Two Children Die Imitating Rare Execution

[u2spirit]

India's first execution in 13 years has claimed an additional toll of at least two children dead in mishaps as they re-enacted the highly publicized hanging of a man convicted of raping and murdering a schoolgirl.



Two weeks ago, 41-year-old Dhananjoy Chatterjee was hanged in the eastern city of Calcutta after 13 years on death row.


On Sunday, 14-year-old Prem Gaekwad died when he tied one end of a rope around his neck and swung the other end on a ceiling fan in his Bombay home, in an apparent re-enactment.


"The boy's father told us Prem was a very bright but curious kid and kept asking questions about how Dhananjoy would be hanged," said assistant police inspector Dilip Suryawanshi.

snip





http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=583&e=3&u=/nm/20040825/od_nm/odd_india_hanging_dc

[sui generis]

1. Darwin at work

tragic but true. My sense of compassion is overridden by the use of "bright" and "hanged from a ceiling fan" in the same story.

[THUNDER HANDS]

2. the kid was 14

I think at least a little compassion is in order.

[amazona]

3. not darwin at work at all

Extremely bright kids can and are affected by this particular fetish although I'm not sure I'm up to explaining how I know this. It happens here too. Making a fetish of hanging, whether in old westerns or as a form of execution, is not a good thing for children. Some will inevitably discover the dangerous rush that comes as a physiological result of breath play.

[sui generis]

4. yes well, then it's a parenting issue

I really don't want to be thought of as the grinch here, but that child had an obsession with hanging, abetted by the fact that they are done in public.

How long before he signed up to perform them himself? My children have to learn about what makes life so amazing, about death and what it means, and how easy it is for circumstance to take life away.

There is no room left for fascination with death and its methods.

[johnnie]

6. I agree with you sui generis

14 years old is not a child. Even by that age I knew not to drop an anvil on my brother's head and that jumping from a high place can kill me. It's sad that this happened, but I wouldn't go as far to say that this was just a child who knew no better.

[amazona]

7. you don't choose your fascinations

A teen-ager doesn't choose this interest. Many, many children have an obsession with hanging, in this case, the fact that it was done in public obviously sparked the obsession but I have also known it to be sparked by media -- the old westerns that were so popular in the 1960s no doubt played a part in the interest in asphyxiation that has been such a problem in the U.S. I think it's a bit "blame the victim" to jump on the child for having a certain fetish implanted in his mind. I can just about guarantee that, in his heart of hearts, his wish was to be like everyone else and to have the "normal" desires.

Blaming the parents is even more far-fetched to my mind. I'm not seeing where parents have as much control over their child's orientation and fascinations as they would like to believe. Indeed, in this area, I'm thinking they have no control.

Not sure how much I feel like getting into this. Suffice it to say that people cannot change their orientations, they can either act on them, find a safe way to act on them (probably not possible with this kind of fetish), or else not act on them. I'm guessing most interested in this activity try it at least once as a teen -- most survive, a few don't, and it has nothing to do with bad parenting. I'm guessing unless your child died, you would have no clue that she had ever tried this or what she felt when she tried this. Absolutely none.

[sui generis]

8. okay I agree with some of your points

but as a parent we still are 100% responsible for laying the groundwork to address entire categories of fascinations, even if we admit we can't address them individually.

"orientation" isn't really a good choice of words here. If my children turn out to be gay, I will prepare them for what that means without making any "moral" judgement at all, and hope that I have done my best to make sure that they are never ashamed of themselves or their "orientation", whatever it may be.

If my children turn out to have a fascination with pain and death however, you can be sure I will be giving them very firm moral and intellectual guidance and oversight, and it is my duty to make sure that exploring those concepts happens in such a way that those fascinations are quelched, and that they are able to distinguish right from wrong.

A field trip to the morgue is a great starting place for that discussion.

[amazona]

9. orientation is exactly what it is

I think your heart is in the right place but unless you have this fetish, you are probably not going to understand this fetish. It is a sexual thing. I would not take the child to the morgue if I caught him playing these games. Everyone who plays these games know that you can die. That is the point, the sensation of peace that some people (not all, but some) people get from a near-death experience. At least one person I know into this wangled a visit to the parish morque of her own initiative. Far from releasing her from her interest, it reinforced it. Fortunately, I've kept an eye on her and steered a potential victim away from her -- but I don't see where a person from outside would be able to do anything positive or even be aware of what was going on until it was too late.

So I just don't see where a parent has a role in this, really. As far as I can tell, this fetish forms at a very early age for unknown reasons and by the time a teen is sparked into acting upon it, the fetish has been in the mind for many, many years and is not going to go away. Discussion is pointless. Distraction...getting your teen into more positive activities and keeping her busy...now that might work. But too much focus on the dangers just paradoxically makes it more attractive.

This is why I feel a bit reluctant to say too much. Less discussion and less attention paid to such things as hangings, stranglings, etc. makes it easier to keep the impulses out of one's mind. More discussion and more attention makes it more difficult.

And so with that I'd better hush up, hadn't I? I'm probably on the "whoa, sick puppy" list for sure now anyway.

[sui generis]

10. sokay - you have good points /nt

[jdj]

16. I think you are way off base here.

These are too kids, 13 and 14.

It sounds to me like a case of too much information being foisted on these kids, and it is very eerie to me that their ages are the same as the victim that was murdered.

I don't see any evidence whatsoever to call this a fetish, or to suggest these children "have a fetish", that is one of the more ridiculous things I've heard.

On the contrary, it seems that several tv stations ran sketches of the apparatus with which the perpetrator was hanged and explained the process. How many parents give a child an explanation of the workings of an electric chair, or of the chemical composition of euthanasia solution?

This is HOW CHILDREN COPE WITH TRAUMA, THEY ACT IT OUT.It was traumatic for these kids to hear about both the crime and the punishment, and I do so think it absolutely is a parenting issue.

That is why we do not see dead corpses of children on Law and Order every night. It is too dangerous to children, aside from being sick as hell, and it is one of the few taboos tv has left.

[jdj]

15. Geez, it almost sounds like repitition compulsion.

Children act out things they can't cope with psychologically

It's the root cause of pedophilia, manifested in adulthood.

Wonder if the child was traumatized by knowledge of the hanging, or knowlege of the crime, or both.

[Endangered Specie]

5. Evolution does not discriminate against age.

eh?

[LiberalBushFan]

11. That's a great way to think about it...

Is it Darwin at work when we kill tens of thousands of Iraqis too? Or if Republicans have a draft in '05 and all who can't get out of it get killed? If you or a family member dies of cancer at an early age, we can say it's "Darwin at work," because it is. Sometimes the fittest does not necessarily mean most aware or conscious or intelligent. In other words, "Darwin at work" does not mean the death is not regrettable. Unfortunately, Darwin does not particularly disfavor insensitive asses like you and Bush.

[roguevalley]

12. I am trying very hard not to laugh because of the visual this gives. I

feel very sorry that this happened. This is a terrible event and kids being kids do stupid things. Its a sad thing that one second of bad judgement leads to this.

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[NorthernSpy]

13. doncha just love it when adults set an example for the young'uns?

Thank you once again, India, for demonstrating sane and decent behavior for the children's sake.

:eyes:


Mary