Six Décembre Jamais Encore

Every year at this time I find myself wondering whether there's any point in wearing a white ribbon, if no one here knows what it means.

In Canada, the sixth of December is set aside as a National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.  It commemorates the evening of December 6, 1989, when a man whose name doesn't matter entered an engineering classroom at Montreal's École Polytechnique.  Brandishing a semi-automatic rifle, he ordered the male engineering students over to one side of the classroom and the women to the other.  Turning to the women, he shouted "You are all a bunch of fucking feminists!  And I hate feminists!"  Then he open fire.

These are his victims.  I wanted to remember them here.

I know that there are tragedies all over the world, and even more anniversaries of tragedies commemorated every day, but this one always gets to me for some reason.  The victims' faces bring me to tears every year, whether I'm living in Montreal, New York or Tokyo. 

This is perhaps because the problem of violence against women transcends both time and culture.  Equally transcendent, is the grief that ensues.

Comments

[Safiya Outlines]

I hate how the women involved in this and other atrocities are so forgotten and dehumanised. It's the final insult.

I think a lot of women have cases like this. Something that reminds them that for some in the world, being a woman is worthy of punishment.