Girls attacked with acid

I was surprised to learn on the CBC this morning that on Wednesday of last week, a group of young women was attacked and acid thrown in their faces. Details are difficult to find (and a bit contradictory): the number ranges from 8 to 15 in the group, there were a number wounded and taken to hospital, with several of those were blinded. Some say they used water bottles, some water pistols. None went to school the net day. Subsequent stories describe how some of the women who were hurt the most are determined to complete their education.

I'm not sure why this story angered me so much. But it did. It shattered what I had expected to be a normal, complacent Sunday morning. I had to write about it.

Perhaps the anger is because I didn't hear about it for several days. In this age of easy access to blogs and happenings and opinions, where I often complain about information-overload, I did not hear a whisper of this story until it was old news. I did a search on gather, and found one article on the subject. While I was writing about Nanaimo Bars, students in Afghanistan were being attacked. I can't help but feel the irony.

Perhaps it is the innocence of the young women. Now of course I know nothing about them or their history, but I still have a mental idea of young people (men and women) as being relatively innocent until they reach maturity. There are many recent examples of how this is not necessarily true: youngsters are easily tainted by their environments and can be as ugly or violent as any of us. But this incident was not something inflicted by a group of teen-agers; it was inflicted on them.

And perhaps also it is because the subject is education. As one who spent years in post-secondary education (and who paid for it with grants and loans), I believe that school is one of the most valuable things that we can offer the younger generation. I took full advantage of what was available to me, and do not take those experiences for granted. To hear that these young women were attacked for nothing more than wanting to go to school, to make their lives better, makes my blood boil. Just because others look at education with cynicism does not mean they should get in the way of others improving their lot.

Often when I write an article like this I have some point at then end: something to do, or to think, to make me feel better. This was not about politicians fighting, or war-mongers dropping bombs. It is about several young women whose lives have been irreparably changed. They don't live in a county where there are decent courts or methods of justice; they will not be able to sue or get a multi-million-dollar settlement. In our modern world, I just might have to live with the dissonance.