Eradicate the cause of persistent bullying

A STUDENT died after being bullied. He did not commit suicide, he died directly as a result of the injuries he sustained during the abuse.

This is shocking.

Also shocking is the fact that six students involved in the bullying were sentenced to death earlier this year.

Overturning a previous sentence of 18 years in prison, an appeals court judge called the crime “shocking and rare.”

“… the way the murder was carried out shocked not only the judge’s consciousness, but even the collective consciousness of society. This case is the rarest of the rare involving a heinous crime. Such brutality must stop,” said Justice Hadhariya Syed Ismail while handing down the sentence on July 23.

You wouldn’t think that such a crime, the rarest of the rare, would happen again, would you?

Yet what happened to the late Zulfarhan Osman Zulkarnain seven years ago, when he suffered iron burns all over his body, happened again, albeit to a lesser extent, at the same institution, Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia (UPNM).

On November 8, cadet officer Amirul Iskandar Norkhanizan, 22, pleaded guilty to causing bodily harm to his junior by pressing a steam iron on the cadet’s chest.

And another case of bullying with bodily harm became known when a student of UPNM, who was injured in October, filed a complaint with the police on November 8, although this time it was not with an iron.

What is happening at the country’s premier military university, which is supposed to nurture the future leaders of Malaysia’s defense sector?

Defense Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin announced that measures will be taken to prevent bullying, including regular medical check-ups of cadets to detect signs of bullying, installing more CCTV cameras in the dormitories, patrolling the cadets’ accommodation at night and increasing the number of supervisors to keep an eye on them. cadets

That’s all well and good, but doesn’t anyone want to know why there are so many cases of serious abuse in this one facility – serious to the point of death and injury?

The Ministry of Defense noted that the bullying was related to the UPNM Military Academy, and not to the university in general.

And you can expect that studying at a military academy will be difficult both physically and mentally.

But as Mohamed Khaled said: “I want to make it clear that while military training is indeed tough, it does not involve acts of brutality such as assaults with a hot iron.”

Rather than concluding that we need to remove all irons, as some have rather absurdly urged, or believing that the youth who attend the academy are inherently violent, we can only think that the cadets are responding to their environment.

What is it about this institution that allows such pain to be inflicted? Is it toxic masculinity? Is it the old-fashioned idea that pain “hardens” juniors who need discipline?

We believe that someone should investigate the facility’s administration, not only to punish those responsible for letting things get this bad, but also to find out why there is a culture that allows this behavior.

Apparently, simply punishing cadets who bully isn’t enough: the latest incident of using a hot iron came after six former cadets were sentenced to death for doing so.

Something is very wrong if the death sentence is not enough to stop the abuse.