Revenge


Wolran Kim
Feb 22, 2010


February 12, 2007, 6:44 pm, a boy wearing a trench coat and a black knapsack got out of his car at the Trolley Square shopping mall in Salt Lake City, Utah. He used a shot-gun and a 3.8-caliber gun from his knapsack. He collided into two people as soon as he came through the west entrance of the mall yet he kept walking straight and entered the mall. He threw one more woman to the ground in a hallway and he knocked down three more people one by one right after he got in the gift shop. Then he turned around and fired blindly into a mother and daughter who were coming out of a baby clothing store. He was shot to death during a confrontation with the riot-police after he took five people's lives, ages ranging from 15 to 53 years old, and seriously injured four people in just six minutes.    

A convict, 18-years-old, Sulejman Talovic, was a Bosnian refugee who lived in exile until 1998, after he escaped bare foot, following his mother, running from Serbian soldiers attacking his home when he was just four years old. The neighbors described him as docile and silent, he was just an ordinary teenager. In Bosnia 1995, when he was there, Serbian soldiers who stood by former Yugoslavian leader, Milosevi Slobodan, killed as many as eight thousand Muslim men. This is remembered as one of the most cruel large-scale massacres after World War II.  

The Trolley Square Shopping Mall is located on the east side of downtown Salt Lake City. It is a remodeled streetcar barn, built in 1908. It is a flourishing place which has restaurants, bars, theaters, and stores. I occasionally go there too, so if I had been there at that time and place, there is no telling if the bullets that filled his knapsack could have been lodged in to my chest and my family could have fallen and blood would have been spilled.

Another tragic day, April 16, of the same year, a horrific event occurred that resulted in 33 victims. Professors and students were killed, and 29 victims were injured at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia. It was almost like a war. All of America was in a state of panic from this worst case random firing in history. From then on, America's discussions all expressed opinions of the Virginia Tech Massacre. After his crime of atrocity, Seunghui Cho shot himself to death at the scene of the murder. He was of Korean nationality, and he was also a permanent resident. He was an American, who was educated and grew up in America, but still, Korean immigrants and Koreans anxiously hoped, for heaven's sake, that this criminal would not be a Korean when they heard the news for the first time. Blood is thicker than water.  

A firearm accident is a common occurrence in America. This incident showed the limitations of humans in general: isolation, discouragement, pressures from everyday life, estrangement brackets, including immigration and the social weaknesses of humanity, thus the random shooting intended for unspecified individuals, caused such a tragic situation.

Seunghui Cho, a young man, 23 years old, was left alone at home without his parents, who were poverty-stricken in America just like in Korea when he was little. He was introspective and bashful so he just thought it was the way it ought to be, to be to a laughingstock of his peers in the classroom or playground. His school days were a nightmare. He remembers that he was just a trashy toy to the other kids. His only pride and joy was first prize at the science tournament, while his team and he were harassed with " Go back to your country!" often. He was insecure and radical, and later was expelled from his poetry class in college. He never learned how to communicate with others, and he thought he was deprived of his rights to learn. His mother talked to a pastor, thinking a demon was inside him, and needed long-term treatment for a mental illness.  

ATF's (Bureau of Alcohol. Tobacco and Firearms) report analyzed "The written scribble on his arm 'Ax Ismail' is from the Bible and it seems he has another ego under an illusion. He is a typical example of The Collector of Injustice, who attributes all of his or her adversity to others as his 'Declaration'; "People never respect me for I am a dog on the street"

Antisocial, depersonalized characters are mentally normal about thinking, logic, and emotion, as specialists explain. As a matter of course, it can't be grounds for an acquittal in the Criminal Code. They commit a crime under a careful and detailed plan, not an impulsive act. Their biggest problem is that they commit a crime without flinching, even as far as setting the world on fire. They would never be penitent or have the pangs of a conscience after any sort of crime. They would rather feel pleasure from giving others pain and all of their blame lies on others. The cause of the antisocial depersonalized characters has not yet been properly investigated and it is only estimated that derangement is a gene or chemical substance, cerebral by nature. It is serious because there is no appropriate medicinal treatment and they are only encouraged to change with education and self-support by repetitio, but this is actually very laborious. Over 60% of these people live in prison their whole lives for a crime: fraud, larceny, burglary, rape, consecutive murder, and even a large scale massacre.          

