Un-Enlightened Society

Dear Reader,

At last! Two meetings, arranged by ordinary members of the community, to publicly discuss the Jokela High School catastrophe. There is also a website, a forum and a YahooGroup. (The 25 Nov 2007 event details can be found at the end of this message. (Update: Event cancelled by Tuusulan local government. See Tuusula Officials Cancel Community Discussion)

However, this has not been easy to arrange. These types of public civic-minded crisis meetings are seem new to Finnish culture. I am confident that when aroused Finns will design solutions. Maybe the Finns, so far, passive reluctance comes from the mistaken belief that the government can solve every problem. In this case, a school boy gun rampage, the government can only do so much. The community has to be involved in the eventual solution.

The rest of this post is directed mostly to Finnish locals but you are all welcome to read it:

Because national feelings of mourning and despair are high now, it is important that everyone gets involved in the first event as a show of solidarity. It will happen in school in Tuusula, 18 days after the massacre. We want to take back schools and make them safe for our children, not only in Finland but the world.

The second meeting will be a week later in a Helsinki school on Sunday 02.12.07.

Please spread the news about the event. Post the URL (links) to the website, the download-able printable event poster(s) and YahooGroup. In future, an English section will be added to the web-site forum.

Contact your friends and families, spiritual groups, healers, journalists, teachers, students, doctors, etc.

Spread the good news to forums, mailing lists and newspaper reader’s letters pages. You all know people who can help. Finally and firstly, YOU can help.

These events are organised with zero budget but endless, infinite compassion and love.

We need volunteers. We have some speakers but we invite more for this and future events.

The small team of volunteers have a lot to do. If you want to contact them then make it easier on their time by emailing: ihmiset@gmail.com

The phone hotline is for urgent messages only special cases. Don’t email me about planning

These are the details that I want you to put in your diary for participation:

Sunnuntaina 25.11.2007 kello 13-15.30

Hyökkälän koulu, Kirkkotie 11, 04300 Tuusula.

(Update: Event cancelled by Tuusulan local government. See Tuusula Officials Cancel Community Discussion)

Lisätietoja: ihmiset@gmail.com
050-3247849

Website: http://freewebs.com/kansalaiskanava/

Join the YahooGroup: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jokela/

Blessings to those who dare to care,

Dave Oshana

Finns aren’t talking about the Jokela High School Massacre which left 9 dead last week.

That’s the direct experience of one Finnish High School student in Helsinki (just 45 mins away from the the tragedy).

The Finnish media reported that government ministers recommended that every school talk to students the day after the murders. It did not happen in every school.

The student told me “The teachers have not said a single word about it to us. The students don’t know what to say. The media is reporting it less and less.”

This is worrying. The tragedy happened less than one week ago.

People need to talk. They want to talk but they aren’t.

The Finnish teenager knows just about everything about the event and a fair amount about Auvinen’s sad life. He was on the IRC chat channels after the massacre. There he conversed openly with other boys who actually knew, Pekka-Eric Auvinen, the 18 year old who gunned down 5 male students, 2 teachers and 1 nurse before shooting himself in the head. There they freely gave him the URLs to the dead killer’s online directories. Auvinen had been busy on the internet spreading his message of hate, surfing web-sites glorifying Columbine High School killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and reaching out to other disaffected anti-social teens like 14-year-old Dillon Cossey who was arrested in October for preparing a similar school attack in suburban Philadelphia.

Potential killers are openly networking and sharing ideas whilst innocent people grieve in isolation. It’s time that concerned citizens started talking. The lack of good communication is literally killing people.

The day after the killings my students and I went to a Finnish island where we discussed ways to empower individuals to make a difference and stop this happening again.

We plan to host meetings where everyone, adults and teenagers, can talk out their concerns and find support. Someone has to do it.

If you find this message and feel moved enough to get involved and network then contact me now

Read also this disturbing development: Teenagers held in Sweden as fear of copycat killings grows