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Forgiveness, not anger - Amish
04/10/2006 11:21 - (SA)
Nickel Mines - This Amish town showed more forgiveness than anger on Tuesday, a day after a 32-year-old dairy truck driver stormed a one-room school and tried to execute all the girls, killing five.
The third deadly US school shooting in a week shattered
the calm of an Amish farm community where there is little crime
and where the sight of horse-drawn buggies, bearded men in
straw hats and suspenders, and women in bonnets conjures up a
bygone age.
The Amish, descendants of Swiss-German settlers, are a
traditionalist Christian denomination who place particular
importance on the Gospel message of forgiveness. They believe
in non-violence, simple living and little contact with the
modern world.
Sad but not angry
Several Amish interviewed by Reuters said they were sad but
not angry and emphasised the need for forgiveness of gunman
Charles Carl Roberts, who as a non-Amish person was what the
locals refer to as "English."
"It's just not the way we think. There is no sense in
getting angry," said Henry Fisher, 62, a retired farmer with
five grown children and 33 grandchildren, who has lived all his
life in the town some 100km west of Philadelphia.
He said the Amish lifestyle with no cars, television or
credit cards, was "a more peaceful life ... to keep the next
generation living a more humble life."
No extra security
He also said he did not expect additional security such as
locks on schools because this was a "freak accident." There is
no police station in town and there were no signs of new
security in the rural area on Tuesday.
"This community is trusting. They don't expect somebody to
just come in the doors and start shooting," said Fran Beiler,
66, of Nickel Mines.
School back to normal
Five kilometres away, the one-room Green Tree Parochial
School in Bart Township resembled the Nickel Mines school
before the shooting. Run by the Amish, it has 24 schoolchildren
aged six to 13, who were playing in the school yard on Tuesday.
"We want to forgive," he said. "That's the way we were
brought up - turn good for evil."
One parent who declined to be named said the school board
on which he sits decided against closing on Tuesday.
The Amish life was depicted in the 1985 movie Witness, starring Harrison Ford as a detective trying to protect an Amish boy threatened by mobsters after he witnesses a crime.
A 25-year-old Amish man who declined to be named said his
13-year-old niece died in Monday's shooting and that another
niece, 11, was recovering in a Philadelphia hospital.
"I think it was going to happen. God has his hand in it,"
the man said with resignation.
- Reuters
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