When I see criminals who target random people, like Seunghue Cho and Sulejman Talovic, I see 'Exhausted Love', not a mental disease. Doesn't everybody want to be LOVED? Isn't  everyone qualified to be LOVED? We could be beasts without hesitation when the bottom of our hearts are scratched by an exhausted love. People approach as an enemy when they feel rejected by the world and are made a laughing stock of the public. Every thing in the world turns into a target of attack and enmity. The drying up of love never gives any chance of freedom to people who are sunk in the depths of despair, just makes them seriously recall abandonment and think blind alleys. I am not pitiful about their many vicissitudes of life. I just  what if somebody had given them a small seed of love before they had touched crossbars in their mind as they had filled their backpacks up with bullets.        

When I look back on my life, my happiest time was when I felt somebody love me. There was no other time that I was as happy as when I received recognition from somebody. Aren't we the kind of humans, who want to be loved and acknowledged. We could be mere puppets planted in a barren field when we loose the delicate feeling of love. The begining of a large scaled love, begins with just a litte spark. The station of origin and an arrival platform of our life is what we call a home. A human being inevitably belongs to an organization, like a spider's web, independent of our wishes in distinction from animals; intensively a home, extensively a nation. Interrelationships between a person and a society are immensely influence to the start of a life. Man's character is affected by his environment. The happiness of man, a home, a society, are on a straight line with a domino effect. The first love of human nature is family.

A German writer, Johann Wolfgang Goethe said "The happiest man is the person who finds happiness at home, whoever, a king or a farmer." Pearl Sydenstricker Buck said her home is her earth and she took in good nutrition from home. The fundamental principles of a society as a container, filled with personal happiness, will be free from danger if the home is secure. The home is not an instrument to obtaining happiness, it is just a fundamental human right. Spring flowers, like lillies, will be in full bloom in growing younger generation's hearts  like a windstorm, if the foundation of the home is solid, like good quality soil budding happiness.  

This land is not a hellish place any longer, where 4-year-old Sulejman Talovic had to run away bare foot, not the land of Bosnia, where eight-thousand people's blood spilled. I really miss having outstretched arms of love. I turned the cold shoulder on him until he committed an act of brutality, because he was immature, and unable to solve an ordinary ordeal.    

A psychiatrist said the time was a broken moment to him when Seunghue Cho came back to school after he took orders from court to visit a hospital for treatment. He realized everyone is the enemy and a paranoid illusion started to materialize. There is a sequelae, an aftereffect of a disease, that states 'What if Game?“ to survivers from a natural disaster or even crimes including The Virginia Tech Massacre. The game is to start thinking  "If……." and this is one of the serious mental disorders that survivers experience after crimes have been committed. So their fear and guilty conscience is amplified. Virginia Tech Massacre also left this obstacle to victims, their families, and their friends.        

What if we had met Seunghui Cho when he was a little kid, shy, timid, and living in poverty? What if we had met him when he was a little boy, playing basketball in an empty court of unfamiliar foreign land by himself, hiding himself hastily from other people being around? What if we were roommates with him, listening to the song; ‘Teach me how to speak', 'Teach me how to share', 'Teach me where to go' ('shine' from 'collective soul') again and again, late at night failing to fall a sleep?

This is the purpose of this Game, turn our eyes to the faint-hearted, the poor and be inarticulate, acting high-handedly by force of numbers. We should think back on throwing a stone at the loner although we knew it was wrong and were afraid of maliciously alienating the fellow. We should take a sincere look around society. Maybe we are leaving the loner alone. Because anyone can be Seunghui Cho.