1 October 2024
By Aleksandr Podrabinek
Source: Radio Svoboda
Recently in one school in Balagansk, Irkutsk Oblast, an eighth grader attacked his classmates with a hammer and knife. Three schoolchildren were injured. A few days before, a 13-year-old schoolboy in Chelyabinsk attacked pupils and teachers with a hammer and knife. Four people were injured that time. Incidents like his have become more and more frequent in Russia lately. The press has been commenting extensively; pedagogues, psychologists, sociologists, and education officials have been analyzing these events, attempting to find a solution, and giving recommendations. At the same time, they are keeping mum in the most eloquent way about the natural reasons for this outburst of school violence.
The militarization of society, which has intensified since the war began, and the state-encouraged triumph of violence is being logically reflected on children’s psychological state. Moreover, this violence is being committed not only in occupied territories, not only against Ukrainians, but all over Russia. Contract killers who have tasted blood and criminals wreathed in battle glory, yesterday’s prisoners, are demonstrating models of impunity to all of society by inflicting lawlessness on their own country. In fact, they don’t care where they kill, rape, or plunder. These are their life values, this is the life they’re used to. “This is just the way we like it,” as one of them put it. The war is giving them freedom of action, and they are taking full advantage of it.
In the war, the freedom to kill has been justified by national interests, the defense of sovereignty, and mythical threats on the part of NATO or the other numerous enemies in their hostile encirclement. A natural killer easily adopts any ideological justification, especially when it is provided by state power and advertised as a proper explanation for any criminal actions.
The state is legalizing violence without giving too much thought to the consequences. More than likely, it simply doesn’t care how many civilians suffer from the rampage of war and postwar violence. To an authoritarian regime, people are nothing more than expendable material, and all the state’s concerns are connected only with there being more of that material so that it always has enough to carry out its grandiose geopolitical plans. It’s understandable that the defense of the civilian population, even in their own country, has been moved to last place.
All this praise and justification of lawlessness and violence cannot help but be reflected in society’s sense of justice and the degradation of moral restrictions. Children have been subjected to this destructive influence more than anyone. Especially since the people who have made killing their profession or even a temporary enthusiasm, are acting as life teachers. At officials’ demand, pedagogues are inviting them to the schools to talk about their military “deeds” and to teach children how to handle a weapon and to despise the law and rights. Why should we be surprised at the wave of school violence?
Attempts to deal with this problem look fake. Building walls around the perimeter of school territories and installing video surveillance and guards at the entrance don’t solve the problems. Inspecting schools after every instance of shooting, hostage taking, or other bloody incident certainly yield nothing but an opportunity for officials to report on the work they’ve done.
There is only one root solution to the problem: we must stop praising violence as a means for resolving social and state issues and stop idealizing war and praising killers and rapists as heroes and moral authorities. We must respect the rights and freedom of other people. If this were to happen, though, Russia would be a completely different country.
Translated by Marian Schwartz
