A question

Any reason why the man who killed 32 students in Virginia Tech has yet to be referred to by any reputable news media as a terrorist?

He had firearms, he was deliberate and systematic, he had a clear social agenda that he outlined in written documents, and he committed suicide after finishing his crimes.

Usually when that happens, the perpetrator is automatically labelled a terrorist and treated as such.

Instead, a scant two days after the catastrophe, we already have compassion for this person. This morning as I was watched CNN World, one of the students who was a first-hand witness to the rampage was being interviewed. This student was in one of the classrooms that the gunman entered, and had somehow managed to survive with minor injuries only, although not before he witnessed with his own eyes multiple killings. During the course of his interview, the student voluntarily and without any prompting said that he’s forgiven the South Korean gunman for his crimes. Answering his interviewer’s surprised look, he said the gunman was obviously disturbed and that he felt bad for him, that he needed to be helped. Only two days after the crimes, I found this kind of open-heartedness remarkable, but at the same time a little unsettling in its implicit double-standard.

I’ll clarify what I mean by rephrasing my initial question. Is there a particular ethnicity or religion or set of politics that one must have in order for media and the public to think it suitable to connect him to terror?

Because it seems to me that unless you’re Arab, Muslim or a little lukewarm to Western political ideology, even killing 33 people doesn’t make you a terrorist.

A quick pictorial tour of Riyadh

I have been in Riyadh, the capital of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for almost 4 weeks now. I have not written about it yet except in emails and postcards. Today I will try to correct that by starting with a quick pictorial tour. (Click on the thumbnails for a larger photo.)

This is the entrance to my workplace at the National Guard Health Affairs, in Riyadh. Manicured trees, landscaped lawns, and a fire truck to add to the lego city feel. I’m not sure if you can tell the weather by a still as well as you can tell it from a forecast, but the weather here is hot. But hot in a pleasant way. Riyadh is a landlocked city, so there is none of the humidity that you get in coastal towns like Jeddah (located directly on the Red Sea), for instance.

A different view of the same entrance. This view is taken from the in-hospital bank branch, where I can be frequently be found attempting to extract some money, usually without success.

This is the view I see from my window at my residence, a Western complex designed for expat employees at the National Guard Hospital. Not pictured behind the wall is a security bulwark of barbed wire, movable barriers and slight, soft-bodied security guards. Behind that in the horizon you can see a smattering of villas in the desert. The silver sedan in the foreground is illegally occupying my own parking space, which would be infuriating if I had a car.

 

This is the basketball gym where I spend much of my free time after work. It’s an excellent, FIBA-compliant court, and I hurl bricks at the rims mercilessly every day from 5pm until 6. In the complex there are also facilities for soccer, tennis, squash, badminton, swimming, aerobics and weight training.  I have even discovered a tiny lending library, tucked away on a desolate floor somewhere, and have stolen away from it with some Turgenev, some Wilde, and some Leonard (Elmore, sadly, not Cohen).

 

A street view from a minor shopping street in Faisaliah. I only have a little point-and-shoot camera with me here in the Kingdom, so taking in some of the larger scenery and locales is a bit of a challenge (that I may attempt in the future). About the most you can get from this picture is the understanding that, yes, there are indeed some very bright lights here. Very bright. Yes.

 

The eternal question. Sweets vs. Dental Care. The sweets are more easily accessible on the street level, so I’ll take those.

 

For non-Arabic speakers, this sign says “The Place for Kissing”. They have special locations for that here, where a rootless couple may exchange a few riyals for a chance to kiss in private behind a solid brick wall. No, that’s not true, I am only joking. Although it does say “The Place for Kissing” on that thing; I’m not lying about that.

This is one of the dominant features of the Riyadh skyline, a pyramidal building known as the Faisaliah Center. Again, my equipment fails me here, as the picture is awful and also, curiously, tilted on its side. This is particularly curious because I just rotated it. I don’t know what’s going on here. Anyway, commerce of some sort takes place at that building, I assume. Commerce takes place everywhere in the Kingdom, and with great vigor.

 

My son Leith. He is not actually with me in Riyadh. But he is.