On November 8, CORRUPT officially announced its controversial campaign High School Shootings: Our Society Fails Bright Kids. In combination with the created Facebook group Jokela Highschool Shooting Sympathizers that supported the ideas of Pekka-Eric Auvinen and confirmed his analysis of modern society, there was bound to be media attention.

Statement from our Editor

Shortly after the creation of the group, the membercount quickly passed the 40 mark and journalists from all over the world began to contact CORRUPT officials. This resulted in many articles and interviews being published in one of the largest news channels in countries such as France, Italy, Finland and Sweden. Editor Alex Birch comments that "the storm is not over yet - we have more interviews ahead and the news media keeps writing about the topic."

Even though the campaign and the Facebook group clearly did not condone nor support the shootings, many people felt it was "wrong" not to condemn what happened. Birch adds: "CORRUPT was possibly the only media channel that took a middle position in the Jokela shootings. This was clearly an unnecessary incident that will feed the mass media for a couple of days, until people forget death is real and fall into the same comfort patterns of modern existence.

"Auvinen cannot be understood in the way that the public media describes him as: a lunatic, an idiot, a nerd looking for fame, or any other straw man epithet. This young man had realized most of the internal mechanisms behind our rotten society: the illusion of freedom to keep the masses in check, the powerful financial interests that rule us, the blind hypocricy in modern humanism and the passivity that ends in aggression for people without direction.

"I believe it's redundant to turn this into a binary contest about who's "moral" and who's not. Clearly we need to get over our pretense and face the facts: this is not an isolated situation. We breed people like Auvinen every day and although most may not be as insightful as this person actually was, the result is equally devastating. We speak about sympathy and tragedy to feel good about ourselves and our "safe" opinions, but when trying to understand what really happened, we directly assume the guy was nuts and write it off as some random idiot who shot innocent victims.

"No one who supports this society is innocent. We let this continue because we are too dysfunctional, too neurotic, too afraid to face reality. Auvinen was surely driven out of desperation but his primary motives were purely philosophical, political and existential. Unlike other medias, we don't believe we have the right to condemn his actions. Every individual who realizes we're heading in the wrong direction, will either fight back or give up. Auvinen chose to fight back and although his fight was a short-lived one that no one benefited from, the consequences of his actions remain a legacy of awakening: change your life now or kill all that is beautiful."

Interviews and articles

We have, with the help of staff members, been able to translate some of the foreign media coverage into English, for international reading pleasure. Some of which are obviously biased, others who leave out sensitive information. We choose to expose the truth in a larger context, because we believe what happened in Jokela is a universal message to all of the Western societies: you reap what you sow.

Swede started support group for the mass murderer

On the popular friend site Facebook, there is since less than a day ago a page for those who sympathise with the 18-year-old student who murdered eight pupils and teachers at a school in Finland yesterday. Behind the network group is a Swede. "We choose neither to praise nor to condemn the shootings," he writes in a mail answer to DN.se.

The Facebook group "Jokela Highschool Shooting Sympathizers" had 42 members at about 7.30 pm.

The first post was published at 2.40 am on Thursday morning Swedish time. Many of those who comment are critical to the murders, while others give their support to the 18-year-old.

"We support the highschool shooter Pekka-Eric Auvinen because he smashed the illusion that most people live in. The illusion that our society consists of morality, progression, and that it moves towards a positive goal. In reality, we live in an illusion, we do so for our own selfish chase for status," writes one of those who published on the site.

Many blame what happened on society and think that the 18-year-old only tried to "awaken a world asleep."

Another one writes:
"We stand by our words: Pekka-Eric Auvinen should not be condemned - it's democratic society that should be condemned."

Others, however, condemn the murders and state that the 18-year-old "made many sad" and ruined the lives of many people. One of them calls the 18-year-old a "loser who tried to make himself famous."

The video that the 18-year-old published at YouTube and that was removed by the site yesterday is now available at Facebook.

DN.se asked the Swede Alex Birch, who is behind the support group at Facebook, why he chose to start the group. Birch referred to the manifesto which the 18-year-old published on the internet before he carried through with his mass murder: "We understood his actions as a revolt against the modern societal system and therefore we decided to start a group that supported this particular aspect of the motivations behind the shootings in Jekola," Birch answered.

Birch says he decided to start the group shortly after he and a few others had read about the occurrence. He calls what has happened an "incident" and thinks that this is just the beginning of something which we will see more of.

What do you hope to achieve with the Facebook group?

Alex Birch: We hope to create a more balanced debate in public media about incidents like the one in Jokela. Pekka-Eric was unique, but his situation was not; every day we read about increasing depressions, more violence, and growing cultural clashes among youngsters. Our modern society is on the verge of a breakdown and we think that the occurrence in Finland is only a foretaste of what we will experience in the future.

How do you view the shootings? Can they be defended?

Alex Birch: We choose neither to praise nor to condemn the shootings, despite that most big media so far have condemned the occurrence. The shootings point to a common factor which effectively reveals an uncomfortable reality to the common man: we have failed with our "free" society and the reason for that is that it lacks leadership and direction. We live for nothing.
/.../
The shootings can neither be praised nor condemned; they can, however, be understood, and we must do that in the context that Pekka-Eric himself referred to. Pekka-Eric is the product of our society and if we find these murders horrid, it is because the foundation of our societal system is rotten from inside.

Alex Birch also claims that the 18-year-old "knew what he was doing" when he carried through with the mass murder despite that no one so far can say what actually triggered the occurrence [Wrong; he wrote an entire manifesto, which, although fragmented and somewhat confused, points to certain motives that this columnist intentionally tries to tone down - A. Birch].

