Calgary, February 2020
The Wikipedia definition of bullying is: “The use of force, coercion or threat, to abuse, aggressively dominate or intimidate. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception (by the bully or by others) of an imbalance of physical or social power. This imbalance distinguishes bullying from conflict. Bullying is a subcategory of aggressive behavior characterized by the following three minimum criteria: (1) hostile intent, (2) imbalance of power, and (3) repetition over a period of time. Bullying is the activity of repeated, aggressive behavior intended to hurt another individual, physically, mentally, or emotionally.”
These days there is a lot of discussion about bullying and how to prevent it. Newspapers and other media present examples of bullying and the harm it causes, mostly at schools and on the Internet. The general consensus is that bullying has to be stopped. One would think that we are trying to build a tolerant society where the opinions of others will be respected and discussed in a calm, civilised manner. I wish it could be true.
I experienced extreme bullying when I was a child in a small town in Moravia, close to the Polish border. I still remember my first day of school. My mom talked to the teacher and I said a few words to the kid closest to me, and within minutes we started to fight. There was no reason for it. As the days went by, the children from my class ganged up on me and tried to beat me every day on the way home. I could not understand it. I was not an aggressive kid and presented no threat to anyone. Only much later, when I was already an adult, my father explained to me the reason: I had an accent.
I was born in a town near Prague, where everybody, including my parents, spoke with a clear Prague accent. When we moved to Moravia, our pronunciation indicated right away that we were not locals, and nobody likes foreigners. My father told me what happened to him shortly after we moved there. He was walking with my mom and they were having a conversation, when a man approached them and yelled that they should go home, that they want no foreigners in their town.
The truth is that during this time, the early 50s, violence was celebrated. The only thing the movies were showing was how the heroic Soviet soldiers were killing the bad Germans. To say something good about Americans or something bad about Russians was risking jail. Newspapers were writing about the liquidation of the bourgeoisie but did not explain how they will liquidate them.
Those were bad times and judging from the current official attitude towards bullying, the situation should be much better by now. Well, is it? Do we have a tolerant society where the opinions of others are respected and discussed in a calm, civilised manner? On the local level, here in Calgary, saying anything good about Justin Trudeau would not risk jail, but would guarantee an avalanche of insults and threats. Can we here in Calgary, calmly and without emotion, discuss the initiatives of our Prime Minister? I do not think so.
On the international level, the official racist policy against non-whites and especially against Muslims, promoted by the current President of USA, is unpleasantly similar to the German antisemitism of the 1930's. During the Weimar Republic, there were not official laws against Jews yet, but antisemitism was strong. Apart from the traditional religious racism, Jews were blamed for losing WWI. In the United States, the winning presidential candidate for the 2016 election, Trump, called Mexicans “rapists and drug dealers.” Now, in 2020, a U.S. travel ban prohibits the citizens of most Muslim countries to travel to the United States. The movies produced in USA show heroic U.S. soldiers killing Muslim terrorists. It never shows the local population resisting the foreign occupation. Is the USA following the German example of the 1930’s? I do not know, but it is not out of the question.
The United States is not the only country following the path of intolerance. Russia’s president Putin is maintaining his popularity by the policy of open nationalism. Despite declining household incomes, rising prices, the viral videos showing the luxury in which senior officials live, after annexing Crimea to Russia and supporting hostilities in Ukraine, Putin’s popularity spiked to approximately 80 percent support, unthinkable for a democratic politician. There is no alternative to Putin, Russia’s strongman. Brexit is another example of nationalism defeating the economic interests. Boris Jonson presents himself as a new king who will restore the British Empire. In Europe, the rising popularity of the far-right Fascist parties is another sign of our times. The nationalistic sentiments promoted by populist politicians are gaining strength. Are we heading back to the times when those policies caused so much suffering? It looks that way.
Going back to bullying. We teach our children not to do it, but who is teaching our politicians? Will they be allowed to bully us into self-distraction? So far nobody seems to be able to stop them.