It’s not unlikely that one become a target of someone’s bullying at some juncture in their life. Bullying can be overt or subtle. Bullying during growing up years are more overt. Later in life, when one gets “worldly wise”, there’s a subtleness in the approach.
As is most things in life that is human related, bullying is also power. More extravagant kind of bullying is called ragging. Everyone in India will know ragging. Though there is legislation against it, freshers in colleges are still subjected to this humiliation. Best way to introduce to power is via humiliation.
Bullying or ragging, both are forms of humiliation. It’s virulent. It gets passed on. A person who is subjected to, will, in turn, make others his target. Any human subjected to abuse will abuse others, physically or emotionally or anything else. The germ does not go easily. A person who is abused does not generate compassion or empathy for others downstream.
Charlie Hebdo o is bullying. They are humiliating. And because of the historic biases towards the Muslim world, the non Muslim world is condoning. There is lot of hidden glee permeating the non Muslims. They are so glad that the Muslims are having it that they forget that the tide always turns.
What if tomorrow *Charlie Hebdo* decide to show Hindu gods in bad light. Have we forgotten what we did to M F Hussain. We Indians (read Hindus) are behaving as if we are the most free society, that we accept religious caricatures as daily staple, and we are so very tolerant and open minded that when we see Mohamed defiled in a cartoon we accept that with nonchalance.
The most generous will often be found at someone else’s wedding reception.
Mohamed is never defiled. But *Charlie Hebdo* has used their power to bully, rag and humiliate a following. They have taken refuge in a country, inside a constitution, in a society. By repeatedly hitting on a particular target subject they have displayed their insularity. No matter their ethos “to be irreverent to religion” which they formed at some past, due to their own confrontation with their own religion, which is Christianity, it does not default to propagation of that ethos to other religions and to other societies.
Most of the Muslim world, also Hindu world, have a lot of abuse to contend with. Most of these worlds are the so called “developing world”, in other words, Poor Countries. Part of the reason of their poverty is because of the total lack of the rule of law. The abuse begins here.
Then, to get a better life, for a society with a rule of law, people from poor countries migrate to “rich people’s” land. It is not an honourable existence but more honourable than what they have back home. The least they expect in the new land is another dose of provocation. But in France, and also in most other western world, they get exactly that, provocation.
A human abused will abuse. Mostly, these kinds of abuse remain localised towards the self or within families. Every individual, group, families contend with this. All they want to be left in peace and raise the next generation with wherewithal which they were denied to in their original home country.
But what happens when a nation abuses a community wholesale.
Western science is pretty developed. They have made strides in the understanding of mental illness. PTSD, ADHD are the by words now in any western books, cinema or tv. There is always a call for more understanding towards mental illness, abuse, bullying etc. With all these advancements one expects rich nations to show more compassion. Yet their callousness is astounding.
*Charlie Hebdo* is wrong in targeting a community. And the French are wrong to shield Hebdo. And the world is wrong for their expression of glee and mirth. Terrorism in all forms are condemnable, and those “Forms” should include provocation and incitement thru obnoxious imagery.
Don’t you think, Charlie Hebdo’s rabid depiction of a revered subject is also terrorism.
neerajshrivastav 