Summary
Lo discusses the hostage crisis at school No. 1 in Beslan, North Ossetia and shows how the authorities failed to take necessary measures to solve the crisis. The latest crisis has ratcheted public hostility to unprecedented levels. However, this crisis is only one of a series of disasters that struck Russia, giving lie to claims that the war against organized, armed groups is effectively over.
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Extract
A People's Trauma
IT MAY SEEM DUBIOS TO COMPARE THE Beslan hostage crisis with September 11. Most obviously, the death toll that day in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania was far higher than at Beslan. Such a primitive quantitative perspective, however, underestimates the psychological impact, not only on the families of the dead and injured, but on Russia as a nation, people and society. When President Vladimir Putin declared the outrage to be 'unprecedented in its inhumanity and cruelty', he spoke for the vast majority of his compatriots.
The deliberate targeting of children attending the first day of the new school year was a desecration of core values and traditions. In Russia children, especially pre-adolescence, have a near-iconic status that goes well beyond usual weste...See the full content of this document
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