Profiles in the Virginia Tech massacre: the young and the hero
As more of the story emerges, we begin to learn something about the dead and their lives (see here and here for some heartbreaking photos, as well).
Most were so young that their tales were cut off before they could really be written; as college students, they were just emerging from promising youths into adulthood. Their parents and families have been plunged into a grief that is unfathomable, and is just beginning.
I don’t like to use the word “victim” here (although it’s hard to avoid it), because it gives a certain triumph to the shooter, a power I want to deny him even though it’s probably absurd of me to play these semantic games.
One person in particular to whom I refuse to give the title “victim” was Professor Liviu Librescu, whose web page at the university remains blissfully unaware of its owner’s untimely and violent demise. A Holocaust survivor who emigrated from Romania to Israel in 1978, Librescu arrived in this country twenty years ago to teach at VT and has been there ever since. He is reported to have blocked the door of his classroom after hearing the shots, in order to keep the shooter at bay while many of his students were able to escape.
Librescu will be buried in Israel. Not so professor P.V. Loganathan, a hydrology professor whose grieving Indian relatives will be coming here for his funeral, since he expressed a wish to be interred in Virginia.
The international flavor of the incident is a minor and side issue, of course, but an interesting one nevertheless in indicating how interconnected the world is these days. In the list so far one can also find a student from Peru, one from Puerto Rico (the latter, I know, is part of this country), and girl of Lebanese descent, all united by this horrific event.
I’m disappointed that Dr. Sanity has not yet commented on the VA Tech tragedy. I’ve already said my own piece on my own humble blog. I would be interested to see someone compare the heroism of Professor Liviu Librescu with that of the military men and women who put themselves in harms way and give their lives for others in Iraq and Afghanistan. I especially wonder if any anti-war liberals can make that comparison.
Seeing that picture of Mr. Librescu reminds me that I can’t shake the image of his wide open eyes. I mean, the things he has seen.
While watching CBS “48 hrs” last night on this tragedy, I was struck by their failure to talk about how the 75 yr old survivor gave the kids in his class a chance to escape by holding the door. They did talk about the 3 students that held the door and saved their friends, but no comment on the Jewish Holocaust survivor’s heroism. I wonder if it was because
1) They ran out of time.
2) It didn’t fit their stereotypes.
3) They didn’t want to offend their Muslim or KKK viewers?
From this Catholic’s viewpoint 🙁
When I heard the story of Liviu Librescu, I wondered if a few more Professor Librescus’ could have made a difference and prevented or cut short this tragedy. Those that perished where not only victims of a single lunatic, but also a society that teaches victimization. People in these situations should not be taught to duck and cover, but to fight for their lives and their freedom.
I also wonder, if it was a coincidence that Professor Librescu was a holocaust survivor and a citizen of Israel, a country that had to defend itself from lunatics the day it was born. Regardless, in my book he is both a hero and an inspiration.
Mike said:
While watching CBS “48 hrs” last night on this tragedy, I was struck by their failure to talk about how the 75 yr old survivor gave the kids in his class a chance to escape by holding the door. They did talk about the 3 students that held the door and saved their friends, but no comment on the Jewish Holocaust survivor’s heroism. I wonder if it was because
1) They ran out of time.
2) It didn’t fit their stereotypes.
3) They didn’t want to offend their Muslim or KKK viewers?
From this Catholic’s viewpoint
Mike, it pains me to vote for #3 but I do so based on these observations:
1. Fox News picked up on this right away. Then USA Today shuffled in. At this time, neither CNN or NBC have been able to bring themselves to cover this aspect of the story. Sorry, to me it’s the liberals honoring their respect for third world cultures and their hatred of Americans and Jews.
2. I recall my dad, a holocaust survivor telling me that in Europe, beloved of liberals, before WWII the press would always point out when a scoundrel was a Jew, and would refer to a hero or champion that was a Jew as the nationality of the country where he or she was a citizen. To me, the reporting of this episode is identical. Congratulations liberals, to me you are on par with the collaborators of the holocaust.
3. Of late I have noticed that many (not all) liberals I know view with revulsion any achievement or initiative by anyone not of a “victim” group. I have observed this in my own family, with family members fervently expressing the belief that another relative, who is a normal boy won’t be able to complete normal tasks. Neo, correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems there is some visceral hatred of accomplishment among many liberals, and envy of those that can accomplish those tasks.
Thank you for listening to my rant.
Neo, correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems there is some visceral hatred of accomplishment among many liberals, and envy of those that can accomplish those tasks.
Fake liberals believe that humanity’s fate is to suffer and to destroy. Whatever attempts to build something longer lasting through personal accomplishment and work, is viewed by the Left as creating more suffering. Because if death and decay is inevitable, then why prolong the issue by fighting? That’s why the Left believes so much in ending suffering through peace. They want you to stop fighting, because they believe that if there is nothing to die or kill for, then humanity can go quietly into the night.
They hate accomplishment because it just delays the inevitable, in their view. They believe nothing is or should be worth killing or dieing for. Nihilism, pacifism, anarchy… all combined with the Left and their fake liberal allies.
“They hate accomplishment because it just delays the inevitable, in their view. They believe nothing is or should be worth killing or dieing for. Nihilism, pacifism, anarchy… all combined with the Left and their fake liberal allies.”
There’s nothing like the unfailing certainty of youth, combined with the self-preening of youth, along with the utter ignorance of youth, to produce nonsensical tripe like this. I want to say that you’re writing about a parody of real people, but what you’re describing is so alien to reality, so clearly manufactured from whole cloth, and so clearly representative of your own neurosis rather than the beliefs of real-life human beings, that it would be inaccurate to say so.
I wondered if they mentioned this guy?
“Waleed Mohammed Shaalan, 32, of Zagazig, Egypt, was a doctoral student in civil engineering.
He is said to have called home a day before the shooting to say he was returning to Egypt next month to take his wife and one-year-old son to the US.
He is said to have been shot while trying to save another student.
“He was the simplest and nicest guy I ever knew. We would be studying for our exams and he would go buy a cake and make tea for us,” Waleed’s flatmate, Fahad Pasha said.
The Egyptian foreign ministry said in a statement that it was planning to fly his body to Egypt. “(BBC World )
Nobody on this board did, however. No one for the Muslim hero?
I wonder (yawn) why…..
The guy in the other thread who bemoaned the politicization of this tragic event had it dead on IMO.
Yimmer’s right, people trying to use the deaths of others to advance their political points and try to get one up on their opponents, is getting out of hand. And they even give great self-examples at the same time.
There was a young man of Lebanese descent who was killed in the shooting as well.