Drear Repugnance Revisited

Bullying is a problem visited and re-visited continually within society. It is practised by children, by adults, by governments, by corporations, by countries. Intimidation of others whose background, culture, ethnicity, ideology, customs, values, religion or agenda does not reflect one's own has a distinguished history. It is usually the vulnerable who are targeted, minorities, those least able to fend for themselves.

In politics an adversarial system often succumbs to the recognized practicality of uncivil bullying. Governments whose territorial aspirations encourage them to launch an offensive against another nation are simply expanding on the graceless human propensity to bully, to use force and violence to enable themselves to reach a goal. There are always victims, people whose lives are impacted, and who, in fact, forfeit their lives, if not their homes and belongings.

In the case of children in a schoolyard setting - for bullying starts at an early age as a social phenomenon where sides are taken, and cliques formed and a target identified for the very special attention meted out to those who present as somehow different, exotic in nature, not readily assimilable into the greater collective - it presents as rejection and loneliness. The result is a hapless victim, tears, a bloody nose, and a destroyed psyche.

But there are worse scenarios than those. Moving from an elementary school atmosphere to older children, those in secondary school, or institutes of higher education the consequences can be infinitely more dire. When the bullied, the outcasts, the social misfits, take such utter umbrage in their hurt that they seek revenge. As their humanity has been denied, they deny their own humanity by launching an armed outrage.

And then there are instances such as that which occurred in Victoria, B.C. in 1997; the murder of a young girl by other young people. A teen whose presence was barely tolerated when it wasn't being shunned, who despite that struggled for acceptance by her social peers, desperately wanting to be one of them, despite their contempt for her. Fourteen-year-old Reena Virk was lured by a group of her schoolmates to a secluded rural area for a party.

There she was beaten by a group of girls, her teenage peers, all of whom disdained her, the awkward child of immigrants, so dreadfully desirous of acceptance, prepared to accept any humiliation, if she were only eventually accepted. She was taunted, punched and kicked. Wounded psychically and physically, she made her way over a bridge, where two of the teens, Warren Glowatski and Kelly Ellard, pulled her under the structure, beat her again, then drowned her.

The young man, 16 at the time, was convicted of second-degree murder and served eight years in prison. Six teenage girls were convicted of assault. And Kelly Ellard, convicted also of second-degree murder in 2000, she yet faced a second trial on appeal resulting in a hung jury in 2004. She was found guilty after her third trial in 2005, sentenced to seven years in prison.

Yet granted a new trial when the B.C. Court of Appeal overturned the conviction. Yesterday, however, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled to permit the Crown to appeal the fourth murder trial. Justice struggles against appeals to the contrary.

But it will be done.