Clas Svahn

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The gun man hailed at Facebook

Pekka-Eric Auvinen is hailed by a Facebook group, where there are several Norwegian members.

JOKELA/OSLO (Nettavisen): "We (humanity) are like cancer and must be depopulated." This is how a group of sympathizers of Pekka-Eric Auvinen express themselves on Facebook.

Norwegian members

In less than a day past the shootings by the 18 year old — killing six, excluding the school nurse and principal, the sympathy group has already gotten 20 members on Facebook — including two Norwegians. When this article was published on Friday morning, the number of members had decreased to 5 [This is indirectly false; Facebook shut our group down - twice! Hence no actual decrease in the sense that people left it, as the columnist seems to suggest - A. Birch].

The group does not support the massacre in-itself, but do neither distance themselves from the use of violence.

"There were many industrial quarters who would be far better targets," the group says on Facebook.

Nettavisen spoke thursday afternoon with one of the two Norwegians who had joined the group but have now left it. The person claims he's a member of the group Corrupt.

- On the behalf of the group I have the following statement. When it comes to why I chose to join the group, my view is the same as in the statement below, the person writes in an email. Included follows a tribute-text to the murderer Auvinen.

"We support the school shooter Pekka-Eric Auvinen because he shattered the illusion in which most people live. The illusion is that our society is moral, progressive and moving toward a positive goal," it says among other things in the text that moreover is published in its entirety at blog.

The other person was not available by phone.

- We sympathize with Pekka

It is uncertain wether all the members are aware of what they've done when joining this group. Some have mistaken Pekka-Eric Auvinen's "fan club" for one of the many remorse groups that are also found on the Internet.

But this is very far from a group supporting the victims of the high school massacre.

The sympathy group support Pekka-Eric Auvinen's idea of reducing the human population on Earth.

"While we ponder on the killings of the students (there were many industrial quarters who would be far better targets), we do sympathize with the 18 year old Pekka-Eric Auvinen and his belief and opinion as a just reaction to the terrible things that are happening in the modern society," the group says.

Dramatic change

Friends of the 18 year old tell Nettavisen that Pekka-Eric Auvinen went through dramatic changes some time before the massacre.

Six months ago he was a Communist and read Nietzsche (German philosopher/red.) Then he suddenly started worshipping Hitler like a true extremist [One is not an "extremist" if one believes in extreme Marxism? Got to love political correctness! A. Birch].

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On Facebook, a support group for the Finnish killer

A bad taste initiative. A Facebook user, Mathew Eugene, has created on the social network Facebook a group of "Jokela Highschool Shooting Sympathizers", referring to the Finland shooting which has caused eight deaths Wednesday. The contact e-mail redirects towards a so-called Alex Birch who claims to be based in Texas. The group, composed of 24 members on Thursday at 2 PM, redirects towards the websites "anus.com" which presents itself as an american nihilist address, and "corrupt.org", a political site which among others promotes the ideas of Theodore Kaczynski, author of a bloody bombings campaign in the United States in the 80's ("Unabomber"). A man that the Finnish killer also admired.

Reproducing the bloody confession of the young Finnish published on Youtube, the group indicates that it "sympathizes with Pekka-Eric Auvinen because his beliefs and actions are honest and constitute a sane reaction to the horrors of modern society". Like him, the creator of the group on Facebook thinks that humanity is "a cancer on the planet which size must be reduced".

"Whether you like his actions or not, Pekka-Eric Auvinen will inspire many people who prefer to fight and die rather than living a long unhappy life. We consider this point of view admirable in these despotic times of unbelievable corruption and destruction", concludes the text.

The group however doesn't win the sympathy of all the surfers. Several react negatively in their public discussion space. "If you want to fight, do it without hurting anyone", tells them one of them. "Do it with dignity !"

A. Sulzer

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Pekka chose his victims

With fellow students as terrified witnesses, Pekka-Eric executed the school principal.

With 500 bullets Pekka-Eric Auvinen entered Jokela school, Wednesday, just before noon. At 11:44 he fired the first of what would become 70 bullets. 20 minutes later, six fellow students were shot dead, excluding the school nurse and principal.

- Straight executions

All where shot in close range, with multiple shots to head and chest.

Aftonbladet.se wrote Saturday that Pekka-Eric Auvinen didn't fire at random, but chose his victims.

- These were practically straight executions, a police source says to the Swedish newspaper.

Witnesses to principal murder

A group of ninth-graders became witnesses to the killing of the school principal, Helena Kalmi.

From the windows of the classroom they sheltered in, they saw the principal first fleeing from Pekka-Eric Auvinen. Later, she returned — probably to talk some sense into the 18 year old killer. It cost her her life.

Right in front of their terrified eyes, Pekka-Eric forced the principal down on her knees and shot her in the neck.

The massacre was too small

Before the massacre, Pekka-Eric Auvinen postet a series of videos on Youtube, hailing mass-murderers such as Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler. There he wrote he believed in natural selection, and that humanity was worthless.

Pekka-Eric Auvinen was inspired by the Finnish eco-philosopher Pennti Linkola, who has very radical opinions on how the population should be reduced to save the environment.

After the horrible bloodshed at Jokela school, he offered this eyebrow raising comment to the Finnish newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet:

- The massacre was too small. In the long run it doesn't help shooting some fellow students. What is needed is a larger movement to reduce the population.

Ida Johansson

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