Thursday, April 28, 2005

On violence (1)

A leaf on the ground crushed by feet. Floods have vandalized the German city nearby. The riverside road still shows the ravages of water. Garbage hanging in the trees, plastic drainage pipes ripped out, a washbasin on the country lane turned upside down. Voices upswelling and dying away, like aircraft noise.

6 years after the Meissen incident when a 15-year old boy stabbed his woman teacher to death, in front of his classmates. My niece and my nephew went to his school, just a few walls away from him. 3 years after the Erfurt school massacre when a 19-year old expelled student killed 14 teachers and 2 kids from his former school, before killing himself. Images that will never leave my mind, like these faces of Beslan: The man smoking, focused and calm. The child not understanding what happens. The scene is bloody real but it looks somehow unreal to me, like in a cocoon.

Fuss in the media, explanations, promises drained away. No traces left, the scenes have been cleaned up, the buildings reconstructed, the facades painted. A girl prowls around the Erfurt school taking photos of walls and windows and corners collecting memories and useless stuff.

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