From now on, every Sept. 1 our thoughts will turn to Beslan and those children all dressed up for the first day of school. The ominous thought occurs that not just the children but Sept. 1 itself was taken hostage in Beslan last year. Just the day before, a suicide bomber had killed 10 people outside the Rizhskaya metro station in northern Moscow. And one week earlier, suicide bombers blew up two passenger jets, claiming 90 lives. But the seizure of School No. 1 sums up all these events.

This is what we get for constantly saying that children are our future and nothing could be more precious. Children live in the same country as the rest of us. And human life in this particular country has never counted for much, and it still does not. There’s no point pretending otherwise.

Any hostage is helpless, frightened and hopes to be rescued. Especially children. There’s a school of thought that says you do not negotiate with terrorists. There’s another school of thought that you should engage them in political games and cunning ploys. But all of this goes out the window when children are involved because their safety outweighs all other concerns. When you think of what they endured in that gym — their fear, hunger, thirst, horror and humiliation — nothing else matters.

The children were not protected, and they were not rescued.

The seven sailors aboard the Priz mini-submarine were rescued, thank God. But think of the other tragedies that lacked a happy outcome: the Nord Ost hostage-taking, the sinking of the Kursk submarine. It is as if the authorities wield arbitrary powers of life and death, allocating quotas for people to be saved.

As we remember Beslan, there is good reason to subject the calculations of the authorities to criticism, even contempt. But if we do nothing more than let off a little steam, we will be letting ourselves off lightly.

Does anyone really count on this government when push comes to shove? The answer is no. We count on our friends, on dumb luck, on fate, when you get right down to it.

A lot of people felt a strong urge to do something after Beslan: to give blood, or at least to donate money. But life goes on and the urge recedes. A year has passed. It may be painful to watch footage of those terrible days, to look at the faces of the mourners, who buried a part of themselves along with the loved ones who died in the hostage-taking. But that pain will subside, and we will take this agitation of the soul for genuine emotion.

The anniversary of Beslan and our response to it is like a mirror held up to our soul that reveals us to be pain-proof.

We’ve gotten used to it. And that means we’re ready to reconcile ourselves to whatever hits us.

The events of last year, and particularly Beslan, were clearly directed at us, but we turn away. We do not want to change anything. We consent to the lie. We have not even learned the most obvious lesson: These are our children and our responsibility. We do not heed the warnings. What kind of people do not protect their children and do not rescue them at any cost? What kind of nation still does not want to know the truth a year later?

Anyone can see that human life is the primary reason for the existence of the state and society, their eternal and indisputable goal. Anyone can sense the fragility of the person next to him. And without recognizing these basic truths the state does not possess strength, prestige or ideology.

And no goal, no matter how well formulated, can be achieved.

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The adress at MT: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/09/05/006.html