The Sadness Of Juan Manuel Morales

What drives a young man of 21 to want to plant bombs at a university? Answers to this question will be sought during the process of trying to comprehend what is in the mind of Juan Manuel Morales Sierra.

Juan Manuel will come to occupy a very minor place in history of those who sought to wreak carnage but failed. Repeatedly described as "sad" (in the sympathetic sense of the word) by the Spanish press, Juan Manuel's greatest sadness, one would have to suppose, is that he was caught before he could carry out his plan. Now that the plan has been thwarted, explanations will be required, Juan Manuel's personality dissected and society subjected to its own inquisition - what is it about Mallorca or Spain that could have given rise to Juan Manuel?

This latter question should probably be answered swiftly as there seems nothing to suggest that Juan Manuel's motives were related to anything specific to do with local society. Nevertheless, the questions will still be asked, and one might be about how society has changed to the extent that there can be a youth as disaffected as Juan Manuel. The soul-searching would be unnecessary though; Juan Manuel is a product of twenty-first century, alienated youth, regardless of where he is from.

The picture that emerges of Juan Manuel is of a young man with no friends (and probably little wish to have friends) and with a difficult family background. In February he and his parents went before a judge, the parents declaring that he had insulted them for not being of perfect Aryan stock (in itself weird) and he accusing his father of physical abuse. The relationship with his parents had deteriorated over time as they confronted him over his appearance and his lack of a job. His father claimed before the judge that he had to protect his wife from aggression by Juan Manuel. (The case was archived and no action was taken.)

In ramblings on his blog, Juan Manuel was resentful towards his parents for not having money. This resentment was turned against those who did and those who also had more opportunity. He was a student at the polytechnic institute, taking a course at FPII level, Formación Profesional, which is vocational education and gives a qualification that is not highly regarded. The targets for his bomb plot were degree students. On his blog he referred to "sluts ... screaming in a library" and to "spoilt" kids getting 50 euros a week from their parents who laugh at you (him) and call you (him) a sucker.

It was this resentment, against his parents and against his peers, that appears to have been his main motivation; university students had the opportunities and money denied to him. But this resentment has to have causes that go further back. How did he become so disconnected? Why was he such a loner with an almighty chip on his shoulder? The analysts will be having a field day.

One thing the analysts will pore over is the way that Juan Manuel found reinforcement for his resentment or the inspiration to become resentful. His world was shaped by various obsessions: with Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold who carried out the Columbine massacre, which he wished to emulate, and who were outcasts like Juan Manuel; with Nazism and Hitler; with certain music, for example Nirvana and Kurt Cobain (who, like Harris, Klebold and Hitler, committed suicide).

It is said that Juan Manuel was planning to carry out his attack on the university on 20 April next year, the date of the Columbine massacre and of Hitler's birth. But there is a conflict in this as a telephone call he made to suppliers of chemicals he wanted to use to make explosives was listened into by police. It suggested that he needed the chemicals urgently and that they hadn't been delivered as soon as he had expected. Perhaps Juan Manuel's resentment had grown so much he couldn't wait until April.

The urgency that this telephone call stressed indicates that he probably was serious about his plan. Whether it would have been anything other than a spectacular failure however we will not now know, but the deaths at Columbine were not from bombs - they mostly failed to detonate - but from gun shots. Juan Manuel had been denied a shotgun licence a month or so ago. Unlike Harris and Klebold who were friends and who had two friends who supplied them with guns, Juan Manuel appears to have had no one. Unless he had worked out a different way of obtaining firearms, he wouldn't have been able to emulate Columbine and he wouldn't have been able to shoot himself dead, as Harris and Klebold did.

Juan Manuel is a sad boy. Sad and pathetic. He had developed a bizarrely incoherent world view in which even his admiration for Nazism and extreme right-wing philosophy seemed to have no context (unlike Anders Breivik) other than nihilism. He idolised Harris and Klebold because he had discovered soul mates, boys who were also outcasts, and he wanted to be like them because to be like them would mean being someone. But Juan Manuel isn't someone. This is the real sadness.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.