Do Average Americans Stand up to Injustice?

Do average Americans stand up to defend another human being insulted unjustly by a bully, who claims to be a patriot?

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Testing Civic Courage in America


Is it possible to test the civic courage of average Americans in a daily setting?

ABC News network tried to discover this by hiring actors as a bullying baker in a bakery in Waco, Texas and another actor as a Muslim lady customer trying to buy an apple strudel.

This film shows how the baker repeatedly insulted the lady Muslim customer and refused to serve her by claiming that she was a terrorist. Some people in the shop chose not to intervene and actually supported the bullying shopkeeper though she pleaded help.

Then, other customers intervened that she was being treated unfairly and walked out. It is very encouraging that so many ordinary people stood up to defend decency and fairness after the initial run of compliance and shock.

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Through the celluloid media and now the Internet, we have been used to the fact that Americans have exposed their way of life for the world to stare at. One of the most common reactions many people have on their first visit to the USA, is that it's familiar, like in the movies. 

If we refrain from extrapolating issues like Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib or Neocon politics on to the general American psyche, this video shows that some ordinary people conform to bullies but ordinary people also heroically stand up to defend the underdog. This is the very principle of America, which has stood as a beacon that inspires people. 

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The idea of America shines brighter than the neon lights and slogans!

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Civic Courage in Other Countries

Would this behaviour be fairly representative of the situation in other countries?

What would be the result if we conducted the same experiment with an easily recognizable American, German or Swedish woman (or a man) in place of the Muslim lady in a bakery in a predominantly Islamic country? Would local people take her/his side if the local baker would insult her/him and refuse service by unjustly calling her/him an aggressor?

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It is fashionable to portray the inability to rise up and protest when you see some wrongdoing as a sign of moral weakness. Can we stamp entire societies at certain time periods for such behaviour?

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's 1996 Hitler's Willing Executioners argued that the blame for the Holocaust should be placed on all Germans, especially the ones who did not rise up and resist. Goldhagen gained international celebrity, but the simplistic argument of the book was widely criticized by serious scholars and historians.  

Let us hope, as this experiment in America shows, that there are brave lions among the meek, everywhere.

India Grasping the Moon by Chandrayaan Moon Mission

With the launch of Chandrayaan 1, India has made clear her intention of being recognized as a modern 21^st century spacefaring civilisation. 

The emphasis on the scientific and research aspects of India’s first moon mission launch are not out of sync with the Indian national character and historical heritage. 

India has given birth to four major religions of the world, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. Ignoring hotheaded fundamentalists, these religions generally do not have any inherent conflict with science or scientific reasoning. Thus, it is not strange that the tradition of scientific thought has a history in India longer and richer than most other places.

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The scientific achievements of India are fascinating. Iron was known in the Ganga valley in the mid second millennium BCE. 

The Indus-Saraswati Civilization built planned towns with underground drainage, civil sanitation, hydraulic engineering, and air-cooling architecture covering a region about half the size of Europe. 

Weights and linguistic symbols were standardized across this vast geography, for a long period of over 1,000 years, from around 3,000 BCE to 1500 BCE. Textiles and steel were the mainstays of the British Industrial Revolution. Both had their origins in India. Textiles turned out to be the first major success of the Industrial Revolution, and Britain replaced India as the world's leading textile exporter. The technology, designs and even raw cotton were initially imported from India.

Why is India obsessed with a moon mission?

Is it competition with China, a flexing of muscles, a desire to claim India’s ‘rightful’ place in the community of nations or a genuine scientific pursuit of knowledge? 

Though ‘official’ history has, since the ascent of the West, been very biased towards a Western point of view, questioning minds have started correcting this propagandistic tilt of perspective by their open-minded studies and findings.

Why do we continue teaching in schools that Copernicus was the first astronomer to formulate a scientific heliocentric cosmology to challenge the Church’s view of Earth in the centre of universe, when the Indians, the Chinese, the Muslims, the Sumerians, the Mayas, and other civilizations had held these views centuries or millennia earlier?

