COMMENT | Building resilience among youth to overcome bullying

COMMENT | When I was seven years old and in standard one, there was a boy in my class who was loud and boisterous.

I don’t have a problem with people like that, except that this particular person was also quite a bully. He liked ordering people around and sometimes punching them as well. I was one of his victims and so I told my parents about him.

My parents are the kind who don’t get involved with their children’s lives in the sense that they were not going to confront the boy’s parents or report to the teachers that I was bullied. They wanted me to handle it myself.

Of course, if the situation was worse, they would get involved, but not if it is just simple everyday bullying. So, my parents told me to stand up for myself and show the boy that he shouldn’t bully me.

One day in class, he came up to me and started shoving me with a broom and asking me to sweep the classroom floor. I told him to stop it but he refused and kept shoving me. I got sick of it and punched him in the stomach.

He started crying and the teacher came up to us. I explained what happened to the teacher and we were both banished to the corner of the classroom for a whole period. But from that day onwards, he never bothered me again.

We did eventually become friends throughout primary school.

Fighting back can backfire

I definitely do not condone violence (but we were seven years old and punching was basically just weak flailing of our scrawny arms), but that experience gave me a certain confidence and I guess you would call it a bit of resilience when it came to people bullying me.

But, rest assured, I never got into any more fights other than stupid scrapes and shoving matches during sports when someone gets a bit too rough.

There was another situation, but this time I was 12 years old. I was living in New York City because my father was working there.

I had a friend and we used to play basketball, ride bikes, and do whatever around the neighbourhood together. But suddenly, he started hanging out with some older boys and wasn’t around much.

So, one day, I sat him down and asked why he didn’t want to hang out with me anymore. It turned out that the older boys were forcing him to deliver packages for them.

What was in the packages, we didn’t know, and at that time, we were too young to understand. I told him to just say no to those boys.

He said that he couldn’t or they would beat him up. Since I had a lot of confidence from my one and only encounter with a bully when I was seven years old, I told him that I would confront them for him.

Boy, was that a big mistake! I didn’t know what I was getting into but it did scare the crap out of me.

I saw the boys hanging out at a park by the river, so I grabbed my friend and told him that it was time.

We went up to the group and I told them that my friend wasn’t interested in hanging out with them anymore and they should leave him alone. I was so full of confidence and bravado!

Then, one of the older boys grabbed me and carried me over the barrier of the river bank. He held me upside down over the river and started laughing, saying he could just let me go and fall into the East River. Then he looked at my friend and asked if he still wanted to hang out with them. He nodded.

The older boy then pulled me back up and let me down. He looked at me and said we both should start hanging out with them now.

I told him “No thanks” and grabbed my friend to walk away but he refused and said he would stay. So, that was it and I walked away. I rarely got to see my friend anymore after that.

Instilling resilience

As you can see, I am not a fan of bullying. In fact, I despise it, and with the current discussion in the public sphere about cyberbullying, I think I would like to offer my two sens. Sure, nobody asked, but I am a “kay poh chi” so I will go ahead anyway.

One person has already been found guilty of cyberbullying while another will be going to trial. All this is related to the recent case where Hindu rights activist Rajeswary Appahu was found dead a day after lodging a police report regarding criminal threats and defamation against her on social media.

There have been many calls for harsher punishment because the first person convicted, Shalini Periasamy, was only slapped with an RM100 fine. National leaders have agreed to study the situation and see how they can deal with cyberbullying.

I agree, we need better definitions and better consequences.

Fair consequences are good in order to curb cyberbullying and steps definitely need to be taken. But I also think that education and awareness are equally important. And most importantly, teaching our youth, or anyone actually, resilience when it comes to any form of bullying.

As much as we can try to control people from bullying, it can still happen if people choose to bully. That is why the members of our society must be able to handle and manage the bullying that is targeted towards them. Resilience needs to be taught in our education system.

We need an education system that develops the confidence of our youth so that they can navigate their way through a world that is tough, challenging and, at many times, brutal.

If we have a society that is strong and resilient, then we can better cope with bullying in any form. If we can’t stop the bullying, we can learn to not be affected by it.

The education system is the first line of defence. Another platform that can be utilised is the media.

We can have content produced that helps encourage and promote strength and resilience. Positive content on television, radio, film, the internet, and social media should be encouraged to drown out the negative content.

Now, I do not want to invalidate the suffering that victims of bullying are experiencing. I understand that it can be quite an ordeal, and it can even lead to death. But imagine if we can actually fight back. Then any form of bullying cannot sustain itself and bullies will be out of business.

I am thankful that my parents gave me a strong sense of self, confidence, and value. I try my best to teach my children to be like that as well. Not only that, but I also try to give that sense to the students that I teach and also inject it into any content that I produce for various platforms.

If everyone comes together and fights back, we shall overcome. We have seen scenes in television shows and films where everyone comes together to fight back against one bully. I don’t think it is lame or cliche. I actually believe that it works.

ZAN AZLEE is a writer, documentary filmmaker, journalist and academic. Visit fatbidin.com to view his work.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

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