A simmering society

pkroy

24 July 2012

The shooting in Aurora, Colorado during a film premiere reveals a lot about a community that is socially repressed and does not know how to deal with its cultivated focus on compulsive isolation,

Its just past midnight, I’m tired and sleepy after an evening out at the swanky mall in north Aurora in Denver, Colorado. I had browsed through several titles at a Barnes and Noble outlet earlier in the evening and almost bought the nook. Will do that the next time, I decide. Am jolted into alertness by the increasingly loud wails of emergency vehicles as they cross the Interstate which runs just outside our apartment complex in Aurora. I count five, six, seven,... a brief period of silence which is broken by another half a dozen such vehicles as their sirens tear through the quiet night. There are many more, I stop counting and begin to wonder. Have the Colorado fires suddenly resumed? Maybe a bad accident? Yet logic doesn’t allay the sudden uneasiness flooding my mind. I toss and turn, then gradually drift into fitful sleep.

Morning brings the reason and I read the shocking headlines: A 24-year-old heavily armed gunman wearing a gas mask, attacked the Century 16 theatre in Aurora, Colorado early Friday, tossing tear gas before opening fire on the terrified audience, killing 12 and wounding 59 others, according to authorities. It was the midnight premier for the latest Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises. Some people in the audience thought the thick smoke and gunfire were special effects accompanying the movie, police and witnesses said. One of the injured was just 3-months-old, as per one report.

It is reported that the assailant had entered the theatre as part of the audience, then went out using the emergency exit, put on the gas mask and re-entered the same way. Police arrested the attacker in a rear parking lot of the theatre. He did not resist, did not put up a fight. Police seized a rifle and a handgun from him; another gun was found in the theatre.

What could have provoked this young man to coldly calculate such a horrific crime? What were his emotions as he loaded those heavy rifles with bullets and fired into a placid, amiable crowd inside a movie theatre? There are other instances of similar macabre crimes wherein a perfectly “normal” person ran amok and gunned down innocent victims at a school/pub/public place.

The suspect in this case has been identified as James Holmes, 24, of Aurora, Colorado. Holmes is a student at the University of Colorado and was in the process of withdrawing from the university’s graduate programmer in neuro sciences into which he had enrolled in June 2011. He lived in an apartment in North Aurora,

That area isn’t too far from where we are staying on our vacation. Our condominium is in a community that is very peaceful. There are no loud neighbors; everyone minds their own business, much like elsewhere in the USA. There is also something unique to Denver that I had somehow found missing in Chicago, San Francisco and New York. It feels a lot safer and more comfortable. The “Mile-High City” is less populated and the people seem less mistrustful, at least that’s what I felt. There is a routine followed: walk the dogs, drive to work, keep weekends for road trips to the Rockies or check out the hot spots downtown. A perfect laidback lifestyle. Enjoy. Forget the stress, what stress?

As more and more reports kept coming in, I focused on an alarming fact. Buying arms and ammunition is like shopping for candy at the neighborhood store. Anyone with an ID can legally buy as many guns as he/ she wants. There’s no need to go undercover or buy one that’s been smuggled in. In a place where everything and everyone is accountable, where security means “serious” business, and one plays by the book, why are laws so lax when it concerns guns?

Why has this been overlooked when considering the paranoia about security in this nation? I personally endorse each and every measure for security; safety is all-important regardless of the painstaking and bothersome processes involved. But it did feel a tad overdone at the airport recently when I was made to remove my bracelet, a gold chain and every tiny piece of jewellery on my person. The metal detector alarm beeped even after that: my tiny hairclip had been the “culprit”! It fails to make sense that the authorities are so intimidated by innocuous bits of feminine adornment, yet turn a blind eye when guns can be bought at whim and be misused if the individual suffers from some personality disorder.  

A noticeable factor here is the absence of security officials at public places such as malls, restaurants, departmental stores. Everyone is expected to behave with appropriate decorum and honesty. The traffic moves very, very obediently. Even if it is a deserted road at night, a car will wait patiently till the red signal changes to green. No one will mess with the law. And yes, they trust you! So, one does feel good about that. Especially when one can get cheated so easily in some countries (let’s not name them). The calm exterior of society is a veneer that hides much of bottled rage underneath. People here greet each other with a somewhat vacuous: “Hi, How’re you doing?” and the equally impersonal answer “Good!” This common interaction underlies: “I’m not interested in you or your affairs. Stay away.”

Isolation. That’s not really a personal choice. It begins from childhood, when one is encouraged to fend for oneself. To deal with one’s problems in the best way one can. Angst is often the underlying, predominant emotion associated with the growing years. Personal space is jealously guarded, often at the cost of a close relationship. Parents, siblings, peers and colleagues are more often than not completely unaware of a looming crisis in the life of someone close to them. Ditto is the scenario regarding Holmes, his parents, friends and relatives. None of them can believe someone so “nice” could have committed such an atrocity.

There are no easy answers to the whys brought about by despicable acts of violence. The human mind has remained the biggest mystery of nature. But there is no doubt that our efficient, modern “mechanical” world has less time for introspection, or for humaneness and better understanding among fellow beings.

The Colorado incident undeniably points to the fact that society is becoming increasingly deceptive on the exterior: scratch the surface and the simmering anger and violence below just wait to erupt.

Indeed, ours is the age of discontent.

consultant- Newyork Times