Slow-motion massacre

Marioara Rostas’s death symbolises a society ravaged by drug-fuelled violence.

We can end the silence and make this a turning point, writes Dr Chris Luke

Let Marioara’s name become synonymous with drug-fuelled horror, if we must, but let it also become a rallying call for an end to our cruel complacency

The Irish Examiner editorial last Friday on the savage killing of young Marioara Rostas (“A shaming silence”) appeared — aptly — on the 44th anniversary of the My Lai massacre, a game-changing event in the Vietnam war.

The slaughter in 1968 of more than 500 Vietnamese villagers was perpetrated by (the ironically named) Charlie Company of the American 11th Infantry Brigade, and involved the gang rape, mutilation, and butchery of innocent men, women and children.

The slaughter was almost certainly fuelled by mass drug-taking by soldiers, although for 30 years, the extreme right and left argued over the “fundamental” causes (poor discipline, racism, draft-dodging by educated “officer-material” Americans, and undiluted imperialism comprised the more interesting hypotheses).

More immediately, there was a determined and effective cover-up by the military authorities, but eventually the truth did (partially) out and one military “baby-killer”, Second Lieutenant William Calley, was somewhat symbolically convicted of murder in 1971.

Tragically, analysis of the event was largely politicised but, to those like me who were teenagers in the 1970s, My Lai became a potent rallying call for those opposed to the grotesque conflict in South-East Asia.

I once wrote in these pages of the necessity of drink and drug intoxication in warfare, and its systematic use by cunning commanders to “galvanise” their troops for blood-letting.

Apropos of the almost banal horror of Marioara’s murder to which the aforementioned editorial refers, I would observe that “peace-time” intoxication with drink and drugs produces the same blood-thirsty and uncontrollable impulses as it does in wartime, without the prospect of restraint by highly trained officers.

Think Mexico’s cartel wars, of course; but think Ireland, too. What we have seen and read about over the past few years in this Republic, where homicide was once so rare, is, in my view, a kind of slow-motion My Lai massacre. The frequent slayings are no less gruesome or gratuitous than in Mexico or My Lai, and are similarly motivated.

In other words, the victims are killed as a consequence of uncontrollable rage and “momentary madness” (“he was out of his head on drink and drugs” goes the usual refrain, and it is often true).

Sadly, as someone who deals day in, day out, with the consequences of impulsive drug/drink-fuelled violence, I admit that one grows almost too weary to make the necessary fuss. But allow me to make a plea to readers.

Let Marioara’s name become synonymous with drug-fuelled horror, if we must, but let it also become a rallying call for an end to our cruel complacency.

The crucial elements in our epidemic of homicidal savagery are alcohol, benzodiazepines (sleeping tablets), cannabis (especially the genetically- modified, locally cultivated, hydroponic variety), and cocaine.

The death of Marioara — and everything it entailed — should shock us into mass protest, but it won’t.

My Lai didn’t provoke immediate outrage but its effects were enduring and ultimately cathartic. And perhaps it offers us a kind of hope in relation to the tragic young Roma. For her fate must be seen for what it is: a new and growing likelihood for all of us in these selfish times, and a real risk that highlights the desperate need for honesty in this country.

MLet us carefully identify and publicise the toxic ingredients in every homicide (call it “education” if you will). We know that alcohol is consumed in the majority, but it seems likely that up to 30% also involve the other drugs, often because of an effect that most doctors are unaware of “paradoxical excitation” — a demonic agitation that occurs in a small number of those consuming the otherwise “relaxing” drugs, cannabis and benzodiazepines.

And let us not be distracted by apologists or pedants: addiction is not at issue here, except insofar as it so often produces damaged and dangerous offspring. Nor is the fact that so many of us consume too much of one or more of these intoxicants, other than that itself is often a cause of indifference to the facts which present themselves in print every morning.

There is no such thing as a “war on drugs” that is “lost”, no more than there is a futile war on poverty, hunger, ignorance, or disease. These are the battles which humankind wages, in perpetuity, to stay humane.

They cannot be ignored, delegated or — as we seemed to have decided in Celtic Tiger times — deferred indefinitely. For Marioara’s sake, and for the sake of all of us, we must find the will to fight them, with facts and fortitude.

* Dr Chris Luke is a Consultant in Emergency Medicine at Mercy University Hospital, Cork