Thomas Leoncini: The first testimonial comes from Michele, who\u2019s now thirty years old: I still have nightmares. I was very shy and solitary. Three of my classmates locked me in the toilets and started to beat me up, first with their hands, and then with brooms and anything else that happened to be in the room. Five interminable, humiliating and painful minutes. While two of them laid into me, the other one undid his trousers and pissed on me. Even today, I start crying when I think about that day, not only because of my humiliation at the time, but because the next day, together with my father, I told the head teacher what had happened. He put his hand on my shoulder, though, and said that these things happen, that unfortunately today\u2019s boys are like that, but these situations don\u2019t last, and I shouldn\u2019t worry because everything would be better in the days to come (one of the three was the son of a well-known doctor, a very wealthy man in the city). But obviously the bullying didn\u2019t stop there and it continued for the rest of the school year. Michele\u2019s story reveals the double-edged sword of bullying: the same blade that makes the first, deep wound then inflicts new pain, as if the first were not enough, when it is withdrawn from the flesh. The head teacher of the school (who does not understand what Michele is suffering) then causes the boy\u2019s social exclusion. Have you ever been bullied?<\/p>\n
Zygmunt Bauman: In answer to your question: yes, I was. Permanently, daily. Throughout my schooling in Poznan, Poland, until my escape from my hometown at the outbreak of war. In the company of the other two Jewish boys among the pupils. Obviously, I wasn\u2019t then a trained sociologist, but I remember understanding quite well that being bullied was a matter of exclusion. You are not like us, you do not belong, you have no right to join our games, we won\u2019t play with you; if you insist on sharing in our life, don\u2019t be puzzled by all that beating, kicking, offending, degrading and debasing.<\/p>\n
Much later I understood, once I started reading sociology books and learned to think sociologically, that the exclusion of three Jewish boys in the several-hundred-pupil-strong school was, for our persecutors, the flip-side of the coin of their self-identification. Somewhat later still, I followed the novelist E. M. Forster\u2019s advice \u2013 \u2018only connect\u2019;5 it dawned on me that appointing an enemy and proving his inferiority, by hook or by crook, was the inseparable second face of the self-identification coinage. There wouldn\u2019t be \u2018us\u2019 were there no \u2018them\u2019. But fortunately for making real our wish to stay together, to like each other and help each other, there are \u2018them\u2019 and therefore there are \u2013 there need to be \u2013 \u2018us\u2019, manifesting our togetherness in word and deed and never tiring of reminding ourselves of it and demonstrating \u2013 reaffirming \u2013 proving it to others around. For all practical intents and purposes, the idea of \u2018us\u2019 would be meaningless if not coupled with \u2018them\u2019.<\/p>\n
That rule, I am afraid, does not bode well for the dream of a world free of bullying.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Born Liquid<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Zygmunt Bauman<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thomas Leoncini: The first testimonial comes from Michele, who\u2019s now thirty years old: I still have nightmares. I was very shy and solitary. 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