As its gone viral, many people have heard about the recent incident that took place at the Cincinnati Zoo. It involved a young boy, three-years-old, who slipped in between the bars of the Gorillas' cage. It involved Harambe, the gorilla who remained in the cage, to treat the boy like his own, while honoring what seemed like the protection of a child, but also rough housing by Harambe not being aware of how fragile the child was. It then involved panic among the boy's mother and other bystanders as they watched the scene from above. And it finally involved abrupt action among the zookeepers, who felt they had no choice but to shoot Harambe and take his life.
Two videos were released following the news report on the incident. One video portrays Harambe acting gentle towards the boy, as if it were his own son. However, the mother and the onlookers are still terrified at how close the gorilla is to the boy, and the mother urges her son to stay calm in a steady voice. The next video, however, which CNN released, shows more footage that was captured. This includes the boy being whipped from one end of the water in the moat to the other, and then to a location which is out of sight. It provides a whole different perception of Harambe and his intentions.
Due to these two videos, people have chosen to formulate their own opinions and determine whose at fault. Many say it is the zookeepers, as people believe they should have tranquilized the gorilla instead of shooting him. Many then say it is the Cincinnati zoo itself, as the zoo should not have built a cage in which a child would be able to squeeze through. Several others blame it on the mother, saying that if she was watching her child, the incident wouldn't have happened in the first place, and an endangered species life would not have been lost to human error. Those in opposition to this then blame Harambe himself, they believe that man is greater than beast and that Harambe's actions with the boy led him to his death.
Either way, the story can be taken into consideration in many different ways and people will formulate their own opinions on this, but the point isn't that. The point is that people are trying to register something and place the blame on one person or thing, to an incident that occurred in which they weren't even apart of.
People who were not at the Cinniciati zoo do not know the emotional terror that this mother was going through at the time, as she feared the life of her son. And they do not know the circumstance that caused her to look away for 2-3 seconds, as her child escaped into the gorillas' cage. People also do not know the panic the zoo keepers felt as they tried to decide with not much time, what the right thing was to do. People also do not know Harambe’s intentions, and unfortunately, that is something we’ll never know. Harambe could have been only taking care of the young boy, but the boy could have also been in severe danger.
Frankly, no one knows exactly what these people went through. So to place the blame on one specific person or group is absurd, as we ourselves like to know what we’d do in that situation, but actually do not know if it spontaneously happened to us as well.
So for that reason, no one deserves to be criticized or to have crude comments terrorizing them over social media for what happened that day. It is not one person’s fault, if anything it can be considered everyone’s. Each person directly involved can each take some blame for what happened, as I’m sure they all have. And they do not deserve any more punishment than this.
It can be said that life is full of surprises, and this incident was indefinitely a traumatic surprise at that. It was one that made news, went viral, and shocked us all. It was one that involved a lot of people, a lot of people who were genuinely trying to do the right thing.
R.I.P. Harambe <3
