Dennie Quill, Contributor

The horror of Virginia Tech reverberated around the world this week with reactions pouring in from Buckingham Palace, Rome and every major world capital. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip are due to visit Virginia next month and Her Majesty said she was shocked and saddened to hear about the killings. Local newspapers recognised the significance of this story and made it their lead the day after the massacre of 32 students and faculty members.

In the face of this latest school tragedy it is understandable that we seek answers. What are the lessons from Virginia Tech? First, it will reignite the debate on gun laws and the existing gun culture in America. The fact that Cho Seung-Hui was a Korean immigrant is bound to add fuel to the already contentious immigration debate. Questions will also be raised about school security and warning systems. There are also some obvious questions about how to deal with mentally disturbed students.

The fact that public discourse has begun on these and other aspects of the tragedy are all good. I am hoping that we can begin a kind of self-examination to focus on the need to return to civility and compassion. Somehow I am hoping we can rekindle the compassion and humanity that reside in all us.

Cho was not a criminal. He was sick. He was depressed. He wrote weird prose. He was a loner. He made no eye contact. He started a dorm room fire. He stalked women on campus. A person who signs his emails by identifying himself with a question mark was obviously crying out for help. But no one heard. There are scores of persons with a fragile psyche like Cho walking around university campuses all over the world. Schools are increasingly complex social and cultural institutions. There is an urgent need for students to be on the frontline to observe the behaviour of their peers and to report anything that appears to be strange. The latest studies indicate that 46 per cent of college students in America have some mental issues, so there is much work to be done to ensure more effective counselling of these students.

Elsewhere we can think of many 'Chos' in our midst, they exist in various offices and workplaces. They are the ones we affectionately call 'maddy maddy'. But think again, many of these people need help.

Did anyone really care

Did anyone really care about Cho? Did his classmates ever try to figure out why this guy was so uncommunicative? His Creative Writing teacher cared enough to alert the authorities. Teachers have unique personal access into the minds of their students, and Professor Roy had this opportunity to get a glimpse into Cho's mind and she did not like what she saw.

But here's the rub, Federal restrictions made it difficult to deal effectively with his case. First, the Health Insurance Probability and Accounting Act, the medical privacy law, prohibits the university from sharing critical information about a student even with his own parents and familymembers.

In a recently publicised case, Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, came under fire after a 20-year-old student confided in counsellors about his state of psychological desperation, and then went on to commit suicide. The parents sued, saying they might have helped prevent his death had they been told about the warning signs, but the college prevailed: the Federal rules did not authorise it to contact the family until matters had reached an "emergency". Of course, the college won the lawsuit.

Leo Tolstoy said a long time ago, "Every unhappy family is unique in its misery." Something happened in Cho's past, something horrible that created a warped mind. I am thinking that if Cho's family, including his sister, who is a Princeton graduate, had been informed about the fragile state of his mental health they might have sought help for him.

The fact that he was ill does not diminish the horror of his actions. But I don't think Cho's chilling behaviour should be dismissed as the mere work of a psychopath, the events of Virginia should inspire Americans and people of goodwill everywhere to work towards finding solutions to make such tragedies less frequent and less deadly.

There is no easy formula but we could begin by watching our words to each other. Words can hurt but they also have the power to heal. Words can cause injury, but they can also inspire us to great things.