When spam conjures bad memories

Monday morning and my inbox is full to the brim again. It’s really an every day occurrence, but Mondays are more indicative of people’s dip in mood. It’s the “oh crap I’ve had a tremendous weekend, but now it’s all over, I have to be at work and if anyone says the word Vodka I’m going to die” attitude and they sit there, forwarding spam and chain letters out of sheer vengeance.

Spam is a real pain in the rectum. The ones that kill me are the ones about enlargement and enhancement and then there are the ones that instil shock all over again.

The ones that remind you what a scary place the world sometimes is. How sometimes we take for granted how easily some of us integrate in our society and live up to its stipulated guidelines and how some others struggle or even break this conventions in such a dismal; manner that leaves a whole nation reeling in horror.

Recently one of my spam emails caught my eye. It was a petition regarding Jamie Bulger’s horrific murder back in 1993. Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, the two 10 year old boys who had tortured and killed the then 2 year old toddler are now 25 years old and have been set free under new identities for a year now. The U.K. government spent £13,000 to safeguard the two young men’s identities as imposed by the High Court in January 2001 to protect them from revenge attacks. They were granted an open-ended High Court injunction protecting their anonymity.

Quite obviously there are some who believe that the time served by the offenders was not quite enough and are still calling out to anyone and everyone, who has been and still are in shock, following the horrible murder.

It does make you think. What is right and what is wrong? Have these boys really been rehabilitated or not? Have they repented for what they did? Will they be a threat to society again? One person was quoted as saying “If they committed this crime when they were only 10 years old let alone what they could be capable of doing when they are released as adults.”

It’s obviously very hard to trust that two people responsible for such a lewd and evil act, can be re integrated into society and I guess it’s even harder for those who have been affected directly by this tragedy, to come to terms with the fact that these two boys are being given a second chance to live a life under new identities, when they themselves took away Bulger’s life!

Venables and Thompson had turbulent childhoods, which can’t have contributed to a sane frame of mind at any point of their tender lives. Everyday the young boys went back to a ‘home’ (if one can even call it that)…full of violence, psychological dysfunction and pain.

Venables' parents were separated. His brother and sister had educational problems and attended special schools, while his mother suffered psychiatric problems. Following his parents' separation, Venables became isolated and an attention-seeker. At school, he banged his head on walls. No effort was made to find the cause of his distress.

Thompson was one of the youngest of seven boys. His mother, a lone parent, was an alcoholic. His father, who left home when Thompson was five, was a drinker who beat and sexually abused his wife and children. Despite his quiet and friendly manner, Thompson came from a home in which it was normal for the older children to attack the younger ones, and Thompson was invariably on the receiving end.

The pain these children endured must have been unbearable and so much to live with at such a young age. At an age where, your parents are your everything, friends play an important role and you are starting to learn about yourself and who you are. It’s already confusing enough to go through that and start gearing up towards puberty, let alone to deal with survival of the fittest in your own home!

I’m not excusing their actions, but what I am is confused. Confused as to how a society is meant to deal with two ‘murderers’ returning amidst them, confused as to how a courtroom is to pass judgement now that the years in prison have been served, confused as to whether I should feel sorry for these two humans or if I should feel sorrow for a mother who will never see her son grow, graduate, follow his dream, have a family, because someone stripped him from a beautiful life that he could have lived. I welcome you to send in your comments.