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Many people argue that India sending moon probes is a terrible misallocation of resources. They argue that India should be feeding the poor, cleaning the environment and removing poverty. 

The fact that this can be a strong and vociferous public debate in India on this topic shows that there is freedom of speech and a functioning democracy. So, how should wealth be distributed? This is a very contentious topic and answers depend on who you ask. But, there are two basic theories of wealth distribution.

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Two Theories of Wealth Distribution

There are basically two theories of wealth distribution.

1. According to one theory, the rising tide lifts all boats, and everyone benefits (even if unequally) from rising prosperity. 
2. The second theory says that some boats are anchored and will sink when the rising tides come in. 

The graph above would show that wealth distribution of Gini-coefficient as it is measured is rather good for India, unlike many other countries of the world.

Many of the vigilant organizations like NGOs and social enterprises in India are the watchdogs trying to detect the anchors and make sure that anchored boats are freed to rise with the tides. Unlike somewhere else, where these NGOs and watchdogs would be in prison, they are doing their best to make sure that the rising tide of prosperity lifts all equally in India.

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Previous initiatives like Indira Gandhi's Garibi Hatao, or abolish poverty were dismal flops in India (4% of all funds allocated for economic development actually reached the three main anti-poverty programs), but this new wave of prosperity has improved the lives of more people than before.

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A country or culture, which does not have bold and far-reaching dreams, stagnates, while a country obsessed by mad visions is a concentration camp of misery. 

Visitors in India say that the overall mood in India is generally very upbeat after decades of stagnation. 

Visitors to North Korea have not reported such feelings.

Read more about the technical aspects of the mission here.

Why School Shootings Happen So Often in Affluent Cultures?

Why does school shooting happen? 

This unpredictable and senseless violence leaves a community wrecked and soul-searching in abysmal guilt. Politicians talk about gun-control, preventive measures and mental health issues for some time and then everything becomes business as usual with no answers or remedies.

Yet another school massacre at Kauhajoki in Finland, leaves a nation shell-shocked with grief.

Another round of analysis and questioning “Why again?” is followed by fault-finding, blame-shifting and political promises – all just before the upcoming communal elections.

Difference Between School Shooting and School Massacre

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School shootings are isolated incidents of someone killing one or more persons with a firearm or a death resulting from a gang fight. 

School massacres, are mass killing rampages by usually lone gunmen like the one in Kauhajoki. 

Many people remember the tragedies at Columbine High, Virginia Tech and think that such rampages only happen in the USA. But these massacres happen in other wealthy and stable democracies too. 

• Emsdetten or Erfurt in Germany, 
• Dunblane in Scotland, 
• Aarhus University in Denmark, 
• Ma’alot and Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva religious school in Jerusalem, Israel, 
• Concordia University and École Polytechnique in Montreal, Canada experienced terrible massacres.

The statistics of school shootings and massacres are horrendous and gruesome reading. Here is a site devoted to the Timeline of school shootings and massacres all over the world.

Motives of School Shooters

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The Copycat Effect (term coined by the author of the book, Loreen Coleman), is said to be very crucial for the planning and motives of gunmen. Martin Bryant, the gunman responsible for the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre in Australia had studied and copied Thomas Hamilton, who massacred innocent children at Dunblane. 

Similarly, newspaper reports have hinted that Matti Saari, the killer of Kauhajoki, Finland copied Pekka-Eric Auvinen, the killer at Jokela, Finland a few months earlier. 

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Martin Bryant had been diagnosed as mentally retarded with a low IQ and serious disorders. He had told neighbours "I'll do something that will make everyone remember me".

The catalysts for the school-shootings can be traced to a number of factors. Here is a screenshot from Jessie Klein's The Bully Society, a comprehensive study describing the school-shooting situation in USA.

What Can Society Do To Stop School Shootings

What does a society do to stop these killing rampages? Does it mean that we should go on a spree of arming schools with metal detectors, surveillance cameras and armed guards? 

