ダブリンシティ大学教授の事件をめぐる意見記事：アイルランドの長引く国内不況が若者を海外に押し出す。世界中に散らばるだけに、それだけ危険が伴う。こうした優秀で活動的な若者がアイルランドに必要なだけに、今回の殺人事件は家族や地域住民の損失ばかりではなく、国にとっての大きな損失だと結論付けている。
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Nicola Furlong: Tragic death reminds us of our country's great loss
Young Irish people who go abroad, whether to study or to seek work, run extra risks, writes Colum Kenny
By Dr Colum Kenny is Professor of Communications at DCU
Sunday June 03 2012
IT IS every parent’s nightmare. Their daughter or son goes abroad and meets an evil end. The death in Japan last week of 21-year-old DCU student Nicola Furlong was untimely and unpleasant.
Not that the sudden death of any young person is easy to take. The loss of UCC student Niamh McCarthy in a sand dune accident in Kerry last week was awful too.
But young people abroad run extra risks. They do not know the ropes, and many of them have no network of family and friends around them.
Some are leaving Ireland on exchange programmes, and some in search of work. Often a student’s visit turns into a longer stay, either by choice or by necessity. But in any case, Irish young people abroad
are strangers in a different culture.
Was it chance, evil design or attraction that brought together two DCU students and two Americans in Japan? Whatever the reason, the outcome has been a disaster for all involved.
The four met at a concert by American rapper Nicki Minaj. One of the men, a musician, is reportedly younger than the two Irish students and has not been named by police.
The other is 23-year-old James Blackston.
Blackston has danced with Jennifer Lopez and the Black Eyed Peas. He is said to come from South Central in Los Angeles. I have never been there. But a few years ago I drove from outside Los Angeles to LAX, the city’s main airport, and people warned me not to take the prior exit to South Central. That is the kind of reputation it has.
A video on the internet is said to show Blackston dancing on a Japanese commuter train. The ‘wilding out’ performance that features in it is both aggressive and intimidating. Blackston is reported to have been on tour in Japan as a back-up dancer.
Both Americans are now in police custody, and rumours of what led to the death of Nicola in a fancy Tokyo hotel abound.
If it transpires that drugs or date-rape substances were involved in her death and in any assault of her Irish friend, then few people will be surprised.
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