On 20 April 1999, two American students from Columbine High School in the state of Colorado, 18-year-old Eric Harris and 17-year-old Dylan Klebold, attacked their school armed with guns and bombs. After killing 12 students and a teacher in the space of half an hour they then committed suicide.
Searches of the two students' homes immediately after the attacks uncovered most interesting documents and information. In one of his pieces of writing dated 26 April 1998, printed on the Westword web site based in Denver, Eric Harris wrote that he and Klebold would enforce "natural selection" in their school:
Sometime in April [of 1999] me and V [Klebold, whom he called "V" of "Vodka" in the journals] will get revenge and will kick natural selection up a few notches. Armed with the following; a terrorist bag full of noisey crickets, noisey crickets strapped to WD40 cans, pipe bombs with a ... load of shrapnel, fire bombs, chlorine gas bombs, and smoke bombs.1
In addition, the words "NATURAL SELECTION" were printed on Harris' T-shirt at the time of the attack. 2
It appears from the writings that theirs was an act of revenge against teachers and students whom they regarded as "inferior."3
In most of his writings, Harris constantly referred to natural selection and feelings of superiority. In the three videos they shot before the attack, the two referred to themselves as more "evolved" than others and to the feeling of being "above human."4
Indeed, exactly in April as Harris had written in his journal, he and Klebold entered Columbine High School with weapons similar to those they had referred to and began massacring the students there. Both were known in the school for their admiration of Hitler, and wore T-shirts with swastika emblems on them. Furthermore, the day they carried out the attack would have been Hitler's 110th birthday.
These two boys were apparently ordinary high school students with stable family backgrounds, whom nobody had ever imagined would perpetrate such an attack. In addition, it appears from their journals that they had good relations with their families and experienced no problems with them.
The abnormally aggressive streak in these young people's characters which propelled them to perpetrate such a psychopathic attack must have been supported by the education they received. They resorted to the concept of "natural selection," which they had learned in school, in order to resolve problems with classmates whom they thought had excluded them. It is by no means surprising that people "educated" to believe such false ideas as that life is a struggle to the death, that one has to fight to survive, that the strong crush the weak, that human life is of no value, and that human beings are no different from animals, carry out attacks that they link to natural selection.
The view of life they acquire as a result of their education is the one imposed on people by Darwinism. People who learn about natural selection's ruthless competition in textbooks and in class, and who imagine this is the only way to survive, are able to regard such hatred and ruthless enmity as legitimate. They will therefore be capable of perpetrating similar actions.
However, when educated in the light of values taught by the moral values of the Qur'an, rather than of dogmas such as "natural selection," young people-–and indeed all society—will seek to be forgiving, to feel love, affection and friendship, and to ensure peace and peacefulness rather than hatred and conflict. The solution to moral degeneration lies in the intellectual overthrow of the philosophy that leads to it and its replacement by the moral values commanded by the Qur'an.
1. CNN, "Columbine Killer Envisioned Crashing Plane in NYC," 6 December 2001, http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/12/05/columbine.diary/
2. Denver Rocky Mountain News, 25 June 1999, pp. 4A, 14A
3. Antonio Mendoza, "High School Armageddon," http://www.mayhem.net/Crime/columbine.html
4. Ibid.
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