NST Leader: Nip bullying in the bud
In paraphrasing his logic, Rock contended that school bullying, as tough, demeaning and painful as it is, was a "good and revealing education" for victims.
Rock postulated that bullying, for all its negativity, moulded him into what he is today: stronger, savvier and smarter in the command of his art form, particularly as a distinctive Black man strengthening his community against ignorance, oppression and racism in a divisive America.
If it had not been for the incessant school bullying, Rock said that he might have grown up weak, complacent and dependent on silly trigger warnings for safety.
From his American perspective, Rock, like millions of his generation, were drilled into the American philosophy of "Social Darwinism".
This pseudo-scientific theory skews Darwin's biological concepts of human society, propagating that the strong and successful must dominate the weak. In a nutshell, a code to further entrench racism, imperialism and discrimination.
As much as level-headed Americans have tried to curb school bullying, their permissive pop culture and socio-politics inadvertently foment new bullies in every societal stratum and generation.
Nevertheless, Rock's comedic inference that bullying strengthens a child's personality may work in America but the side-effects are reprehensible: it facilitates a ruthless zero-sum game that glorifies winners and discards losers.
In Malaysia, and for that matter East Asia, the mutual diplomatic mantra is to "prosper thy neighbour".
It means that major military, economic and technological superpowers should cooperate and help smaller and less endowed neighbours to achieve a win-win situation instead of resorting to bullying.
In this context, school bullying has not dissipated in Malaysia, merely dispersed.
The prime example lately being the expulsion of seven Maktab Rendah Sains Mara students caught hectoring their peers.
Once exposed, bullies are quickly castigated and punished to pre-empt adulthood violence, drug and alcohol abuse, hostility towards family and a potential criminal future.
Children who experience bullying may grow up with a skewed mindset, be involved in vice and even suffer from mental problems.
In rejecting school bullying, Malaysia steers victims from negative physical, social, emotional, academic and health problems.
The country may not be inclined to embrace Rock's masculine and rugged "Americanism", no matter how dominant he has turned out to be, not when America's bullying may trigger extreme violence, like school mass shootings.
We reiterate: anti-bullying campaigns must start in kindergartens through a comprehensive civics lesson, and be extended to universities and work culture.
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