The fatal shooting of 10 classmates by Matti J. Saari, 22, in Kauhajoki in western Finland came as a shock. It was only in November that another young Finnish man went on the rampage in Jokela and killed and injured a number of his classmates.
Certainly a lot of questions clamor for an answer: Why? Where did we go wrong? What does this tell us about Finnish society?
One matter is for certain: Saari was a pretty sick individual and should not represent any national group except for himself. But let’s say if the shooter would have been a foreigner. What kind of an outcry would it have unleashed?
Kick out the foreigners! Close Finland’s borders! could have been some of the cries. And consider the stigma that national group would have to carry if the murderer were an African or Russian?
However, we should not confuse the facts. The killer was the mind of a deranged person that carried out this outlandish act — he only represented himself, nobody else.
It is the way we should look at things — the person not the country, stupid!
PS We should watch how we threaten others in this blog. One blogger said he wanted to kill me but would not because he is a law-abiding citizen. The comment was posted on the same day as the Kauhajoki shootings.