Remembering them, 35 Years Later

December 6, 1989: In an apartment in the suburbs of Ottawa, a young fourth year engineering student has settled down to review his class notes in preparation for the end of semester exams. This is it. He is only one more semester away from graduation and his career. Meanwhile, 200 kilometres away in the student’s home town of Montreal, Quebec another young man is embarking upon a much more sinister endeavour.

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At roughly four In the afternoon the dark and angry man enters l'école Polytechnique in the heart of Montreal.?At 5:10?he enters a senior Mechanical Engineering classroom. The students are presenting their third and fourth year final projects. Our madman screams at the class demanding the men to leave, lining the women up on one side. What ensues will be the cold-blooded murder of fourteen women and the wounding of ten women and four men. After twenty minutes, in one final act of rage, the killer ends his massacre with a bullet to his own head.

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In the following hours, our Ottawa engineering student watches in shock and horror as the media tells the tragic tale of the deaths of those who were his peers and would have been his colleagues. It soon became apparent that the killer had aspired to engineering but was unable to get into a program and blamed feminists and women for his woes. A history of abuse had taught him to strike at those in his way. A terminal victim, he held no connection or empathy for others, a victim creating more victims, just like a virus.

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The event left a permanent impact on our engineer. He wrote all his exams wearing a white armband in memory of those who would never again get the chance to pass such tests and join him in the noble field of engineering. He vowed he would remember them and their tragedy. He promised to forever fight against that kind of evil and hatred.?

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There is nothing more deadly than a dangerous victim. They believe they have nothing to lose and a just cause on their side. We have seen it again and again in twisted spree killers such as the one in this story.

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However, it is equally true among societies and groups that harbour victimhood. It has generated the atrocities of war and it has fuelled such genocides as the Holocaust and Rwanda. As long a people see others as scapegoats for their own pain then this horror will unfold again and again. As long as there is 'an us and a them' we will write this story over and over in the blood of innocents. Until we awaken and truly see the familihood of all mankind we will employ violence upon those we fear, revile and blame.

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This year, on the 35th anniversary of their tragedy, I ask that we look at any victimhood within us, individually and societally. See it for what it is, fear and hatred...cancers on our spirits. As much as we are humanly able, let us shed the practice of blame and the mindset of victims. Let us reach deep inside to bring forth forgiveness and understanding. Let us see the real brotherhood and sisterhood of all mankind. I believe that is what they would have wanted us to do in their memory...

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* Geneviève Bergeron (born 1968), civil engineering student

* Hélène Colgan (born 1966), mechanical engineering student

* Nathalie Croteau (born 1966), mechanical engineering student

* Barbara Daigneault (born 1967), mechanical engineering student

* Anne-Marie Edward (born 1968), chemical engineering student

* Maud Haviernick (born 1960), materials engineering student

* Maryse Laganière (born 1964), budget clerk in the école Polytechnique's finance department

* Maryse Leclair (born 1966), materials engineering student

* Anne-Marie Lemay (born 1967), mechanical engineering student

* Sonia Pelletier (born 1961), mechanical engineering student

* Michèle Richard (born 1968), materials engineering student

* Annie St-Arneault (born 1966), mechanical engineering student

* Annie Turcotte (born 1969), materials engineering student

* Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (born 1958), nursing student

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May you Rest In Peace, my sisters.