Beyond
Wild Justice has been one of the most interesting
projects I’ve worked on. For me, as a 16 year old
teenager, these kind of things used to happen all the
time but I’d never seen such a tragic end. That was
why I decided to participate in this project- to feel
and try to figure out the
situation Dawn-Marie Westley was involved in and how a
chain of links could finish that way.
“A
chain of links”- that was my first point of view
when beginning the study. Chain’s links are the
different steps an individual has to walk
through, to arrive to a tragic ending. Maybe in this
initial situation between two schoolmates (a
bully-bullied situation) there was a clear solution
called forgiveness. But I understand that
inside a hurt soul it’s difficult to find
forgiveness. So I think that was what why as time
passed, both
sides of this situation found it even harder to work
the problem out. Perhaps Dawn-Marie Westley was too
scared to tell anyone about her trouble.
As
I was working on the different project assignments I
felt like I really
had been there when all this happened. In the
beginning I felt
like an intruder, but now I feel I was there because I
did work on this project with all my soul, head and
heart. That’s
why I think the most difficult part of the project
wasn’t any of
the assignments but the fact that I had to let myself
be involved in
the whole situation by thinking and analyzing each one
of my thoughts
once and then twice again, just to be sure of what I really
felt.
The
most interesting part of the project was “The Quilt
of Forgiveness”
assignment because I had to do research- looking for
images in newspapers, and placing them in right order
into a big piece of paper just to let people feel what
I felt when I did the quilt.
When
I did all the assignments, and then
went back in my mind to
a few weeks ago when I started working in the project,
I realized some part
of my thoughts had changed about how hard and serious
verbal aggression can be.
Considering
and being aware of what I’ve been investigating, I
think the bullies
may not have been conscious of what would happen when
they first threatened
Dawn-Marie Westley. But on the other hand, I think
both responsible
were old enough to know what they were doing, maybe
without knowing how far they’d gone. So after
thinking about it, I think they should
be sentenced to some kind of psychological treatment.
Perhaps
they have already
been sentenced by themselves... by feeling guilt for
what they
have done.
Sincerely:
Gonzalo
Mendozo, Argentina
SCENES
FROM ARGENTINA
USED
WITH PERMISSION
