shanghai. The sharp contrast between the bloody scene of children being slain and the lavishness of the World Expo only belie the realness of the “harmonious society”!
Less than two years ago, when thousands of babies were sickened by melamine tainted formula, we already saw how a money-making-driven society can do wrong to children.
Sadly for China, that was still not the end of the slippery slope. And now we see knives hurting those small bodies and we see blood, children’s blood. But is this the end? How many children have to die before we realize something deep is seriously wrong with the society in China and really do something to stop it from falling into hell?
Wake up, people! And stop hurting our children!!
Bloggers on the Taixing incident:
http://www.letscorp.net/archives/4223
http://liuyejin.blog.sohu.com/149926434.html?act=1272779014377#comment
http://gpdsdzy.blog.sohu.com/149981589.html
Scholar comments:
http://www.nbweekly.com/Print/Article/10115_0.shtml
More about the serious killing:
http://news.sina.com.cn/c/sd/2010-05-05/003620204529.shtml
http://news.sohu.com/20100428/n271805052.shtml
http://news.sohu.com/s2010/fujianxiongshaan/
http://news.sohu.com/s2010/taixing/
http://edu.hsw.cn/system/2010/04/29/050497693.shtml
2 comments:
This is a well done post about an equally important issue. Well done, Josie. Hopefully someone is listening.
It has become all too common in the world we live in where people take out their frustrations onto innocent victims. Violence today is on an unprecedented high. Killing is the worst offense anyone can commit. I wonder how people who think the best solution is to go kill someone else and causing pain for that person's loved ones would solve anything.
Post a Comment