DONALD Trump is like a school bully.

These bullies are usually bigger-sized kids who abuse their “weaker” peers. I hate bullies, maybe because I was small in stature for most of my early secondary school years. I was a double-promotion student, so I was a year younger than most of my class.

I was never the smartest, quickest or wittiest. There was always someone cleverer in class, faster in sports or chess, or sharper in poetry and prose.

Circumstances had me facing a teacher who was a bully. He punished Gobal K. and myself because we took a school basketball during the afternoon session’s class hours.

To my form three mind and heart, he was a bully because we had as much a right to the basketball as he did for his physical education class. We even signed for the ball before taking it.

But this teacher would have none of it, and he verbally abused us in front of his form one class. It was my first time experiencing public abuse for doing no wrong. He then demanded the basketball, and bounced it off our heads. My friend and I were embarrassed.

Identifying a bigger bully

The way to deal with bullies is to identify a different but equally effective bullying model. Only then would they be willing to stop, listen, negotiate and assume their role as ordinary people.

Bullies only respect power – an equal but opposite form of power that is raw and legitimate. “Bully power” only respects other forms of power that it cannot immediately defeat.

After the humiliation at school, I went home and sobbed to my father – who was on the school’s board of governors – about the incident. To me, it was not a strategy per se, but rather, a simple complaint. But of course, I shed tears so that my dad would empathise with me.

The next day, he spoke to the headmaster, who was nicknamed “Bulldog”, and then, I was invited to meet him myself.

Both Gobal and I told him exactly what happened. Later, I heard from my dad that the teacher was called in by the headmaster and given a dressing-down.

I learnt an important lesson that day: voice your grievances to someone with more authority when a bully turns up in your life. I have since done this many times, and it has worked almost each time. The longest I’ve had to wait was eight years.

‘Donald Duck’ a global bully

The real Donald Duck is a cartoon character that most children grew up loving. But, the Donald I’m talking about here is the bully in the White House who seems to think that life is like the entertainment world and POTUS’ role is to display his “skills” in a “new” version of The Apprentice.

This week, Trump pulled US funding for the World Health Organisation (WHO), just as he had pulled the country out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. My question is, why not simply leave the United Nations, and Nato as well? Then we’d know that he isn’t just play-acting – but the show would be over.

If my experience in school is anything to go by, there should be a united response worldwide calling Trump’s bluff. This especially applies to China and Russia, which are critical global players. They used to be called Second- or Third-World nations, but Singapore, too, was similarly labelled then.

While I recognise that it’s not up to regular individuals to give such views, given our own backdoor government and apparently clueless foreign minister, we, the citizens of Malaysia, must express our sentiment, and publicly.

Ending bullying and blackmail

It is my view, from 32 years of public policy experience, that the presidents of Russia and China must respond to Trump’s global bullying.

My suggestion is for either country to make an offer to take over WHO’s financial leadership, and demonstrate that bullying and blackmail by the world’s richest country is unacceptable.

Then, through the Group of 77 and China, we can form a coalitional partnership that I’ve called in my writings “two-thirds world leadership”.

The world’s nuclear prevention and health plans need a dramatically different leadership agenda that is based on science, and not only the power of the bully pulpit. – April 19, 2020.

* KJ John worked in public service for 32 years, retired, and started a civil group for which he is chairman of the board. He writes to inform and educate, arguing for integration with integrity in Malaysia. He believes such a transformation has to start with the mind before it sinks into the heart!

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.