I've been struggling to make sense of this whole Sony hack / The Interview / North Korea thing. If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's an article about it.
Oh, welcome to my new attempt at a blog, btw!
I get the bravado American response that is, "being bullied around is wrong", "don't give in". All that makes sense to me. I tell my daughter Elizabeth to not back down when being bullied. We give her 3 steps to winning the war on bullies:
- Confront the bully and tell them to stop
If that doesn't work... - Report it to the higher authorities (usually teachers)
And if that doesn't work... - Punch them in the face, repeatedly (and mommy and daddy will do-so as well)
If you know Elizabeth you wouldn't be surprised she's never enacted #3. In fact #3 isn't really expected to be carried out, but exists to let her know she has the license to stand up for herself when she feels trapped.
I've heard arguments that label the alleged culprit, N. Koreans, as weak sauce for manipulating Sony pictures into pulling the film. I understand that. Breaking laws to control another's actions is never condoned in my book. But doesn't necessarily mean I'm ready to write this off yet, as I don't fully make sense of the situation yet.
I have a friend who is a kind, female, asian woman. She had an incident where this guy was upset and verbally went at her, calling her names, shouting in her face, using racial slurs, spit spewing from his mouth as he raged. She felt helpless, trapped and when he tried to walk away she kicked him in the buttocks. The guy called the cops for assault. When the cops talked through the event I asked them, "who's at fault here?" The cop, saddened, said "unfortunately she would be charged for assault in this incident." And I asked, "so he can get away with whatever he wants verbally without consequence? That seems really unfair bullying someone half his size." The cop empathized and said it wasn't fair, but that was the law.
Here's my challenge with the whole situation, when someone aggressively mocks another person, I can't expect the victim to blindly take it without retaliation. (DISCLAIMER: I in no way am saying I condone breaking the law) I am saying that as an aggressor mocking another person, you shouldn't be surprised if that victim retaliates. I guess this goes against the whole freedom of speech core. But that was written to share beliefs, I don't think the intent was to license harming others with our words.
Having been bullied myself when I was younger, there's part of me that always has said, fight, stand up for yourself... always. That has led me down paths of wanting to retaliate even if it meant breaking the law. In those cases I'd have to accept the consequences to my actions if I did violate the law. That's just the way it goes.
This makes me consider what are the wrongs in this situation. The hacks are naturally unacceptable, but what of the mockery? Maybe my victim mentality makes me more sensitive to the aggressor? But from my experiences I'm not OK with mockery. To take jabs at another country / culture / person will have consequences. But maybe it's OK because this is North Korea? In the end I'm more interested in ending the root issue of mockery to head off any form of retaliation. So in this situation I'm afraid we've opened the door to potentially more strong arm tactics, which is bad, I do hope people one result is that people think twice before mocking because there are always consequences.