Turkey shaken by school shootings
Turkey has seen two school shootings in as many days. At a school in Kahramanmaraş on Wednesday, a 14-year-old boy shot eight pupils and a teacher before he was shot dead at the scene. A day earlier, a former pupil at a school in Siverek in Sanliurfa Province shot and wounded 16 people, including ten pupils, before killing himself. Commentators search for reasons to explain the attacks.
Tightened security not the solution
T24 inquires into what motivated the pupil to open fire on his teachers and classmates in Siverek:
“Who is Ömer Tek, what is his background, what problems did he face in adolescence, what would have happened if he had not been expelled from school, and is expulsion the solution for pupils who have problems adapting? Will teachers, school administrators and the Ministry of Education finally realise, in light of these recent violent incidents, that tightening security in schools won't solve the problem? What we need to do, in short, is to look closely at the dark forces that turn a pupil into an aggressor.”
A resentful generation
The children of today are victims of the AKP's religious ideology, Karar argues:
“There have always been plenty of problems with our education system, and above all with the quality of the education itself, but the fact that schools are now in the news because of an armed attack is the last straw. ... First we need to understand what motivates a child to want to kill their classmates and teachers. ... The first step is zero tolerance towards violence and weapons. They wanted to raise a pious generation. But clearly what they have produced is a resentful one.”