Standing Up to Bullies

My friend in Sydney had to run to Kolkata to take care of a very Kolkata problem. His mother lives alone and has an annoying non-paying tenant. Things escalated after he shouted at my friend’s mother, saying she can’t do anything to evict him; he won’t pay the rent. A textbook bullying tactic of an old, frail lady. She was, quite naturally, afraid.

The same day, the US attacked Iran.

My friend is an English professor at the University of Sydney, a shy intellectual sort, and not one to pick a fight or have the first idea how to deal with a bully, or the convoluted local laws that are all in the tenant’s favour. So he found himself in a catch-22. Do nothing and the bully is emboldened. Do something and a fight begins.

He chose the latter. My friend wasn’t going to allow someone to threaten his mother, whatever it took.

This mild-mannered English professor jumped in, terrified but with nothing to lose. Till that day, the only major conflict he had faced was a student complaining he’d given her bad grades. Now he had to stand up to a man posing a direct threat in the city he left 30 years ago.

The news from the outside world felt much the same. Once a bully threatens you for no reason while you’re busy minding your own business, you have to attack with the only means available and with whatever leverage you have. This fight with the tenant became a micro equivalent of the global conflict: an old country, however dictatorial, when pushed into a corner, will fight back.

Threats are the worst things to hurl at a coward, for they help them discover what they never thought they possessed: bravery.

Iran finds itself with few friends and fewer resources and so attacks the only thing it can to create a worldwide impact: its neighbours. Iran can’t get to Trump but this message might make it.

Just like my professor friend hired a security guard, made connections with local goons and bought a small weapon, totally unsure of what he was doing. He also sent a warning message to the bully through a common friend.

A bully is basically a coward, till someone stands up to them, which very few people do. My professor friend and Iran find themselves in the same situation, having to fight a fight they did not start, but determined to end it on their own terms.

Nobody knows how the Iran-US war will end; the US has unlimited firepower. The bully tenant too probably has know-how and ways to frustrate his eviction.

And yet one thing is certain, no matter how weak, everyone pushed will stand up. Even a gentle English professor or a nation on the verge of a failed state.