Beyond the Logic of Emblemization: Remembering and Learning from the Montréal Massacre

Abstract

Fifteen years ago, fourteen women were murdered at l’Ecole polytechnique (the School of Engineering) at the University of Montreal in Quebec, Canada. For those who lived in proximity to these murders, the details do not need to be recalled (for it is likely that they never left us). For others, this recollection alone will be insufficient to the substance of memory. So, in brief: in the early evening of December 6,1989, Marc Lepine, a twenty-five-year-old white man, entered a university building in the city of Montréal, armed with a semiautomatic rifle. He walked into a fourth year Mechanical Engineering class of some 60 students, ordered the men to leave—which they all did—and shot the remaining six women to death, screaming the accusation that they were a “bunch of feminists” (Rathjen and Monpetit, 1999, 10). He then walked through hallways and entered other classrooms, murdering eight more women and injuring thirteen others (nine women and four men, men who were shot presumably because they attempted to impede his rampage).Then, he killed himself. In the three-page note found on his body, but not released into public circulation for a year, he described the murders as a political act and blamed feminism for ruining his life.¹ These murders received widespread public attention across Canada. From grocery store lineups, to public memorial services, to campus classrooms, much was spoken and written about the killings and their significance, bringing to the fore debates about issues of violence against women in a manner that was unprecedented.