In the Hutong
Shanzhai Memorial Day
2254 hrs.
Han Han - "Children, you're depressing grandpa"
http://www.danwei.org/crime/han_han_children_youre_depress.php
Reading this piece was thought-provoking, but the following paragraph took me down another track entirely:
In these recent attacks, the twisted murderers have all chosen to attack nursery schools and elementary schools, believing this to be the best way to exact their revenge on society. It has become fashionable to go to nursery schools and elementary schools and kill people. There, the murderer faces the least resistance and can kill the most people, causing us to feel the greatest pain and panic. This is indeed the most effective method to exact revenge on society
Antisocial attacks on a vulnerable segment of the population conducted in a manner designed to incite fear and insecurity. If the government could find a link between the school attacks and an organized group, would this not then be terrorism?
On a parallel track, there was some reporting done last month in the foreign press suggesting that the government seemed to be putting the kibosh on press coverage of the attacks. The coverage was critical of the move. Nonetheless I can appreciate the law enforcement reason behind limiting the coverage: the less you cover something like this, the less likely it is that other attention-deprived sociopaths would decide that filleting a group of kindergarteners was their route to a few days of fame.
At some point the line between crime and terror seems to disappear into the sand. The lessons China is learning with these crimes test not only law enforcement, but China's nascent homeland security apparatus as well.
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