m***@yahoo.com
2006-10-23 03:34:23 UTC
On October 2, Charles Carl Roberts entered a one-room schoolhouse in
the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. He lined up eleven
young girls from the class and shot them each at point blank range. The
gruesome depths of this crime are hard for any community to grasp, but
certainly for the Amish - who live such a secluded and peaceful life,
removed even from the everyday depictions of violence on TV. When the
Amish were suddenly pierced by violence, how did they respond?
The evening of the shooting, Amish neighbors from the Nickel Mines
community gathered to process their grief with each other and mental
health counselors. As of that evening, three little girls were dead.
Eight were hospitalized in critical condition. (One more girl has died
since.) According to reports by counselors who attended the grief
session, the Amish family members grappled with a number of questions:
Do we send our kids to school tomorrow? What if they want to sleep in
our beds tonight, is that okay? But one question they asked might
surprise us outsiders. What, they wondered, can we do to help the
family of the shooter? Plans were already underway for a
horse-and-buggy caravan to visit Charles Carl Roberts' family with
offers of food and condolences. The Amish, it seems, don't
automatically translate their grieving into revenge. Rather, they
believe in redemption.
Meanwhile, the United States culture from which the Amish are isolated
is moving in the other direction - increasingly exacting revenge for
crimes and punishing violence with more violence. In 26 states and at
the federal level, there are "three strikes" laws in place.
Conviction for three felonies in a row now warrants a life sentence,
even for the most minor crimes. For instance, Leandro Andrade is
serving a life sentence, his final crime involving the theft of nine
children's videos - including "Cinderella" and "Free Willy"
- from a Kmart. Similarly, in many states and at the federal level,
possession of even small amounts of drugs trigger mandatory minimum
sentences of extreme duration. In New York, Elaine Bartlett was just
released from prison, serving a 20-year sentence for possessing only
four ounces of cocaine. This is in addition to the 60 people who were
executed in the United States in 2005, among the more than a thousand
killed since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. And the
President of the United States is still actively seeking authority to
torture and abuse alleged terrorists, whom he consistently dehumanizes
as rats to be "smoked from their holes", even without evidence of
their guilt.
Our patterns of punishment and revenge are fundamentally at odds with
the deeper values of common humanity that the tragic experience of the
Amish are helping to reveal. Each of us is more than the worst thing
we've ever done in life. Someone who cheats is not only a cheater.
Someone who steals something is not only a thief. And someone who
commits a murder is not only a murderer. The same is true of Charles
Carl Roberts. We don't yet know the details of the episode in his
past for which, in his suicide note, he said he was seeking revenge. It
may be a sad and sympathetic tale. It may not. Either way, there's no
excusing his actions. Whatever happened to Roberts in the past, taking
the lives of others is never justified. But nothing Roberts has done
changes the fact that he was a human being, like all of us. We all make
mistakes. Roberts' were considerably and egregiously larger than
most. But the Amish in Nickel Mines seem to have been able to see past
Roberts' actions and recognize his humanity, sympathize with his
family for their loss, and move forward with compassion not vengeful
hate.
We've come to think that "an eye for an eye" is a natural, human
reaction to violence. The Amish, who live a truly natural life apart
from the influences of our violence-infused culture, are proving
otherwise. If, as Gandhi said, "an eye for an eye makes the whole
world blind," then the Amish are providing the rest of us with an
eye-opening lesson.
Sally Kohn is Director of the Movement Vision Project at the Center for
Community Change and author of a forthcoming book on the progressive
vision for the future of the United States.
Above was:
Published on Friday, October 6, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
and is titled - What the Amish are Teaching America
It was written by Sally Kohn
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1006-33.htm
the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. He lined up eleven
young girls from the class and shot them each at point blank range. The
gruesome depths of this crime are hard for any community to grasp, but
certainly for the Amish - who live such a secluded and peaceful life,
removed even from the everyday depictions of violence on TV. When the
Amish were suddenly pierced by violence, how did they respond?
The evening of the shooting, Amish neighbors from the Nickel Mines
community gathered to process their grief with each other and mental
health counselors. As of that evening, three little girls were dead.
Eight were hospitalized in critical condition. (One more girl has died
since.) According to reports by counselors who attended the grief
session, the Amish family members grappled with a number of questions:
Do we send our kids to school tomorrow? What if they want to sleep in
our beds tonight, is that okay? But one question they asked might
surprise us outsiders. What, they wondered, can we do to help the
family of the shooter? Plans were already underway for a
horse-and-buggy caravan to visit Charles Carl Roberts' family with
offers of food and condolences. The Amish, it seems, don't
automatically translate their grieving into revenge. Rather, they
believe in redemption.
Meanwhile, the United States culture from which the Amish are isolated
is moving in the other direction - increasingly exacting revenge for
crimes and punishing violence with more violence. In 26 states and at
the federal level, there are "three strikes" laws in place.
Conviction for three felonies in a row now warrants a life sentence,
even for the most minor crimes. For instance, Leandro Andrade is
serving a life sentence, his final crime involving the theft of nine
children's videos - including "Cinderella" and "Free Willy"
- from a Kmart. Similarly, in many states and at the federal level,
possession of even small amounts of drugs trigger mandatory minimum
sentences of extreme duration. In New York, Elaine Bartlett was just
released from prison, serving a 20-year sentence for possessing only
four ounces of cocaine. This is in addition to the 60 people who were
executed in the United States in 2005, among the more than a thousand
killed since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. And the
President of the United States is still actively seeking authority to
torture and abuse alleged terrorists, whom he consistently dehumanizes
as rats to be "smoked from their holes", even without evidence of
their guilt.
Our patterns of punishment and revenge are fundamentally at odds with
the deeper values of common humanity that the tragic experience of the
Amish are helping to reveal. Each of us is more than the worst thing
we've ever done in life. Someone who cheats is not only a cheater.
Someone who steals something is not only a thief. And someone who
commits a murder is not only a murderer. The same is true of Charles
Carl Roberts. We don't yet know the details of the episode in his
past for which, in his suicide note, he said he was seeking revenge. It
may be a sad and sympathetic tale. It may not. Either way, there's no
excusing his actions. Whatever happened to Roberts in the past, taking
the lives of others is never justified. But nothing Roberts has done
changes the fact that he was a human being, like all of us. We all make
mistakes. Roberts' were considerably and egregiously larger than
most. But the Amish in Nickel Mines seem to have been able to see past
Roberts' actions and recognize his humanity, sympathize with his
family for their loss, and move forward with compassion not vengeful
hate.
We've come to think that "an eye for an eye" is a natural, human
reaction to violence. The Amish, who live a truly natural life apart
from the influences of our violence-infused culture, are proving
otherwise. If, as Gandhi said, "an eye for an eye makes the whole
world blind," then the Amish are providing the rest of us with an
eye-opening lesson.
Sally Kohn is Director of the Movement Vision Project at the Center for
Community Change and author of a forthcoming book on the progressive
vision for the future of the United States.
Above was:
Published on Friday, October 6, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
and is titled - What the Amish are Teaching America
It was written by Sally Kohn
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1006-33.htm