As a person being bullied throughout his life in any social sphere at school, college, and by relatives, I have gotten a clear understanding of bullying and its reasons specifically in the context of males. Bullying as we know is the use of power to snub or exploit the repute of some meager individual by physical or verbal expression. The definition of bullying bears its reason as well, the power. Power is the key factor for bullying. Only that person who is not in a position to reciprocate to bully is bullied. But why does a bully do that? It’s because of his inner insecurity, may be self-hatred as well but let’s keep it aside for a while.
By inner insecurity I mean he is languishing through the same pain that he makes a weaker person suffer that is the pain of being weak and having no control over emotions. When a person is normal his emotions are balanced but once he gets hurt, he loses control over it historically men enjoy control which is why driving a car, riding a bike, or getting into actions or tasks make us men feel good. But when a man loses control over emotions, he barely tries gaining control back through nonviolent substances and lapses into violent kinds of stuff such as bullying, our main concern in this article. I can not conclude saying bullying occurs due to the ill intention of a bully but might be due to society’s unawareness of this subject and its reasons. If folks of course in your periphery are unaware of this subject and reasons and indulge in violent activities to vent their frustration without knowing the right means for it then who will guide the infants? Moreover, this powerful-weak dichotomy is to be understood in case to resolve to bully because not having the right means for gaining control over emotions and venting anger out is not the only reason for physical or verbal bullying but the basic nature of humans using unfair advantage of their power is also true to a good extent.
In this vicious cycle, even if the bully is bullied or disturbed due to some reason, there is someone at the top of the ladder who is not abused by anyone but influences control more than he requires and uses the unfair advantage of his position due to which some person weaker to his rank loses control over emotions and the cascading effect of bullying begins. All the more so, the bully who has been bullied before by someone much stronger than him might be not only using his power to vent it out but also to exploit the weaker intentionally, considering the powerful-weak dichotomy. Such as I got verbally bullied and sometimes physically on and off in my school days when this guy named Muhammad Bin Riaz aka Moeez in school was physically stronger than me and thrashed me once. This guy seemed nonstop without any good reason, although he seemed to be bullied or abused in his household by a strong figure, but generally, his verbal sword was only for weaker mates, clearly powerful-weak dichotomy was in work.
Therefore, there are many dynamics in work when bullying happens and we cannot illustrate any precise reason for that. To mention, just like a bully locates some weaker individual than him to make him suffer, that weaker person does find as well a much more meager than him who cannot respond back for, he is physically or influentially weaker. I will not hesitate confessing that to some extent I bullied also some of the mates I found weaker than me, also some of them responded, reflecting their insecurity who are weak enough to be irked by my verbal crap. But I never raged over their response because I wasn’t that insecure to be maneuvered by sulky replies hereby, expounding null insecurity of a bully.
Here we come to another variant of bully, an insecure bully, that I unluckily confronted a lot. These maggots are the kind who have eaten up themselves, might be the ones I just mentioned ago who are too abused once by a more strengthened person or event. Because they are ashamed of themselves, of their insecurity that can’t make them take stride in their back once they initiate a war because they are already been scathed that they cannot afford to be more. So, ironically it frames a weaker vs weaker in a conflict (If the second person is easy to be influenced) but usually weaker thinks only of himself as weaker in front of his rival and thinks this is why I am getting a raw deal but if a person wants to know that who is generally strong or weak, he or his bully, he should hurl a reply to him and see the magic happen. I remember once I confronted a bully who was rich and influential but physically weaker than me.
He was rather a secure one because I gave him a tough time and also got his pant wet from the backside when he was teasing me when we weren’t friends but to my response, he kept smiling and was like he doesn’t give any damn to my crap, not like those insecure guys announcing to crowd, we don’t give any damn. That was evident in his body language, in his gestures that he wouldn’t be crucified, not at least by a verbal exchange. I won’t write his name here because it will bring no such change to his life. But sometimes we consider normal banter among friends as bullying. Here comes another variant of bullying which is not bullying but we consider it so due to our past bullying experiences and insecurities that need to be addressed. But generally, bullying happens due to power exploitation and less as a banter taken erroneously. When people talk about banter, they usually seem to ignore how it affects other’s insecurity. When kind of similar joke is cracked for them, they also get outraged because their insecurities are targeted. There could be two reasons for that either they are unaware or they are enjoying power over the weak. However, it’s arduous to find out the powerful in the powerful-weak dichotomy because the powerful with whom the power resides and who is secured due to his strength will barely go all the way to destroy you physically and mentally. After all, he doesn’t need that and the one who is weaker and insecure in general would make your life like hell and appear powerful simultaneously.
I remember a person, Zain Saleem who was on similar lines with that schoolfellow I mentioned above, his mother was a good friend of my mother so I knew how he was in his home and it was terrible. He used to have milk in a feeder even in 7th class which I couldn’t even imagine in my 7th. Dude! I left watching cartoons in 5th class and started watching cricket and reading about it in newspapers, so now I know why didn’t I feel like hegemonizing physically and why wasn’t I enraged by the response to my bullying because I just didn’t need it, I was manly my way and these soy boys required to grow up but sadly this way. Just imagine a 13-year-old infant having milk in a feeder at 9 Pm and then after 8 AM the next day making other’s lives hell. Terrible!
I think powerful-weak dichotomy works but not the way we understand it. There is a need to change the way we define a strong and a weak man. I have not written this article to sympathize with the weak but to reflect on who is weak while maintaining the spirit of power alive.
