Imagine yourself in physical or mortal danger. If you don’t do something to protect yourself, serious harm or death will befall you or your family.

How far would you go to protect yourself? What would you do? I’d do anything to save my family, you’re  thinking. I would kill to save my son. I would do whatever it took. No questions asked.

Would you lie? Cheat? Steal? Would you defend yourself physically, even if it meant the harm or death of your attacker?

What if your attacker were your own child? Would you kill your own child to protect yourself, if your child were trying to kill you?

Seems a little far-fetched, even to me, that this would happen. I mean really, what child would try to kill its mother? And what parent would, in turn, place more value on her own life than their child’s, and actually kill that child to save their own soul? I can’t imagine that ever happening.

Unfortunately, I don’t have to imagine it happening. Reality has supplied us with this exact scenario in Calgary, Alberta, where Aset Magomadova, a refugee from Chechnya, stands accused of killing her fourteen-year-old daughter Aminat by ligature strangulation [link] in what she calls self-defense.

[link] Toronto Star article
[link] Global News, Calgary

According to the media, the fourteen-year-old girl had a history of drug abuse and regularly took crystal meth, which is known to cause erratic, violent behaviour in users [link], as well as mood swings and unpredictability. The articles go on to say that the police had been called to the home five times in the last five months, by the mother, who feared for her safety and that of her young son, who has muscular dystrophy. Aminat was often brought home by police, high, after violent fights with her mother.

This family obviously had a lot of problems, but despite repeated visits from police for domestic disturbance, no authorities were ever brought in to assist the family, despite Aset’s desire for intervention. She felt she could no longer control her daughter, and with the help of her sister, attempted to convey this fear to the police. She even stayed in a battered women’s shelter for a few days, less than a month ago.

Nobody ever referred her to the appropriate social services, such as the Calgary and Area Child and Family Services, or the Domestic Dispute and Cultural Resources units of the Calgary Police. This family could have been helped. This girl could have been saved.

How did Calgary fail this struggling family after it survived refugee untold horrors at the hands of Russian soldiers? Who knows the horror in that girl’s mind after living through what we can only imagine in our worst nightmares. It’s no wonder she turned to drugs to alleviate the damage done by terror. But it all went horribly wrong.

Now, the girl’s mother is in jail, charged with second-degree murder, and her wheelchair-bound son is in foster care. It breaks my heart. However, I am torn.

I’m trying to put myself in this woman’s shoes. I imagine that Gwen Junior is older, the same size as me, and prone to violent drug-induced rage. I imagine that she beat me. I imagine that she smashes furniture, breaks windows, and runs away constantly, only to be brought home by police time after time. I imagine her coming at me with her fists or with a weapon, hatred and rage in her eyes, intent on causing me physical boldily harm. What would I do? Would I allow her to hurt me? Would I try to protect myself without causing her pain, if it were at all possible? Or, with my backagainst a wall, would I fight back?

The thought haunts me. What would be more powerful: maternal instinct or fight-or-flight response?

* Article originally written in March 2007