Building blocks of violence
Kamila Hyat

The hideous shooting by 20-year-old Adam Lanza at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, has raised all the usual concerns about US gun laws, about the medications Lanza, who may have been on the autistic spectrum, was possibly on and about mental health care for troubled youngsters.
The shooting, in which 26 people were killed – including 18 children, has quite a striking resemblance to the 2003 novel We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver, turned into a much acclaimed 2011 film.
The book and the movie discuss “evil” and its nature, as well as how children think and act. They are not necessarily as “innocent” or “pure of thought” as is generally depicted, or as we would like to think.
There will be more discussion about Newtown, and Lanza’s motives. His addiction to violent video games, and his isolated life in a windowless basement surrounded by posters of gun-carrying men in military uniform will also be discussed.
But in a world that is coming increasingly closer, we need to think about violence in a wider sense, and the impact it has on children and young people everywhere.
At home, many children – or, to be more accurate, those with access to the Internet and cable television – are talking about the events at Newtown and asking why Adam Lanza acted the way he did.
Questions and personal accounts appear on websites frequented by tweens and teens. Their curiosity is natural – but it is also a reminder of how tightly interlaced our world is today.
This should raise some questions for us. Are we exposing children everywhere to too much violence? How will this affect them in the future and how will it shape society as a whole?
These are things to think about and consider – at home and in nations across the world. So far, school shootings – with a few exceptions – have remained largely a US phenomenon. We certainly don’t want them to spread.
Yet, it is the accepted norm in our cities – as well as in others – to sit small children, even infants, down in front of screens playing cartoons.
The animated figures flickering rapidly across the screen are seen as innocuous, and of course they conveniently keep children occupied, sometimes almost eerily fixated to the moving images, avoiding the need for parental attention or input.
The children are happy, quiet – and this is a blessing that is not hard to understand, especially when mothers or other caregivers need to get other work done. There is no doubt that in today’s world, TV or DVD players are the perfect “babysitters.”
But do we stop and think for even a second about what is really going on? How are our children’s minds being affected?
According to a recent study by US psychologists, cartoons aimed at children are often more violent in content than programming based around non-animated characters.
The experts say small children do not distinguish between “real” people and the animated images that beat, shoot or stomp on each other – of course, “in fun.” Popular cartoons like Scooby-Doo, Pokemon and even Tom and Jerry, as well as many more, are ranked as among some of the worst offenders.
Psychologists who have had a chance to study hundreds of children say the cartoons tend to lead towards more aggressive behaviour and clearly influence the thinking of the very young. Past studies have shown their destructive impact on attention spans – but that is a somewhat different story.
From cartoons, the move to video games is a not an unnatural one. Millions of such games targeted at children are quite often incredibly violent, with beheadings, bombings, killings, stabbings, shootings and other acts of a similar nature quite the norm as the characters hop across obstacles or look for enemies.
It is impossible to believe such games, especially when played over prolonged periods of time, do not have some impact on minds.
All this is especially relevant in a nation where violence is so ‘real’ anyway. Children are exposed to images of bombings in bazaars and other places; they watch young girls such as Malala being attacked, lifted into ambulances and hospitalised.
They also see all kinds of other horrendous acts, brought to them courtesy of a media that seems to follow no rules or ethics and has no notion of what it is airing at which hour.
It is also true that parents, happily enough, cart five-year-olds to Harry Potter films which contain elements of quite grotesque violence, beyond the comprehension of children so young.
The sounds of wailing children watching these movies, as well as others even less appropriate, are not uncommon in our posh cinema halls.
We need to sit back and think about our violent world. Lanza was obviously a very disturbed young man. His classmates have implied this. Even so, his motives for killing first his mother and then so many others remain a mystery.
Do we need to guard against ‘copycat’ acts of a similar nature? Do we, in Pakistan, need to think more carefully about how we are bringing up and socialising children, and about the growing degree of violence in a land where, according to global gun-monitoring groups 18,000,000 guns lie in the hands of civilians? Of these, only 7,000,000 are licensed.
We have heard tales of children turning up with pistols in their bags at school. Perhaps this is nothing more than a prank meant to impress friends, but the very fact that they can get hold of such weapons is terrifying.
Are we giving people a license to kill? Are we telling them through cartoons, movies, television and through the world around them that it is all right to act with aggression and that the use of weapons is acceptable? This message must be altered.
We need to make sure, first of all, that the number of guns floating around in the hands of people who use them for all kinds of purposes – whether it is celebrations at a wedding or killing crows – is reduced. We also need to ensure that children and young people recognise violence is wrong.
There have been youngsters who have developed an admiration for persons such as Adam Lanza in our warped world. We need to make sure the trend does not spread as violence continues to grow and be directed towards people, whether through the television screen or as a part of their actual lives.
The writer is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor
Email: kamilahyat@hotmail.com