Perhaps due to her young age, she may not be charged with attempted murder, but the intention to cause harm to others seems evident from the reports published in the papers.
Unacquainted with the details, the public speculates about the possible reasons for such extreme action, and some observations may be made on these speculations.
Context is important, and the immediate context of both the school environment and the family of the perpetrator will probably be looked into. The education system is inevitably competitive, and the position of Prefect is one which carries with it respect, and has high social status in the community at large. The title looks good on a Resume or C.V., and is a cultural shorthand to any prospective employer that this individual can be trusted to behave with a sense of responsibility, and integrity, and work as part of a team to offer leadership to their peers and younger students.
The contrast between this expectation and the actions of the student in this incident is striking. Was the position so highly valued, that the student felt that causing harm to her competitors for the role was justified? And if she had not been discovered, how would she have conducted herself subsequently, in interactions within a group of peers she had attempted to harm?
And within the perpetrator’s family of origin, what social, moral, cultural and religious values had been taught and instilled to this student? And what values had been embodied by her parents and other adults in her extended family?
We live in a world where people flaunt wealth, beauty, status and external signs of material success in a compulsive quest for recognition. This can take the form of trying to grab by any means valuable property that is not your own, or attempting to discredit your work competitors in order to clear the field for your promotion, or assassinating the character of someone you feel is taking too much social space, in a group you are part of.
Had this student been influenced by management thinking, which urges us to focus on our goals, and not be distracted by any other consideration? Had she been impressed by the values of dedication, focus and hustle and grind, and determination to keep our eyes on the prize, which are at the basis of so much motivational content on Instagram and Tik Tok?
Lacking in such training is the inclusion of the legal concept of foreseeability, which means that a person who has committed an act which causes harm is assessed, to see if they could reasonably be expected to understand that their actions would adversely impact others, or conceivably result in damage and harm to their community.
Understanding of Self must be balanced by awareness of the Other, in every religious training and doctrine that is valued in our society. An action such as this, imagined and put into effect, shows an imbalance in this equation, an assertion of Self which negates the Other, and which in fact seeks to erase the others, who are perceived only as rivals, and obstacles in the path of the individual’s quest for success. This imbalance calls for awareness and correction.
Counselling is indicated. But will it be offered, and successfully undertaken? These impulses to achieve and be recognised are natural, and understandable, especially as we are growing up: we want things to go our way, we are full of passionate intensity, rivalry and ambition. We measure ourselves against others. We feel jealousy, and envy, even if we do not admit it, out of pride. But learning to manage and regulate our emotions, particularly the destructive ones, is an essential part of our moral education.
Global society, fuelled by social media and the Internet, is flooded with materialistic and superficial values. A person’s worth and value seems to many of us to be defined by appearances and by numbers: a person’s physical appearance, their clothes, the size and location and interior decoration of their house, the amount of money they earn or have in the bank, the holidays they can have each year, the popular following they have on social media platforms, measured in Likes and Followers - and their titles: their educational titles and their job titles.
Jealousy and rivalry can lead us to erase and diminish the achievements of others. There was a fellow student at the University of Sydney who told me that when her Law results came out at the end of the year, and they were published on boards in the Main Quadrangle, someone had liquid papered out her results next to her name because they could not bear to see how well she had done.
Perhaps this incident in Sri Lanka - which has taken place in Primary School and amongst ten year olds - and the public disbelief and concern it has evoked, can help us re-evaluate the standards of conduct which we find unacceptable, and prompt us to remodel our ideas of what we as a community most highly value.
Critical thinking and self reflection and self evaluation could be taught in our schools, particularly for those students who apply for leadership positions. Ambition on its own, and even ambition allied with academic ability, are not enough to constitute a good Prefect. There needs to be awareness of the need to control our own feelings and wishes, and question their validity, rather than indulging them and justifying them.
What we learn in our formative years created the people we become as adults. The greater status we hold, and the more authority we are entrusted with, the more responsibility we have. And the more damage we can do.
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