On December 6, 1989, I was 5 years old. But I had no idea that something horrible happened on that winter day. I was too young to notice anything like that...
This day is a dark day in the Québec History. The École Polytechnique Massacre, also known as the Montreal Massacre, occurred on December 6, 1989 at the École Polytechnique (Montréal, Québec). (The École Polytechnique is an engineering university. My older brother went there and graduated in 2006.)
« Twenty-five-year-old Marc Lépine, armed with a legally obtained Mini-14 rifle and a hunting knife, shot twenty-eight people before killing himself. He began his attack by entering a classroom at the university, where he separated the male and female students. After claiming that he was "fighting feminism", he shot all nine women in the room, killing six. He then moved through corridors, the cafeteria, and another classroom, specifically targeting women to shoot. Overall, he killed fourteen women and injured ten other women and four men in just under twenty minutes before turning the gun on himself. Lépine was the child of a French-Canadian mother and an Algerian father, and had been physically abused by his father. His suicide note claimed political motives and blamed feminists for ruining his life. The note included a list of nineteen Quebec women whom Lépine considered to be feminists and apparently wished to kill. »
This was a horrible tragedy, what else can I say... The province of Québec didn't forget what happened.... Each year, there is a commemoration for the 14 victims... 21 years later, they are not forgotten... The memory lives on... White ribbons, symbol of the struggle to stop violence against women, are worn by everybody on that day... Any kind of violence should not been allowed...
