Never forgotten

[mousme]

Today is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.

Today is the sixteenth anniversary of the massacre at the École Polytechnique. I was ten years old when Marc Lépine entered an engineering class and separated the men from the women at gunpoint, screaming invectives against "feminists." After forcing the men outside, he opened fire on the women, killing fourteen and injuring eight others before turning the gun on himself. He left a note blaming feminism for all the failures in his life.

His actions shook our entire nation, and on that day we vowed that we would not let this go forgotten. So now, every sixth of December, we remember that fourteen women died simply for being women. We remember that fourteen women died simply because they wanted to work, and study. We remember that fourteen women died, because they were living their lives. We remember that fourteen women died for no reason.

We remember that fourteen women died, and that it could have been prevented.

Victims of the Montreal Massacre at l'École Polytechnique on December 6, 1989

Geneviève Bergeron

Hélène Colgan

Nathalie Croteau

Barbara Daigneault

Anne-Marie Edward

Maud Haviernick

Barbara Klucznik Widajewicz

Maryse Laganière

Maryse Leclair

Anne-Marie Lemay

Sonia Pelletier

Michèle Richard

Annie St-Arneault

Annie Turcotte


We will never forget.

Comments

[meallanmouse.livejournal.com]

Mind if I snitch this for my LJ, with reference?

[mousme.livejournal.com]

By all means. :)

[thothmeister.livejournal.com]

I don't know which name from that list it is, but one of my old friends was engaged to one of the victims... that makes it even more a tragic day in my mind.

Hold it! Flag down on that play!

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

We remember that fourteen women died, and that it could have been prevented.

What?! Non sequitur. You have no way of knowing that.

Re: Hold it! Flag down on that play!

[thothmeister.livejournal.com]

Actually there are many things that could have, including:

1. if the school had decent security guards back then, enough to realize that a freaky guy they've never seen before walks in with a suspicious bulge from a gun in his coat;

2. If the male students had tried to stop him instead of just running away when Lepine told them to leave. I know: some of them would have been hurt or killed - but at least this scumbag wouldn't have as big a tragedy in his name.

Everything now can only be a game of "What if". Doesn't change the fact this was a horrid tragedy.

Re: Hold it! Flag down on that play! Things to think about.

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

1. You don't think that, as a human being, Lepine couldn't have planned for the contingency of a security guard? Evil is part of the human condition. We can lessen it's likelihood, and lessen the odds on the success of evil acts, in general, but one can never, with certainty claim that a particular evil act was preventable.



2. Why just the men? Are you implying that it is something in the nature of women that causes them to die like sheep? Women don't or can't fight back too? They need a man to save them? Frankly, it would have been justice if one of the victims had been armed herself. THAT sends a message to victimizers too, a better, louder, clearer one than a regiment of security guards.

Re: Hold it! Flag down on that play! Things to think about.

[thothmeister.livejournal.com]

Why just the men? Are you implying that it is something in the nature of women that causes them to die like sheep? Women don't or can't fight back too? They need a man to save them? Frankly, it would have been justice if one of the victims had been armed herself. THAT sends a message to victimizers too, a better, louder, clearer one than a regiment of security guards.

I'm implying no such thing. Lepine just ordered all the men out, so that he could kill all these women. All I meant was that if some of the male students had rushed him instead of running away for their lives, Lepine wouldn't have been able to carry out his gender massacre.

He made that gender distinction, I'm not. I just said the men because they are the ones he chased off. He was the one who seemed to hate one gender.

Can't forget

[julienne64.livejournal.com]

I was in university when this happened - which is more reason why this event struck home.

But more than that, I work in a building diagonally across the park that was dedicated to them, near the University of Montreal. I only need to lean back in my chair and look out the window in front of my cubicle to see it.