The butchering at Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva religious school massacre in Israel was cut shot by one student, Yitzhak Dadon. He shot the gunman shooting with an AK-47 with his own pistol.

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Do societies go on a witch hunt by profiling people who can and who cannot kill as in "The Classroom Avenger," James P. McGee and Caren R. DeBernardo, Forensic Examiner (May-June, 1999)?

The U.S. secret service has researched all the US school shootings and massacres as well as the foreign ones. They warn against any kind of student profiling for would-be killers. This kind of ‘profile’ would fit too many students and miss the real killers. Profiling is often misleading as a preventive measure, as we might be lulled into a false sense of security as some 'potential' types have been identified and they are being watched.

• In the Concordia University massacre it was a dismissed assistant professor. 
• Some American school massacre gunmen lived with both parents in "an ideal, All-American family." 
• Others came from broken homes, or lived in foster homes. Significantly, a few were loners, but most had close friends. 
• Some of them had been teased at school but most of them had not. 
• The killer at École Polytechnique in Montreal, Canada separated his victims and killed only women (fourteen of them).

Can a society like Finland, which has the third highest number of guns in the world after USA and Yemen, decide to ban handguns? 

Gun controls were intensified in Scotland after Dunblane. but Guns haven’t been banned in USA after repeated school massacres and neither in Yemen after the Sanaa massacre in 1997. The Bushmaster AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, an extremely powerful weapon, often called a civilian version of the US Army M-16 assault rifle, was outlawed in 1994. But in 2004, US Congress gave in to the political clout of the gun-rights lobby and did not renew the ban. So a potent weapon of mass-destruction remains freely available for school shooters in USA.

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Why Some People Become School Shooters?

The outcry in Finland after the Jokela massacre has been to increase the number of school psychologists. Many school killers had regular consultations with psychologists, but it didn’t stop them. In countries like India, Bolivia or Thailand with no school psychologists, school massacres fortunately haven’t happened.

Could the potential killer’s soul get poisoned by an inability to measure up to the demands of a society too bent upon achieving more and more? 

Can we blame a society for becoming too performance oriented, too materialistic so that human values take the back seat? 

Can we say that the people in a certain country are too busy and have become cold?

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The social system in rich countries takes care of people and responds to situations. But systems function with cold efficiency and can never have human warmth. Here are some disturbing questions that emerge after every such tragedy, but are soon overlooked as they become 'uncomfortable' questions.

• Can more of the 'system' reach out and touch the lost ones? 
• Can a professional shrink reach lonely children if the parents are too busy chasing results in their jobs? 
• Does it help if doctors prescribe stimulants for depressed people with no reason to live and let live?

Could the inner recesses of a potential killer become devoid of human warmth, dignity and respect so that the only way to escape that persistent laceration of self-hatred is to feel oneself superior by using weapons? 

Helsingin Sanomat, the leading newspaper in Finland put the killer's picture on the front page in place of the usual ads. In 25 years the only other time news replaced ads was the 9/11 terrorist attacks. If you murder 10 innocent people, the leading paper of the land recognizes you as a major celebrity. This is media-sponsored pandering to egoism at its worst.

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When religious myths do not speak to us any more, when social structures like marriage and family start to crumble, what else can fill in the vacuum of values but a mythology of hatred and violence?

Should we recognize that in spite of all the progress and riches, in many countries, it is the end of living and the beginning of survival for many? Neither a Mink coat nor the flame from the muzzle of a gun can save you from the cold embrace of death when your heart is frozen. You need care and love from people to remain a warm human being. Since when do systems give that!

Rather than running after PISA rankings to measure school efficiency, should schools teach students how to live good lives?

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Should richer countries seriously start to measure success and prosperity by Gross National Happiness like in Bhutan? 

The Fourth International Conference on Gross National Happiness will be held 24-26 November 2008 in Thimphu, Bhutan.

Further reading: Klein, Jessie, (2012) The Bully Society: school shootings and the crisis of bullying in America’s schools, New York, NY: NYU Press, http//:www.nyu-press.org/bullysociety/dataonschoolshootings.pdf.