One of the Hot Topics on the Internet this week, is about a video of an Australian kid fighting back against a Bully. The video appears to have been shot by one of the Bully's buddies, and shows a shorter, leaner kid go up to another gawky kid of over weight stature, and begin to hit him and tease him for his size. The heavier stature non-bully appears to at first just ignore the teasing but then finally snaps out, grabbing the shorter kid and slams the tormentor to the ground. The slam was hard enough the tormentor didn't get up right away, and when he did it was to waddle out of the arena.
After the video hit YouTube and went viral, a heated discussion quickly emerged, one that has fluctuated to say the least. Few appear to doubt that the shorter kid was the bully to the heavier stature adolescent. Size does not always correspond to whose the victim and whose the victimizer. Often in the early teenage years and prior, unless those of the heavier stature display some athletic skill, they will be teased more often then not just for being different. The discussion instead mostly surrounds if the victim should have fought back or not.
I will stop here and say, that most people who advocate the "Never fight back" advice, normally haven't been bullied or teased. The reason I say this is that those who have been bullied, teased or victimized, know that although fighting back may just make it worse, not fighting back at all, rarely ends anything either. I once read a philosophical exchange between two characters, in which one character quipped that "War never decided anything". The resounding answer was without a doubt "War almost always decides, it just may not decide the best way". In it's way, violence may not be the solution to a disagreement, but violence is a solution.
I will say that I was teased similarly in my pre-teen years. First for being shorter then everyone else, then for being different then the popular kids. I got into fights very few times as most of the bullying was of the teasing variety with non-physical pranks and jabs. However one day, the teasing got to be just to much, and one of those teasing did physically jab at me. I responded similar to our heavier stature hero in that I grabbed the bully and tossed him across the room. The situation was quick and short. My opponent wasn't hurt more then symbolically, and a teacher quickly saw and intervened. The teacher knew of the bullying but was powerless to stop the source so neither side was punished for the exchange.
The net result was that not long afterward the teasing lessened. The Bullies were now wary of any direct action toward me. It didn't stop completely, but what occurred from there on out was of significantly lessened nature that the Bullies eventually gave up and took their tactics elsewhere.
Could the same outcome have occurred if I hadn't shown such a strength, or reaction? The answer is truly unknown without being able to see such a parallel universe. But having experienced other teasing and other bullying prior to that last incident I can say that the road of inaction will only cause the Bully to stop, when they have found another target. If no other target is available, inaction only fuels their needs to feel superior, whether childish or note. Action on the other hand, also fraught with complications including raising the stakes of the bullying, can prove a catharsis, for the victim at the very least. And in a Bully situation, shouldn't one feel for the victim, and not the Bully?
In the end I will not advocate violence to end Bullying, just as I also won't fail to understand that someone who uses violence sparingly, sometimes does so because to do otherwise would be to be a victim forever.