Inspired by international dictionaries' annual selection of their word of the year, we'd like to advocate perhaps the "Word of All Time", harkening back centuries and still very relevant. The word is the adjective "bullying." Broadly defined, bullying encompasses the harrying of individuals, peoples, governments and nations by those perceived as dominating, influential, powerful and menacing.
Bullying covers the torment, threat and slaughter by physical, psychological, socio-economic and geopolitical means. Often, bullying is buried under a disturbing or double meaning: genocide, invasion, sanctions, tariffs, monopolies, malicious litigation, wokeness and autocratic political and corporate machinations.
Here's a slew of historical bullying: the murderous rampages of Nazis, Serbia's ethnic cleansing infamy, Eastern bloc's Cold War against dissidents, South Africa's abhorrent apartheid and now, Russia's craven attacks on Ukraine.
This bullying deserves remembrance: America's savagery of its indigenous tribes, slaves and minorities, and centuries of the British Empire's commandeering and pillaging of what is now the Commonwealth.
Contemporarily, bullying is hogged by Israel's genocide of Palestinians and the tyranny of dictators and their brutal governments to silence or kill journalists and protesters. Certain economic, military, cultural and religious bullies can be pushed back only by rebellious speech, demonstrations or civil disobedience, or in its extremity, guerilla warfare and covert resistance.
Bullies hiding behind the illusion of "might" have been taken down by the collective bravery of millions, exemplified by the Arab Spring and recently, the downfall of Syria's barbarous regime. Way down are backyard bullies casting fear and loathing in school, work, community and even family.
Here are Malaysian horror stories that gutted a nation's conscience: a teenage mob ganging up on younger, hapless fellow students at a military college.
In their deranged physical torture celebrated as "ragging", a cadet was bludgeoned to death while others suffered sickening injuries, inflicted with psychological trauma. One young
woman was so horrendously cyberbullied that she took her own life. The anti-bullying backlash has taken off: student ambassadors are deployed in schools to fight this despotism and sexual harassment.
Studies show adolescent bullying count perpetrators as young as 13, 14.4 per cent are recorded in rural settings, 21 per cent urban while 53.2 per cent admitted to culpability. While tough to culturally extirpate, Parliament has amended the Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code to criminalise all forms of bullying, a significant step forward.
While Malaysia codifies a definitive leap in smothering the scourge, it's a harrowing outlook for the world. Bullying is still a regrettable constant, an ideological apparatus power-drunk dictators and authoritarians administer as protocols of domination and conquest.
Still, we take comfort by history, and pop culture, that bullies will be taken down, either by a coup or a heroic individual or popular revolt, pricked by the awakening forces of revulsion and courage.